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> New research shows that when fathers are present and emotionally invested in children’s lives, they are more likely to develop a stronger sense of self-worth

• jimbob45 3y ago
  How do you even address something like that? Even if you paid each father $10k to stick around to age 18, that doesn’t guarantee that they wouldn’t become domestic abusers, suicide victims, or would even be good role models. It’s possible that father presence for kids is only so valuable because the only fathers that stick around are the ones that care.
  • maxerickson 3y ago
    A good start is to not beg the question. Are you doing something other than assuming that 'caring' is the primary factor?
  • troupe 3y ago
    > only so valuable because the only fathers that stick around are the ones that care. Last time I looked at data about this, it appeared that even a poor father who was present was better than no having a father in the home. If I remember right it was measuring the likeliness of a teenager to end up in prison. If there was a segment of fathers that were worse than not having a father, I don't think it shows up in any study I've seen. Gilder's Wealth and Poverty book cites a lot of studies and examples showing how society has changed in ways making it harder for dads to stick around with everything from how drug policies are enforced to the way that welfare resources are allocated.
    • lmm 3y ago
      > Last time I looked at data about this, it appeared that even a poor father who was present was better than no having a father in the home. If I remember right it was measuring the likeliness of a teenager to end up in prison. If there was a segment of fathers that were worse than not having a father, I don't think it shows up in any study I've seen. I think their point is that those bad fathers don't show up, because they don't care about their children.
  • Viliam1234 3y ago
    > It’s possible that father presence for kids is only so valuable because the only fathers that stick around are the ones that care. Even if this would be the case, we should allow those fathers to spend more time with their kids. For example, it is very difficult for a man to find a part-time job. Most companies take "I also want to spend some time with my kids" as "I don't really care about the work I do". You can care about the work without wanting to devote your entire life to it.
    • abracadaniel 3y ago
      4 day work week, should be more common for this case here. If it were offered, I would take it, even if just for a few years while the kids are little.
  • smileysteve 3y ago
    You're looking myopically at the issue; absent fathers is less likely to be a choice, but an economic consequences of income inequality, along with the other economies that arise because of this. You're looking at the drug war, high school graduation rates, ability to find a job, attached to teenage pregnancy, lack of commute options, and below living wage - likely connected to public health issues including water treatment, sewage, inneficient or unsafe homes (hook worms, sceptic, HVAC) So instead of a 1 time $10k (which is delusional) think marijuana being legal, healthcare and childcare being affordable, public transport - or at least not a food desert in a walkable community, and $15+/hr 30+ hour weeks at a single employer.
  • Natsu 3y ago
    It used to be done by promoting marriage and stigmatizing divorce. Now, that has obvious costs for the parents in many cases and certainly isn't always the right approach because of problems like domestic abuse. But the good of the children is part of why past societies have incentivized keeping parents together to care for their children and maybe we've gone a bit too far in the other direction, away from a happier medium.
    • lapcat 3y ago
      > It used to be done by promoting marriage and stigmatizing divorce. Stigmatizing divorce does absolutely nothing to make fathers emotionally invested in their kids. If anything, it can make them resentful of their kids. The article was about how boys need emotional support from their father. A father who is present and married but still demands that his son "man up" and bottle up every problem is of no help.
      • Natsu 3y ago
        It's really hard to be emotionally invested when you're totally absent from most of their lives, though. It doesn't work the other way, i.e. it won't fix a bad father, but there are plenty of guys who could do better by literally just showing up.
        • lapcat 3y ago
          > It's really hard to be emotionally invested when you're totally absent from most of their lives, though. Why would you be totally absent from most of their lives?
          • Natsu 3y ago
            Divorce frequently leads to being absent at least half of the time, possibly more.
