100 Billion Dollar Man

[minitoons]

A good article depicting the absense of father.

 

link removed

 

 

 

The $100 billion man. No, he’s not a new superhero with bionic limbs who can run through walls and is more powerful than a locomotive. The $100 billion man is the personification of the annual cost of absentee fathers to American society. That was the conclusion of a 2008 report written by Christopher Einolf and the late Steven Nock for the National Fatherhood Initiative.

 

When the cost of government programs such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, Temporary Aid to Needy Families, child support enforcement, food and nutrition programs (Food Stamps and school lunch programs), housing programs, Medicaid, and state-run children’s health insurance plans are calculated, the total comes to nearly $100 billion. And the authors maintain that that is a conservative estimate! The authors also don’t mention anything about the possible cost of crime in that $100 billion price tag. But since this is a crime prevention blog, the real question of the day is: Does the absense of fathers lead to higher crime rates? And if it does, what should we do about it?

 

The answer? We don’t have just one. For every report or study stating that the children of absentee fathers are some undetermined percentage more likely to be involved in criminal activity, there’s one that says that that’s only one of a constellation of variables that contribute to someone choosing a path of crime.

 

Researchers from the Florida Family Council found that 72 percent of the juvenile offenders interviewed said they came from homes where their mother and father are not married. But what does that mean when currently 40 percent of births in the United States are to households without a married father of the baby? For every doom-and-gloomer on the national plight brought on by absentee fathers, there is an equal and opposite position that the situation of single mothers raising children is not the tragedy that is often depicted in the media. Feminist and investigative reporter Trish Wilson has written numerous online articles stating that the woes attributed to absent fathers are more myth than fact, lending credence to the old maxim that falsehood can be out the door before truth gets its shoes on. The one arena researchers have focused on is the children of incarcerated parents. There it appears that the absense of a parent due to parental incarceration (mostly fathers) has negative effects on children and increases the risk for children engaging in delinquent behavior, trying alcohol or drugs, and joining a gang (Howell and Egley, 2005). Other research shows two things: (1) it is the quality of the father-child relationship that has a positive effect on child outcomes rather than the quantity of time spent or the proximity of the father to the child, and (2) a quality surrogate role model or mentor can be a positive factor in predicting favorable child outcomes.

 

An independent evaluation (Grossman and Tierney, 1998) of the Big Brother, Big Sister Mentoring Program found that mentees who met with their mentors regularly for about one year were 46 percent less likely than their peers to start using illegal drugs and 27 percent less likely to start drinking, among other findings. A child’s ability to adapt relies heavily on good family relationships, or surrogate relationships with adults who are significantly invested in the life and well-being of the child. Positive adult role models, either within or outside of the family, teach or guide young people as they develop their skills and talents. Through their actions, these caring adults show young people how to respond to challenges in positive ways. Young people trust that these role models and mentors will help them manage difficult situations.

 

So what can we do? We could mentor. One place to start is link removed.

 

And I don’t think it’ll cost us $100 billion.

Any other ideas? Please write back with your comments.

[Xetra Dax]

Has this got to do anything with you?

[just M.E.]

Mothers can raise children without fathers. It is the condition of the human species much before we decided to have the "Leave it to Beaver" 1950's version of a family. To say a child can't be raised without a father is a broad brush generalization. To talk about the financial impact is another. It is a social blight that has no simple answer.

 

We need to provide more aid to mothers but those without values have proven to increase the number of children for more aid. Do we turn them away because they have 5 children and can care for only one? How do we convince someone to stop when they can't care for another child? I realized I had only enough time and energy to be a quality parent for one child but what if I had had 4 before the marriage broke down? What if I was less capable of being a provider?

 

The answer is personal responsibility in both mothers and fathers, but that is a given in all areas of our society today, this is a value that has been tossed out as unnecessary. Again, easier said than done.

 

I have a right to speak on this subject because I raised my daughter without her father's help, she needed a father figure but that can't easily be replaced by another person. Maybe more assistance with day care, larger tax breaks so my small salary would have gone farther, but in the end that was the extras, the core came from me. The task fell on my shoulders, and I was lucky, we did good, but what is needed is more help for those mothers who have to parent alone.

[thejigsup]

I am a single mother and I raised my son on my own. He is now grown and a great person. Still, it would have been better to have a husband in the house. Kids do need that and while I could not stay married to my son's father (drugs), maybe I should have married someone else. I hate being married, though. The kids lose no matter what you decide. Sometimes life has no easy answers.