(This is a repost from our old blog. It was originally posted on 21st June 2008)

This post has taken a few days to pull together because I wanted to research the statistics. I read an article in the Wall Street Journal (The Tragedy of America’s Disappearing Fathers By Juan Williams, June 14, 2008, Page A11) written on the occasion of Father’s Day. He cited the National Center for Health Statistics as saying that nearly a quarter of America’s white children (22%) do not have any male in their homes; nearly a third (31%) of Hispanic children and over half of black children (56%) are fatherless. Well, I followed up, and he’s right.  A paper from the National Fatherhood Initiative (www.fatherhood.org) – “The Costs Of Father Absence” confirms the numbers. In fact about 34% of children are living without their biological fathers, and half of all children and 80% of all African American children will spend some part of their childhood without their fathers present.

The effects are chilling. Imagine going through scripture and removing all the places where a father instructed, loved, taught or disciplined a son … Absent fathers don’t  “kiss their sons and daughters”, Gen (31:28), “Teach these words diligently” to their children (Deu 6:7), “Train up their children as they should go” (Pr 22:16) or provide for their children (2 Cor 1:14) … or so many other things.

Adult children of single-mother families are more likely to go to prison, suffer divorce, have an out-of-wedlock birth, and suffer mental and emotional health problems. As a child of divorce myself I can attest to some of those effects – in my life or those of my siblings.

There’s a great book I wish father’s would read – “Never Walk Away” by Crawford Loritts, available from FamilyLife® and bookstores. One quote “The tragedy, or the blessing, is that we tend to raise our children the way we were raised. More often than not we tend to become the end result of what has been done to us, more than of what has been said to us. If we grew up without a heart connection to our fathers, we’ll battle a seemingly irresistible inclination to be disconnected from our children.” Indeed – and if the father-child connection fails, what of the spiritual legacy?

My belated Fathers’ Day prayer is that young couples will marry first, and then have children – and that dad’s will commit to connect with their kids … for life.