            • lapcat 3y ago
• geff82 3y ago
  Maybe, as a culture, we should emphasize MORE the health of the family, of the duty and honor it brings to raise kids and less on the "perfect" romantic relationships of the parents? Shouldn't we promote a less Hollywood-like picture of long lasting relationships? I have the feeling that we are trained too much to think that our "romance" and sex life should last forever. When - in reality - a good relationship transforms to something that is more similar to a good companionship (yes - you should like each other a lot, sure... but be less seeking for the thrill you might have had in the first year). Kids need stability - not parents living in their own unrealistic world.
  • InexSquirrel 3y ago
    I've never understood why there is a dichotomy presented in relationships like that - sure, 10 years into your marriage you might not be going at it like rabbits as you were in the first year, but there isn't any reason why parents can't provide stable environments for children _and_ have strong romantic relationships still. It takes very little to carve off some time for one another, and that continued investment in bonding with another in and of itself long term provides the stability children need.
    • onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
      > It takes very little to carve off some time for one another, and that continued investment in bonding with another in and of itself long term provides the stability children need. Why is romanticism the only way to "invest in bonding"? There seems to be a large subset (maybe very large?) of the population where the only way to bond on some level is sex.
      • literalis 3y ago
        [flagged]
    • saiya-jin 3y ago
      I guess you don't have kids yet, emphasis on plural. They chip away bit by bit everything that makes a relationship a good one, sand in the fine gears that made people fall for each other in the first place. By far the biggest stressor in marriages (unless somebody else is actually raising your kids, be it grandparents or nannies). Sure, you can, and should, keep working on repairs and rebuilding, but that's additional work on top of all additional work on top of actual work of living in modern society. Not everybody, always, has energy for that, and you need 2 for that or it just doesn't work. Hence the difference of what looks nice on paper and how things should be, and how they actually are.
• vidanay 3y ago
  As someone who grew up on shitty side of that research, I make it a point in my life to be the exact opposite for my son.
  • 93po 3y ago
    My father attempted to be the opposite of my grandfather and yet still remained very similar to him. Thankfully still an improvement over my grandfather. Not implying this is you too. Just thought the observation was interesting.
    • throwaway2037 3y ago
      But, he tried. He made a conscience decision. That part matters most -- his intent. He did it for love.
  • throwaway2037 3y ago
    Can you share a little more (anecdote) about what this means to you? <<As someone who grew up on shitty side of that research>> Was your dad mostly absent, over-working, or what? Or emotionally invisible?
    • vidanay 3y ago
      My mom and bio dad were divorced when I was 11 months old, and I had basically zero contact with him until age 15 or 16. My mom re-married an alcoholic racist fuck who was on my very short list of people that I genuinely wished he were dead (he is now, so he's no longer on the list). He wasn't physically abusive, but he was certainly hella verbally abusive. In the nearly 40 years since re-establishing contact with my bio dad, he hasn't exactly proven himself as a role model. He falls into the "woe is me" category of low income people. He always finds excuses.
      • throwaway2037 3y ago
        Brutal. Thank you to share your personal experience. It is hard to see now, but other young men will be reading this post in the future, and it will help. No one controls if you draw a sh-tty ticket in the lottery of life and have a bad family. Real Question: If your step-father was an "alcoholic racist fuck", why did your mum marry him and stay with him? Please, please, don't read this as an attack on your mum! People enter and stay in relationships for a long list of reasons. I was so lucky to have great parents, but my dad was mostly commuting during 8-18. I know he cared about me deeply, but his job and commute made it very difficult to spend a lot of time with me.
• JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > absent fathers issue seems like something concrete and impactful There is a general corruption of the concept of masculinity in American culture. It’s similar to what’s happened to the symbol of the American flag, but more insidious. When I say masculinity, or masculine values, what do you think of? When you think of someone who values their masculinity, who do you perceive? Now do the same for femininity. Which model is healthier? Men and women have, on average, physiological differences. These differences are pronounced in puberty. That’s when these frameworks matter the most; they thus must be embedded in childhood. There is no right answer, I think, but there are right questions that boys dealing with a burst of testosterone should ask themselves. That we’ve ignored or even repressed that seems to link both failures in boy and fatherhood. It also seems to naturally extend to trans and non-binary kids, another situation we are culturally bankrupt in addressing. Boys understanding and speaking to their feminine sides is, ironically, a classically masculine strength in the way women understanding and acting on their masculine sides is, traditionally, a classical sign of motherhood and through that feminine strength. (The linking of feminine strength and motherhood is obviously dated, though as someone who lives in bear and moose country I can see why it was originally embraced.)
  • jtbayly 3y ago
    Can you think of anything feminine that takes more strength than motherhood?
    • tinideiznaimnou 3y ago
      [flagged]
      • jvanderbot 3y ago
        I watched my wife (and our lives) before and after children and I disagree. She was always strong, but nothing challenges her, or us, like raising kids. Especially after the toll pregnancy had on her body. That's not to say it's the only virtuous thing a woman can do, but it's so incredibly selfless to continuously drain your body and mind intentionally for the sake of a child's well-being.
• MisterBastahrd 3y ago
  [flagged]
  • throwaway2037 3y ago
    This post seems unnecessarily harsh. would require women to choose better mates Or: Men should pay and do their fair share? Then: How many women are out there with three kids by three different fathers? Let's turn that around: How many men are out there with three kids by three different mothers? Sadly, a lot. And few of them are pulling their weight in term of parenting and financial support. I'm not talking about the Elon Musks of the world. Custody laws typically place all the power in the hands of the mother Multiple other posters have noted this is highly location dependent. This may have been true in many places around the highly developed world in the 1990s, but no longer. most mothers are fine with the father having minimal contact Ridiculous. Most mothers would like the father to much more involved. Divorce or single parenthood is hard enough.
    • MisterBastahrd 3y ago
      My post isn't harsh at all. There's a whole world out there that doesn't revolve around middle class nuclear families. I meant every word of what I said, and it's all correct. There are very few mothers who want to share custodial time equally with the fathers of their children because there is an economic incentive for them not to. Most breakups are not amicable and women know that they can punish their former partners in court. That you don't like it doesn't mean that it isn't reality. In the United States, if the mother wants custody then the mother is getting custody unless there are legal / drug / behavioral issues with the mother that prevent her from doing so. You can just sit around and listen to any radio station for all of the family lawyers who specialize in advocating for men because of how biased the system is. Only 40% of states in the US even seek to grant 50% custody to fathers.
• NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
  > the absent fathers issue seems like something concrete and impactful that we should be trying to address. Interestingly, only a few years ago, Bill Cosby himself made an impassioned plea to address these issues. He saw it a lot.
  • otoburb 3y ago
    Cosby's criminal conviction(s)[1] undermined much of what he championed. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Cosby_sexual_assault_cases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Cosby_sexual_assault_case...
    • NoZebra120vClip 3y ago
      I don't see it that way. You've fallen for a tu quoque fallacy. To say that Cosby was hypocritical doesn't seem to devalue the merits of his message: that men need to step up, that fathers need to stop being absent, take some responsibility for the dignity of women and children. If anything, it makes it even more poignant. Haven't you ever seen a man in prison, pleading with his son not to turn out like him? Does the father's murder conviction undermine his admonition against violence?
      • CyberDildonics 3y ago
        Haven't you ever seen a man in prison, pleading with his son not to turn out like him? Does the father's murder conviction undermine his admonition against violence? Did bill cosby ever take responsibility for being one of the most prolific serial rapists in history?
      • otoburb 3y ago
        I don't see it that way either, but many other people find it very difficult to separate the message from the messenger, just as you've done from my (brief) comment. >>Haven't you ever seen a man in prison, pleading with his son not to turn out like him? Does the father's murder conviction undermine his admonition against violence? Except, as others would argue, a more similar analogy would be a man in prison continually protesting his innocence. In that situation, I'm not sure that the man would be telling his son to do anything differently without an admission of guilt, except perhaps to be very cautious in their dealings with women. The point remains that the drama and conviction(s) surrounding Bill Cosby's numerous sexual assaults caused him to be an ineffective messenger even if the underlying message remains sound.
