According to the U.S. Census Bureau, one-third of all American children are growing up without their biological fathers. Additionally, 38% of all known cases of child abuse and/or neglect involve the father, and growing up with a father who is abusive or “silent” can be as damaging as growing up with no father at all.
A famous Australian infant photographer, Anne Geddes, said, “Any man can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad.” Growing up without a dad is what this website is all about.
- In trying to satisfy their unmet emotional needs fatherless girls are more likely to be sexually promiscuous and are more vulnerable to the advances of predators who see their emotional needs and profit from them through commercial sexual exploitation.
- Girls without dads who love them unconditionally and tell them they are beautiful are especially vulnerable to the “lines” of predators. An FBI agent asked an incarcerated sex trafficker where he found his young victims. The pimp explained, “It’s easy. I see a girl at the mall. I go up to her and say, ‘You have beautiful eyes.’ If she smiles and says ‘Thanks,’ I leave her alone. But if she looks down and says, ‘No, I don’t,’ I know I’ve got her.”
- Official U.S. data shows that 63 percent of youth suicides (5 times the average), 70 percent of youths in state-operated institutions (9 times the average) and 85 percent of children with behavioral disorders (20 times the average) are from fatherless homes.
- A 2002 Department of Justice survey of 7,000 inmates revealed that 39% of jail inmates lived in mother-only households. Approximately forty-six percent of jail inmates in 2002 had a previously incarcerated family member. One-fifth experienced a father in prison or jail.
- Teens in single-mother households are 30 percent more likely than teens in married-mom-and-dad-families to engage in risky behavior like drinking, drugs, delinquency, and dropping out of school.
- According to the U.S. Census Bureau, children in father-absent homes are five times more likely to be poor. In 2002, 7.8 percent of children in married-couple families were living in poverty, compared to 38.4 percent of children in female-householder families.
- A child with a nonresident father is 54 percent more likely to be poorer than his or her father.
- Based on birth and death data for 217,798 children born in Georgia in 1989 and 1990, infants without a father’s name on their birth certificate (17.9 percent of the total) were 2.3 times more likely to die in the first year of life compared to infants with a father’s name on their birth certificate.
- A study of 13,986 women in prison showed that more than half grew up without their father. Forty-two percent grew up in a single-mother household and sixteen percent lived with neither parent.
- In a study of INTERPOL crime statistics of 39 countries, it was found that single parenthood ratios were strongly correlated with violent crimes. This was not true 18 years ago.
- Women whose parents separated between birth and six years old experienced twice the risk of early menstruation, more than four times the risk of early sexual intercourse, and two and a half times higher risk of early pregnancy when compared to women in intact families.
- Teens without fathers are twice as likely to be involved in early sexual activity and seven times more likely to get pregnant as an adolescent.
- An analysis of child abuse cases in a nationally representative sample of 42 counties found that children from single-parent families are more likely to be victims of physical and sexual abuse than children who live with both biological parents. Compared to their peers living with both parents, children in single parent homes had:
- a 77% greater risk of being physically abused
- an 87% greater risk of being harmed by physical neglect
- a 165% greater risk of experiencing notable physical neglect
- a 74% greater risk of suffering from emotional neglect
- an 80% greater risk of suffering serious injury as a result of abuse
- overall, a 120% greater risk of being endangered by some type of child abuse.
- The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth found that obese children are more likely to live in father-absent homes than are non-obese children.
- Researchers at Columbia University found that children living in two-parent household with a poor relationship with their father are 68% more likely to smoke, drink, or use drugs compared to all teens in two-parent households. Teens in single mother households are at a 30% higher risk than those in two-parent households.
- Fatherless children are twice as likely to drop out of school.
- Students living in father-absent homes are twice as likely to repeat a grade in school; 10 percent of children living with both parents have ever repeated a grade, compared to 20 percent of children in stepfather families and 18 percent in mother-only families.
- Ten years after the breakup of a marriage, more than two-thirds of kids report not having seen their father for a year.
- 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (Source: U.S. D.H.H.S., Bureau of the Census)
- 90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes – 32 times the national average
- 85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes (Source: Center for Disease Control)
- 80% of rapists motivated with displaced anger come from fatherless homes (Source: Criminal Justice & Behavior, Vol 14, p. 403-26, 1978.)
- 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes (Source: National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools.)
- 75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes (Source: Rainbows for all God`s Children.)
- 70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes (Source: U.S. Dept. of Justice, Special Report, Sept 1988)
- 85% of all youths sitting in prisons grew up in a fatherless home (Source: Fulton Co. Georgia jail populations, Texas Dept. of Corrections 1992)
