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LIFE WITHOUT FATHER
JUNE 17, 1996
TRANSCRIPT
Charlayne Hunter-Gault takes a close look at the dirth of fatherless families in America and its affect on the present state of the American family.
CHARLAYNE HUNTER-GAULT: The day after story is the story of life without father, and it's being called one of America's most urgent and fastest-growing social problems. The 1990 Census counted 19 million children in families without fathers. Today that number has increased to some 23 million. The National Commission on Children reports that fatherless children are five times more likely to be poor and ten times more likely to be extremely poor. Their risks are greater for dropping out of school, alcohol and drug use, adolescent pregnancy and child bearing, juvenile delinquency, mental illness, and suicide. For more on this we have three hands-on experts. Roy Romer is the Democratic governor of Colorado and recently convened a state task force on responsible fatherhood. Ron Mincy is the program officer at the Ford Foundation and the author of "Nurturing Young Black Males: Challenges to Agencies, Programs, and Social Policy." Wade Horn is the director of the National Fatherhood Initiative. Gentlemen, thank you all for joining us. And starting with you, Wade Horn, how do you characterize the seriousness of this problem?
WADE HORN, National Fatherhood Initiative: Well, this is a national crisis. In fact, I believe it's not just one of many national crises, but it's "the" national crisis because father absence drives almost every other social problem we experience. You've mentioned a number of the statistics, but if you think of crime, you think of welfare dependency, you think of educational failure, you think of adolescent pregnancies, father absence drives each of those problems. Unless we get a handle on this issue, the others are going to continue just to get worse.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Governor Romer, if you agree with that, do you have anything to add to it?
GOV. ROY ROMER, Colorado: I do. I think it is a national crisis. We spend 40 percent less time as parents with children than we did a generation ago. That's very serious, and it's mainly because of absentee fathers. One out of every four children is born in Colorado in a home where the father is absent. It is a tremendous problem because every child needs a role model that is both male and female. And there are some very heroic women out there who are single parents, and they're my heroes, heroines, but to be frank, every child needs a role model that is both male and female.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Just before I move on to Ron Mincy to get his thoughts ont this, you mentioned something that's interesting to me. You said we spend 40 percent less time with our kids--
GOV. ROMER: That's right.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: --because the fathers are--how does that happen?
GOV. ROMER: Well, it's not just fathers being absent, but it's a principal cause, but it's because both parents are now working.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: I see.
GOV. ROMER: It's a lot of cultural change. Let me tell you, children need the presence of adults. They need the stimulus, the nurture, the caring. It's a real problem.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Ron Mincy, what do you have to add to that?
RONALD MINCY, Ford Foundation: (Philadelphia) Well, Charlayne, I agree with your other guests that it's a national crisis, however, it's a crisis that we have to create some space to talk about and resolve. If it were a health crisis, we would all recognize it and deal with it. But over the last, oh, five or six or seven years, I found it very difficult to work in this area because there's a mine field out there. There are so many groups trying to address the fathers issue. There's so much contentiousness around it, and so while I believe it's a national crisis, it's a crisis that has to be dealt with with a great deal of care, and delicacy, and I'm glad that we're finally paying attention to it.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You mean people trying to solve the problem are falling all over one another and making it worse?
MR. MINCY: No, but I mean people trying not to solve the problem, not to recognize the problem to make it sound as if we don't want men in the homes with families, that the moment you talk about engaging or reengaging men with children, you get issues, real issues about domestic abuse and the like, and so there are a lot of people who while they recognize single parent households, they really are not poised to invite fathers back into the home and admit in many ways that culture and public policy has thrown fathers out. And so it's going to take some doing yet so that we can have a conversation about this that can enable us to identify the problems and get to them.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, starting with you, let's start with how you identify some of the causes of the problem.
MR. MINCY: Well, I identify a lot of the causes of the problem associated with our failure to recognize that you have different families experiencing fatherless in different ways. What's important for me is to come at it from the standpoint of public policy. I look at it primarily in the way in which it affects families that are on welfare, and in that system, we've basically created a system in which we've pushed fathers out of the home and made it very difficult for fathers to relate to their children and maintain relationships with their partners during the times when the children are very young and when they're born.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What do you mean push fathers out of their home?
MR. MINCY: Well, for example, in many places we had a system in welfare where families were not entitled to welfare if there was a man in the home. While we've gotten rid of that, it is still very difficult for couples who have children together out of wedlock to reside in the same home. When children are born, the, the parenting status is assumed to be the mothers exclusively, and so in a variety of ways in our law and in our public policy, we've just made it very difficult for young couples to maintain and to strengthen their relationships around an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. And this is built fundamentally into our public policy.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Governor Romer, you've set up a commission. Do you--how do you see the cause of this problem?
GOV. ROMER: Oh, I think they're multiple. They're not just from one source. Welfare is one of those, and Ron well described the structural problems, but this is not just a problem of those on welfare or those who are poor. Suburbia is a real problem. It's a cultural problem. We need to change our cultural attitude toward fathering and frankly toward marriage.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How did it get to where it is?