• dpifke 3y ago
  I think the "absentee father" issue would be easy to address: have the courts stop favoring mothers as custodial parents in divorces. Of the divorced couples I know with children, the mothers were awarded custody in every single case, often over the strenuous objections of the fathers and other family members like grandparents (and in one case, even in the face of documented abuse by the mother). I feel like studies on the effect of children who grow up with a missing parent need to somehow control for couples who split because of mental health issues. Otherwise, it's studying not the effect of the absent parent, but the effect of the behaviors of the parent who was granted custody, and some of those behaviors may strongly correlate with not being able to maintain a marriage or other partnership.
  • dpifke 3y ago
    Too late to edit my comment, but I want to clarify the first sentence of the above: I'm not arguing the courts should automatically favor fathers, either. I meant to say blindly assuming one gender is more suited to raising children than the other is a bad policy, and it should be reformed. (And I do believe some family court jurisdictions have gotten better about this than when I had friends going through it 10-20 years ago.)
  • abracadaniel 3y ago
    In the US it depends heavily on the state, but as I understand it, the stats on the mothers getting custody are misleading. Overwhelmingly, the fathers are giving up custody and not fighting for it. When they do, it is roughly equal, though some studies suggest bias one way or the other. I’m not finding great primary sources, but here’s some articles on it https://legaljobs.io/blog/child-custody-statistics/ https://legaljobs.io/blog/child-custody-statistics/ https://www.liveabout.com/child-custody-there-is-no-gender-bias-during-custody-decisions-3974050 https://www.liveabout.com/child-custody-there-is-no-gender-b...
    • tbrownaw 3y ago
      So was parent commenter's experience just that non-representative or is something screwy going on with how the data gets recorded?
• underlipton 3y ago
  Without evidence, I'll suggest that this is an oversimplification. In a model where boys require masculine modeling from older, adult figures, "absent fathers" are most an issue when a boy's regularly-accessible social unit has been whittled down to the nuclear family. That seems to be a crisis in-and-of-itself. When I look at socially-successful men, they often have had multiple older men in their lives to model themselves after - usually grandparents, uncles, teachers, etc., on top of their father (or in lieu of). This is two-fold redundant, in creating fallbacks for both a central father figure and in skills or traits which that figure may lack. I think this is important because the "absent father" is often used as an excuse, when it rather represents the last breached line in a long list of failures of society, which have ripped boys from the men who would look after them. (I admit that there's likely some who won't like hearing this, as it cuts against the grievances of those who find pride in specific fatherhood ("I will raise MY child.") and see society's manner, or the dissolving of the nuclear family into a larger community unit, as working against that.)
  • pyuser583 3y ago
    It isn’t either/or. It’s cumulative. Joseph Campbell emphasized the idea of the “second father.” A mentor who takes a young man further than his father can. A father has to love you, but the second fathers love has to be earned. Think NCOs in the military, coaches, sensais in martial arts. We aren’t just missing fathers, we’re missing second fathers. Not many people would describe a gunny sergeant, or football coach, or the guy who runs the local Karate America as a second father. If you include foremen, clergy, and union bosses as second fathers, a man living in 1960 could expect to spend his entire life under the tutelage of second fathers. Traditionally masculine institutions like the military, workplace, and churches have renounced their “second family” status, and tried desperately to feminize to appeal to women. What sorts of institutions offer “second fathers” to young men now? Predatory ones, like far-right groups. And some sports. Edit: there are plenty of institutions that market themselves as second families - tech companies for example. But they tend to eschew masculine gender roles.
