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“Father Hunger”—Why Children Need a Dad
On May 19, 1992, national controversy erupted after Vice President Dan Quayle gave a speech on “family values.” Quayle argued that “when families fail, society fails” and outlined ways to build strong homes in America. The media, however, zeroed in on one line in the address: “It doesn't help matters,” the Vice President observed,
when primetime TV has Murphy Brown—a character who supposedly epitomizes today's intelligent, highly paid, professional woman—mocking the importance of fathers, by bearing a child alone, and calling it just another “lifestyle choice.”1
That relatively brief comment about a sitcom in an otherwise lengthy and substantive address proved to be too much for some people to handle. Quayle was pilloried by late night comedians, attacked in the op-ed pages, and ridiculed for clinging to the outmoded beliefs of the past. But the Vice-President, it turns out, had the last laugh. Less than a year after the infamous “Murphy Brown Speech,” Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, a leading sociologist at Rutgers University, wrote a cover story for The Atlantic Monthly that said it all: “Dan Quayle Was Right.”2
Study after study bears out the fact that children need a father in the home.3 Sadly, as David Blankenhorn, founder of the Institute for American Values, has documented, the United States is increasingly a “fatherless America.” He reports, that in 1995, only 35 percent of children lived with their father. Furthermore, somewhere between one quarter and one half of all children never (or almost never) see their biological fathers.4
Those statistics are especially tragic in light of research that shows that the presence of a biological father, married to a mother, dramatically improves the well-being of children and society.5 Fathers protect their children; reports of child abuse—physical and sexual—have increased with the rise in fatherlessness.6 Fathers stem violence: “Sixty percent of America’s rapists, 72 percent of adolescent murderers, and 70 percent of long-term prison inmates come from fatherless homes.”7 Fathers contribute to their children’s academic success; fatherless kids are twice as likely to drop out of high school.8 Fathers deter teenage pregnancy; girls are 2.5 times more likely to become pregnant if they lack a father’s daily contribution.9 A bevy of additional research bolsters the claim that little boys and girls need Dad.10
In spite of the evidence, some still persist in arguing that fathers are dispensable. In January of 2004, Suzi Leather, chair of Great Britain’s Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, downplayed the distinctions between male and female parents: “It is the quality of the relationship that matters not that a man or woman are involved.”11 She wanted to keep doctors from discouraging single women from having kids. What is truly remarkable is that Leather’s viewpoint continues to enjoy mainstream status in the culture.
But this debate is not ultimately just about sociological data. It is about hurting children; children who suffer from what one author calls “father hunger”:
It’s an ache in the heart, a gnawing anxiety in the gut. It’s a longing for a man, not just a woman, who will care for you, protect you, and show you how to survive in the world. For a boy, especially, it’s the raw, persistent, desperate hunger for dependable male love, and for an image of maleness that is not at odds with love. Father hunger.12
Looking back, Vice President Quayle’s warning seems prophetic. The pangs of father hunger are still felt everywhere. | 1 |
Dan Quayle, “Address to the Commonwealth Club of California,” ( Commonwealth Club, California, May 19, 1992), Commonwealthclub.org, http://www.commonwealthclub.org/archive/20thcentury/92-05quayle-speech.html. | | 2 |
Whitehead had the research to back her thesis up. See Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, “Dan Quayle Was Right,” The Atlantic Monthly, April 1993, 47-84. Whitehead followed up her article with the thoroughly researched work, The Divorce Culture (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997). | | 3 |
See Kairos Journal articles, "Top Ten Father Facts," "Fathers Are Shepherds" & "What's a Dad to Do?" | | 4 |
It is commonly reported that over half of all marriages now end in divorce and that the mother is usually granted custody of the kids. While forty percent of these mothers lived with the father for a time, cohabiting partners rarely stay together. See Paul R. Amato and Julie M. Sobolewski, “The Effects of Divorce on Fathers and Children: Nonresidential Fathers and Stepfathers,” in The Role of the Father in Child Development, ed. Michael E. Lamb (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2004), 341, 342, 348. Among family specialists, the above statistics are rarely contested. “We are all aware of the increase in marital breakdown, single-parent families and the dramatic change in women’s position in society—all of which reduce the significance of fathers . . . Nonetheless, we believe that good fathers are profoundly important for the child’s development and the establishment of sound mental health. . .” Judith Trowell, “Setting the Scene,” in The Importance of Fathers: A Psychoanalytic Re-evaluation, eds. Judith Trowell and Alicia Etchegoyen (New York: Taylor & Francis, Inc., 2002), 17. “Increased divorce rates and the inexorable rise in single-parent families have contributed to a social climate in which fathers, as consistent and stable role models, are increasingly unavailable to the next generation. Even unstable fathering role models are in short supply.” Anton Obholzer, “Foreword,” in The Importance of Fathers, xv. “Marriages are not only breaking up in large numbers, but the institution itself is in decline. The marriage rate is dropping. In place of marriage we are witnessing the rapid rise of nonmarital cohabitation, which by its very nature implies a lower level of commitment. More problematic still is the increase in ‘single parenting by choice.’” David Popenoe, Life without Father: Compelling New Evidence that Fatherhood and Marriage are Indispensable for the Good of Children and Society (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), 5. | | 5 |
“Overall, the high level of divorce in American society has not only undermined the goal of encouraging greater paternal involvement in children’s lives, but also increased risk of a variety of financial, educational, and psychological problems for children.” Ibid., 360. “[I]t is clear that the absence of the biological father reduces children’s access to important economic, parental, and community resources. The loss of those resources affects cognitive development and future opportunities.” Sara McLanahan, “Growing Up without a Father,” in Lost Fathers: The Politics of Fatherlessness in America, ed. Cynthia R. Daniels (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 91. | | 6 |
Popenoe, Ibid., 66-73. | | 7 |
Ibid., 63. This may be because, as studies have shown, fathers contribute something to discipline that, generally speaking, mothers do not. Ibid., 146. Positively speaking, it has been shown that the presence of fathers leads to more compassionate, affectionate adults. Ibid., 148-149. | | 8 |
McLanahan, “Growing Up without a Father,” 86. | | 9 |
Ibid. | | 10 |
Sociologists note that fathers are more likely to roughhouse (boisterous play) with their young children. In such contexts, kids are exposed to healthy competition and risk-taking skills. Furthermore, they learn how to regulate their emotions and practice self-control. Popenoe, Ibid., 144. Additionally, fathers complement a mother’s discipline: “Several studies have found that fathers are more effective than mothers at getting quick action.” Ibid., 146. | | 11 |
Jeremy Laurence, “IVF Revolution: ‘It’s the Relationships Quality that Counts, not People’s Sex,’” The Independent, January 21, 2004, 6. Italics added. A copy of this article can be found at http://www.canadiancrc.com/articles/Indep_Suzi_Leather_relationships_21JAN04.htm (accessed August 10, 2005). | | 12 |
Maggie Gallagher, “Father Hunger,” in Lost Fathers, 165. |
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