Gilda

I have no children, but do plan on having children within the next few years, and I do have a spouse to help raise the children. My parents were married the whole time I was growing up and still are.

I, too, tend to get annoyed when this subject comes up, annoyed by the implication that my children will somehow be harmed by not having a man in the home.

My problem with presenting such statistics out of context is that it implies that fathers are necessary to a child's healthy upbringing and that the absense of a father in a child's life by itself spells dire consequences for the child. There are so many other factors involved that this cannot really be said.

I think that what is most important is the presense of at least one good parent, of either sex; your experience, meembo, would seem to indicate that a good father can raise healthy kids even in the absense of a caring mother. I have no doubt that there are millions of households out there headed by a single father whose children are healthy and well-adjusted, just as there are millions of households headed by a single mother with no involved father whose children are healthy and well-adjusted.

I agree completely that it's better for good fathers to be involved in their childrens lives than not, and that mothers who interfere with this are doing their children more harm than good. I agree that there should be no presumption in favor of the mother in determining custody in divorce cases. I also believe that it's entirely possible for a child to grow up in a household with only one parent or with two same sex parents and be healthy and well-adjusted. The presense or absense of a mother or father, while having an impact, is of lesser importance than the presense of at least one good parent, of either sex, and the absense of toxic influences.

People who are finding fault with the statistics aren't attacking fatherhood per se, but the idea that single mothers are indadequate to raise a child on their own in the absense of a father, which is patently not true. I'd say the same of single fathers in the absense of an involved mother.

Perhaps the most important factor in the above statistics is that the father is absent, but that the household is headed by a single parent. I think we can all agree that two good parents are better than one good parent.

Pehaps the most important factor is that single parent households, usually headed by a woman, are more likely to be poor, and poor households are more likely to produce children with the problems listed.

Perhaps the reason the father is absent in some of these households is because he was a poor father, and that's the cause of the problems.

Perhaps the reason the father is absent is that the mother is hostile and keeping him out of her children's lives, and it's this hostility, the mother's toxic influence that is the source of the problem, and not just the absense of the father.

There are too many other factors to isolate to make the claims that the stats in the OP do.

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