National Fatherhood Initiative has a neat, though sobering, Top Ten list of fatherhood facts. Link. Excerpts:
1. 24 million children (34 percent) live absent their biological father. . .
6. Fathers who live with their children are more likely to have a close, enduring relationship with their children than those who do not. The best predictor of father presence is marital status. Compared to children born within marriage, children born to cohabiting parents are three times as likely to experience father absence, and children born to unmarried, non-cohabiting parents are four times as likely to live in a father-absent home.
8. Children who live absent their biological fathers are, on average, at least two to three times more likely to be poor, to use drugs, to experience educational, health, emotional and behavioral problems, to be victims of child abuse, and to engage in criminal behavior than their peers who live with their married, biological (or adoptive) parents.
We should keep these things in mind this Father's Day (or, as Eric Scheske likes to claim around his house, this Father's Month: thirty days of father-gets-what-he-wants).
