Upbeat or deadbeat, you make the call, Dad. Timed with the national observance of Father’s Day this past week the Pew Research Center released a new study on father involvement in the lives of their children. It was one of those good news/bad news items we have become so accustomed to in the press.
First the good news: the study indicated a significant upswing in the amount of time fathers living with their minor children spend caring for them. In 1965, married fathers spent an average of 2.6 hours a week caring for their children. That figure rose gradually across the next two decades reaching 3 hours on average in 1985. However, the number spiked from 1985 to 2000 when fathers reported spending an average of 6.5 hours caring for their children. The trend is encouraging. Fathers living with their biological children are clearly investing greater allotments of time in the youngsters. For this we can be grateful.
Now the bad news: the number of dads who do not live with their children continues to rise at an alarming pace. In 1960, only 11% of our nation’s children lived without their father’s presence in the home. By 2010, that percentage had rocketed to 27%. Making matters worse is the emotional distance existing between many of these fathers and their children. Some nonresident dads are making a real effort to stay connected with their children; others not so much. While four out of ten of the nonresident dads report contact with their children several times a week almost one third of the fathers not living with their children say they communicate with their children less than once a month. While one in five nonresident dads indicate they visit their children more than once weekly, a larger number (27%) have not seen their children even once in the past year.
As a pastor of over thirty years I can testify first hand to the devastating effects of father absence. Talk long enough to those struggling with addictions, bondages and even incarceration and a familiar story unfolds. Either Dad was largely disconnected from them as a child or is the object of great scorn due to real or perceived hypocrisy and/or immoral behavior. It is not too much to say that America’s ills are largely attributable to father failure.
As a father of five grown children I readily admit personal failures too lengthy to enumerate in this column. I do, however, know that children spell “love” T-I-M-E. That’s what draws the silver lining around this otherwise ominous storm cloud of fatherlessness in America. Increasingly, some dads are getting it. They are awakening to the realization that responsibility not reproduction qualifies one as a father. Consequently they are sharing growing hours of their week with their children. This represents movement in the right direction.
If now fathers can be taught to not only spend time with their children but shown how to teach those same children how to spend time with God, America may yet experience the awakening for which she is long overdue. Dads, you get to make the call. Will you be upbeat with your investment in your children both temporally and eternally or will you be another deadbeat checking out on your responsibilities? The choice is yours but no less than the fate of your children and the destiny of a nation hang in the balance.
This column previously appeared in The Daily Press.