GOV. ROMER: Well, I think that somehow in our modernization and in our moving from the country to the city, we have forgotten some of the fundamental values of what an extended family is. Let me tell you, we just need to go back and think about what is our responsibility if we bring a youngster into the world. For example, in Colorado, just the identification of paternity, you know, I've always thought we needed to be responsible financially, but a child needs something more than the financial support. They need the nurture of a male father, a father, a male person, and we started a program in Colorado--it's quite successful--establishing paternity in the hospital. And in five years, we increased the number of people who would identify with a child about four- or five-fold. And I think you can do something about if you really concentrate on it, but it's not just a program. The government can't do this alone. It's a message. It's a message to America that parenting is the most important responsibility you ever undertake, and if you're going to bring a child into the world, you've just got to stay with that both financially and emotionally.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Horn, you listened to the beginning of the governor's solutions. Do you agree with the problem, as, as you've heard it, and what do you think of some of the solutions?
MR. HORN: Well, I think that Governor Romer is correct. This is a cultural problem, not exclusively but to a very large extent. We have simply changed our minds about the importance of fathers to the well-being of children and families. We have so truncated the role of fathers to where we now say a good father is someone who provides money. And that's pretty much what we say about fathers. And if you don't believe me, think about the word "deadbeat dad," or the phrase "deadbeat dad." We have a very specific guy in mind. He's a guy who doesn't live with his children and doesn't send a check. Now, by implication, if he doesn't live with his children, sends a check faithfully but never sees him, isn't engaged in their lives, somehow that person is not so much of a deadbeat anymore. What we have to go back to is understanding that fathers, in fact, provide something that is unique and irreplaceable in the lives of their children.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Which is what?
MR. HORN: It's far more than just economic. In fact, the non-economic contributions are more important, things like being a good nurturer, a good disciplinarian, a teacher, a moral instructor. These are the things we used to look to fathers to contribute to the well-being of their children, and today we don't. Today we say it's primarily about money. And so we go after the deadbeat dad. Well, sure, let's go after deadbeat dads, but at the same time, let us broaden our understanding about how important the non-economic contributions are that fathers make to the well-being of their kids. I also believe and agree with Gov. Romer that we have to talk about marriage. Unfortunately, all the data shows that if the father is not married to the mother of his children, he is unlikely to stay involved in that child's life over the long-term. We have been experimenting with the idea that cohabitation is okay, it's perfectly fine to rear children without a piece of paper, it has no great consequence for kids, but what we're starting to understand is that it's an experiment that has failed. We have to get back to helping our young people understand, you build a strong marriage first and then you have children. Marriage and good fatherhood go hand in hand.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Ron Mincy, what are you saying?
MR. MINCY: I'd like to take issue with that. I think if I look in the African-American community, umm, 2/3 of all children in the African-American community are born out of wedlock. Umm, I believe in marriage. I've been married for more than 20 years myself. I think it's the most--healthiest institution in which adults can coexist and children can be reared; however, uh, I think in a conversation about fathers, if you start at marriage, you end up closing off the conversation for most of the people in my community, the young people in my community, and that's why I think it's important to understand that in a society in which having children out of wedlock is so pervasive that it's important to start with people where they are. And I think public policy, families, community-based organizations need to start with people where they are and help legitimize and strengthen the relationships that are there. And Charlayne, that's why I'm really concerned in this father's movement that there is not just one movement, there is, in fact, quite a few different voices and perspectives out there. And I think as people come to this issue and pay attention to this, they need to pay as much to the diversity of it as, as what is common, namely that fathers are important in the lives of children. But there are some real differences in what people are saying and what people are trying to accomplish.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Mr. Horn, you want to just respond to that briefly?
MR. HORN: You know, it seems to me that we can do--we can walk and talk at the same time. It seems to me that we can say marriage is the ideal, that's the best place within which to reach our children. At the same time, understand that there are fathers out there who are not married to the mother of their children. But it doesn't do the children any good for us to pretend as if there is no difference between a married father and an unmarried father.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Well, you're not suggesting that, are you, Mr. Mincy?
MR. MINCY: No, I'm not, but I'm also suggesting that--I mean, we have married fathers, and we have situations in which couples are married and their families are a wreck. And what really needs to occur is that, that people need to be helped to both establish paternity for their children, to help to negotiate the relationships between the parents so that the children can have access to both parents. And I think over time, as again communities, government, and families become engaged in the lives of young couples to help them strengthen where they are, you will, in fact, get marriages out of that. And we're seeing that happening now in community-based programs all the time. So it's just a point of what you're articulating. I think when you articulate marriage and you hold that thing over people's head, and again in communities where so few people are married, it's important to start with people where they are and take them to a place, as opposed to starting them to a place where they can't recognize and losing them entirely.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Governor Romer.
GOV. ROMER: You can start where they are and I think we have to, but there are complex causes that we need approach differently. For example, a job is critical. A job is critical. The work place needs to be conscious of the responsibility of the father. The court systems need to say fathering is a priority. There are a number of things that we can and must do.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What about that, that jobs--you know, that because there are those who say that jobs are the real problem?
MR. MINCY: I think it's absolutely critical. If you look at what's happening, rates of first marriage are--that is the age at first marriage is getting older and older and older, young people, uh, even in the white community are marrying, but they're marriages are very unstable, and that's having to do with the 20 percent decline in the real wages of men over the last 15 years. And so I think employment is very critical in this whole process.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And, Mr. Horn, you talked about cultural values, but what about government, do you see government briefly having any--
MR. HORN: Certainly. We have to reform welfare to reward not punish responsible fatherhood. We have to change the tax code so that it rewards, not punishes, marriage and responsible fatherhood. There are things government can and should do, but in the end, this is a cultural problem, and it demands cultural solutions.
MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right, gentlemen. Thank you all--sorry, Governor--we'll have to leave it there.
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