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| BYU Professor Promotes Dads As Social Salve |
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| Friday, November 17, 2000 |
BY JAMES THALMAN
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
Good kids require good dads -- a link that may require an act of Congress, says a Utah parenting expert who is part of a nationwide fatherhood movement.
Alan Hawkins, a professor of Marriage, Family and Human Development at Brigham Young University, says a lack of caring, responsible fathers is the No. 1 reason kids today are more likely than previous generations to fail in school, have premature sex, develop drug problems or be violent.
Hawkins is part of the National Fatherhood Initiative, created in 1994, which is working to make good fathering a national priority. The non-partisan, non-profit, non-sectarian organization promotes marriage, successful parenting and improvement of fathers' economic status.
The group is urging passage of two bills before Congress that would amend the Social Security Act to promote fatherhood and marriage, as well as increase job and education opportunities for fathers. The bills would provide $140 million over three years to promote fatherhood through media campaigns and educational programs.
Hawkins said that while the divorce rate is down a little, births to unwed mothers continue to go up -- even in Utah. He and other backers of the fatherhood initiative don't believe it's a coincidence that during the past 30 years a myth has arisen that children don't really need fathers.
"The fact is that fathers are great monitors of the present and especially the futures of children's lives," Hawkins said. "Research shows that fathers just being around helps kids stay out of trouble in their youth, and they link them to the future by harping on how failing now has a direct bearing on their success as adults."
Along with society distancing itself from fathers, the notion has taken root that the individual matters most, Hawkins said.
"We've kind of become an every-man-and-woman-for-ourselves culture, and in the process severed the link between adult relationships and parenting, and between having sex and having children," Hawkins said.
Some people might say that the movement isn't needed in Utah because, compared to the rest of the country, the state ranks high on the child well-being front.
In Utah, for example, 16 percent of children are born to unwed mothers compared to 33 percent nationwide.
But Wade Horn, president of the initiative and former United States Commissioner for Children, Youth and Families, says no state is immune from the risks created by absent fathers.
Each year a declining number of children in every state lives with two, married parents, he said.
About 24 million of the country's 71 million children do not live with their biological fathers, and 17 million don't live with a father at all, he said.
More than 60 percent of convicted rapists, 72 percent of teen murderers and 70 percent long-term prison inmates are males who grew up without fathers.
"Many children growing up in a single-parent household do well," Horn said. "It is nonetheless also true that growing up in a single-parent household increases the risk of poorer outcomes for children."
He said few people would argue nowadays that fathers are superfluous to the culture.
But he points out that this year more than a million children will experience the divorce or separation of their parents. An additional 1.3 million babies will be fathered out of wedlock. Overall, nearly 2.5 million children will join the ranks of the fatherless.
"Changing attitudes is hard," Horn said. "Changing behavior is harder, but it is the thing children need most of all."
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