    • underlipton 3y ago
      I would point out that most of your examples are only allowed to hold significant sway over a boy after they've become a young man, in the teen years and further. I'm also speaking to young childhood through the early teen years, when children are mostly going to be limited to their home and neighborhood. There are cultures where they'll regularly come into contact with "second fathers", who will have discipline privileges over/responsibility for them, over the course of their daily activities. This is not the case in America; the norm is the buck stopping with one's resident parents, and others have little authority or responsibility. So I understand if it's hard to conceptualize; we simply don't have much lived experience with it. You're thinking institutions, when I mean uncles and grandparents who live down the street, or even with the family; trusted neighbors (perhaps distant relatives); teachers who can afford to live in the same neighborhood; local workers and entrepreneurs who are included in neighborhood life; and so on.
• pfannkuchen 3y ago
  Or are people who are not genetically inclined towards executing monogamy also not genetically inclined towards other “organization and self control” rooted behaviors?
• NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  > Regardless of the debate on how tough (or not) love should be, the absent fathers issue seems like something concrete and impactful that we should be trying to address. Where would we even start? The only circumstances where we could hope to do anything at all are those where it's either not a problem, or is still only a minor one... if daddy's doing 20 for murder or dealing at the kilo level, are we supposed to let him out so he can sing lullabies? There exists an entire class of problems that people only seem to comprehend the causes of once those same problems have escalated far beyond the capacity for comprehension to allow us to fix them. Perhaps the universe hates us. Or maybe we just deserve it.
  • theptip 3y ago
    A simple answer (the one other developed countries tend towards) would be to emphasize / invest more in rehabilitation than in retribution/deterrence in the criminal justice system. Another set of approaches would be to fund pro-natal/pro-family initiatives such as child income tax credits, to make it easier for fathers to participate in family life; at the margin economic instability drives families apart among other things. (More paternity leave (and better maternity leave while we’re at it) would help a lot here too). I think you can look to other countries for examples here, Scandinavian countries for example have much better pro-family programs we could copy if we were really serious about this.
    • NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
      [flagged]
      • Karunamon 3y ago
        >Your idea of rehabilitation is "hey, we're going to try to be nice to lowlifes, and they'll suddenly become upstanding citizens" This is a strawman. You have no idea what their idea of rehabilitation is, in fact they only shared that our balance is out of whack. And it is. What we are doing now, with mass incarceration and barely-humane conditions DOES NOT WORK. In fact, it would be hard to intentionally design the system in a way that does a better job of increasing recidivism and overall human misery. Forget all this talk of "being nice to lowlifes", how about we stop shooting ourselves in the foot first? >Do you really believe that would work? Like, how much can you afford? Our government spends billions and trillions of dollars on things which have less utility. Resources are not what is lacking, prioritization and political will is.
• steve_adams_86 3y ago
  Though the statistics speak loudly enough, my anecdotal experience with a bit whose father abandoned him has been harrowing. It’s deeply disturbing to him. Even having a father figure step in to take care of him doesn’t fill that void or resolve much distress. It seems it will be a lifelong issue to some degree. I didn’t quite believe it at first. Over time it has become abundantly clear. Boys without dads, not even someone to step in to support them, are often swimming upstream at best.
  • saiya-jin 3y ago
    I agree, as a kid I just didn't think about that, but as an adult I see the epidemy all around me. Women without functional father figure have same deep scars that they struggle with for rest of their lives, and so do men. They just manifest very differently since each have their own needs from this father figure that were not met. And its not just physically absent fathers, those working long hours constantly (under false premise of 'providing for my family'), or for some other messed up reasons are simply not there often enough, physically or emotionally, often cause all this. Its a vicious circle too, people take this baggage with them into their own relationships which suffer then, and cycle repeats. Lack of trust, running away from solvable issues, sleeping around etc, I've seen it all and some more. Some of my relationships failed exactly due to women on the other side not being able to deal with exactly this baggage, to the point I gave up on trying to fix other people's lives, because you basically can't anyway.