Fatherless Children

The point of this article is to combat the false notion that fathers are not needed by their children, not to suggest that having motherless children is the solution, a child should have a right to both parents.

Children from fatherless homes account for:

• 63% of youth suicides 1


• 70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes 3


• 71% of pregnant teenagers 2



• 71% of all high school dropouts 6



• 75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers 7



• 80% of rapists motivated with displaced anger 5



• 85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders 4



• 85% of all youths sitting in prisons 8



• 90% of all homeless and runaway children

You might think a "loving mother" would want to protect her child and keep him from becoming one of the above statistics, but in most cases you would be wrong. Mothers are exposing children to the above risks:

• Angry mothers sabotage a father's efforts to visit their children 9


• Few children are satisfied with the amount of contact with their fathers 10



• The mother was the greatest obstacle to having more frequent contact with the children 11


• 37.9% of fathers have no access/visitation rights 12



• 40% of mothers reported that they had interfered with the non-custodial father's visitation on at least one occasion, to punish the ex-spouse. 13


• 50% of mothers "see no value in the father`s continued contact with his children...." 14



• 70% of fathers felt that they had too little time with their children 15



• 77% of non-custodial fathers are NOT able to "visit" their children, as ordered by the court, as a result of visitation interference by the mother. 16


• 89% of mothers don't value their husband's input when it comes to handling problems with their kids 17



• Non-compliance with court ordered visitation is 300% more common than non-compliance with court ordered child support and impacts the children of divorce even more. 18

1 US Dept. of Health & Human Services, Bureau of the Census
2 US Dept. of Health & Human Services
3 U.S. Dept. of Justice, Special Report, Sept 1988
4 Center for Disease Control
5 Criminal Justice & Behavior, Vol. 14, p. 403-26, 1978
6 National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools
7 Rainbows for all God`s Children)
8 Fulton Co. Georgia jail populations, Texas Dept. of Corrections 1992
9 Ahrons and Miller, Am. Journal of Orthopsychiatry, Vol. 63. p. 442, July 1993
10 Visitation and the Noncustodial Father, Koch & Lowery, Journal of Divorce and Remarriage, Vol. 8, No. 2, p. 50, Winter 1984
11 Increasing our understanding of fathers who have infrequent contact with their children, James Dudley, Family Relations, Vol. 4, p. 281, July 1991
12 p.6, col.II, para. 6, lines 4 & 5, Census Bureau P-60, #173, Sept 1991
13 p. 449, col. II, lines 3-6, (citing Fulton) Frequency of visitation by Divorced Fathers; Differences in Reports by Fathers and Mothers. Sanford Braver et al, Am. J. of Orthopsychiatry, 1991
14 Surviving the Breakup, Joan Kelly & Judith Wallerstein, p. 125
15 Visitation and the Noncustodial Father, Mary Ann Kock & Carol Lowery, Journal of Divorce, Vol. 8, No. 2, p. 54, Winter 1984
16 Visitational Interference - A National Study" by Ms. J Annette Vanini, M.S.W. and Edward Nichols, M.S.W. Originally published Sept. 1992
17 EDK Associates survey of 500 women for Redbook Magazine. Redbook, November 1994, p. 36
18 Visitational Interference - A National Study" by Ms. J Annette Vanini, M.S.W. and Edward Nichols, M.S.W. Originally published Sept. 1992