Helen Colton, Sex After the Sexual Revolution (New York: Association Press, 1972), p. 140: "Next to punishment and guilt, a common reason for premarital pregnancy is the need of the male to prove his masculinity. Reuben Pannor, a social worker at Vista Del Mar Child Care Center in West Los Angeles, author of notable studies on the young unwed father, has found that many of them came from homes that were female-dominated due to death or divorce or because the father had abdicated his responsibility, leaving the son with 'weak or distorted masculine identity.' Such boys often become involved in sexual relationships 'to prove their manhood.'"
Monica Sjoo and Barbara Mor, The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1987), p. 67: "Indeed, the further back one goes in time the more bisexual, or gyndndrous, is the Great Mother. As Charlotte Woolf says in Love Between Women, perhaps the present-day Lesbian woman is the closest in character to ancient women--with their fierce insistence on strength, independence, and integrity of consciousness.
"The first love-object for both women and men is the mother; but in patriarchy, the son has to reject the mother to be able to dominate the wife as 'a real man'--and the daughter must betray her for the sake of "submitting to a man." In matriarchal society this double burden of biological and spiritual betrayal does not occur. For both women and men there is a close identification with the collective group of mothers, with Mother Earth, and with the Cosmic Mother. And, as psychoanalysts keep repeating, this identification is conducive to bisexuality in both sexes. But homosexuality in tribal or pagan men was not based on rejection of the Mother, or the female, as is often true in patriarchal culture; rather, it was based on brother-love, brother-affinity, as sons of the mother. And lesbianism among women was not based on a fear and rejection of men, but on the daughter's desire to reestablish union with the Mother, and with her own femaleness."
Itabari Njeri, Los Angeles Times, 25 July, 1989: "Perhaps the crucial message in her book [Bebe Moore Campbell's Sweet Summer]--one still not fully understood by society, Campbell says--is the importance of a father or a father-figure in a young girl's life.
"'Studies show that girls without that nurturing from a father or surrogate father are likely to grow up with damaged self-esteem and are more likely to have problems with their own adult relationships with men,' Campbell says."
Peter M. Weyrich, The Human Costs of Divorce: Who Is Paying? (Washington, D. C.: Free Congress Foundation, 1988), pp.33f., citing George Rekers, "The Formation of a Homosexual Orientation," presented at the Free Congress Foundation "Hope and Homosexuality" Conference, 1987: "Research suggests that in order for boys to develop their masculine identity properly, they need a strong male role model, such as a father (biological or substitute) or an older brother. In 1983, Rekers, Mead, Rosen, and Brigham studied a group of gender-disturbed boys, and found a high incidence of absent fathers. The average age of the boys when they were separated from their fathers was approximately 3.5 years old. Eighty percent were 5 years old or younger when the separation took place, and the reason for the fathers' absence was separation or divorce in 82% of the cases. The male gender disturbances varied from moderate to severe in the study, but those who showed deep gender disturbances had neither a biological father nor a father substitute living at home. Of the fathers who did live at home, 60% were described as psychologically remote or apart from the other members of the family."
Kathleen Fury, "The Troubling Truth About Teen-Agers and Sex," Reader's Digest, June, 1980 [Condensed from Ladies' Home Journal, March, 1980], pp. 153f.: "Demographers at Johns Hopkins University have found that young, white, teen-age girls living in fatherless families were 60 percent more likely to have had intercourse than those living in two-parent homes."
EDUCATIONAL UNDERACHIEVEMENT
Newsweek, l3 May, l985: "It is easy enough to spot them, the so-called children of divorce. Often, teachers say, the boys become extremely sloppy in their dress and study habits, even for boys--and former class clowns are given to spontaneous crying. Junior-high-school girls, on the other hand, sometimes begin wearing heavy makeup and jewelry, affecting a hard-bitten look, as if to advertise the current lack of parental attention. First graders suddenly forget that they're been toilet trained for years. And on any given day every single one of them, from kindergarten to high school, seems to have left home, wherever home may be at the moment, without lunch money.
"Nor is there anything mysterious about this behavior. As Chuckie Marshall, a fourth grader from Denver, recently told his divorced mother, 'I think about you and Daddy a lot at school'--and such thoughts lead inevitably to insecurity and anger, depression and, perhaps most often, guilt....[T]he Los Angeles County Board of Education now runs seminars to help teachers deal with the problems of children from 'reconstituted homes': their predictable academic declines and sudden behavior swings....[S]ome kids who appear to be coping eventually display 'time-bomb symptoms' such as drug use and precocious sexual activity years after a family has broken up and resettled."
B. Sutton-Smith, B. G. Rosenberg and Frank Landy, "Father-Absence Effects in Families of Different Sibling Compositions," Child Development, 39 (1968), p. 1213: "In general, father absence has a depressive effect throughout, with the greatest effects during the early and middle years; boys without brothers are more affected than those with brothers, girls with a younger brother more affected than other girls, and only girls more affected than only boys."
Rex Forehand, et al., "Family Characteristics of Adolescents Who Display Overt and Covert Behavior Problems," Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 18, [December, 1987]: 325-328; epitomized in The Family in America, April, 1988: "The kid who causes the most trouble in school most likely comes from a divorced family. In a new study of 23 white adolescents, their mothers, and their teachers, researchers set out to examine two types of antisocial behavior in children--'overt' (fighting, temper tantrums) and 'covert' (stealing, lying, truancy, falling in with bad companions). Their findings: the worst troublemaker, the child who engaged in both kinds of behavior (both fighting and stealing, for instance) was far more likely to come from a broken home than was the child who engaged in only one type or was well-behaved. Out of seven of the worst troublemakers in this survey, six came from divorced families."
Paul G. Shane, "Changing Patterns Among Homeless and Runaway Youth," American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 59, April, 1989, 208-214: "In general, homeless youth are more likely to come from female-headed, single-parent, or reconstituted families with many children, particularly step-siblings."
R. F. Doyle, The Rape of the Male (St. Paul, Minn: Poor Richard's Press, 1976), p. 145, citing Starke Hathaway and Elio Monachesi, Adolescent Personality and Behavior, p. 8l: "More than one in three children of broken families drop out of school."
Yochanan Peres and Rachel Pasternack, "The Importance of Marriage for Socialization: A Comparison of Achievements and Social Adjustment Between Offspring of One- and Two-Parent Families in Israel," in Contemporary Marriage: Comparative Perspectus of a Changing Institution, ed. Kingsley Davis in association with Amyra Grossbard-Schechtman (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1985), pp. 162ff.: "Table 6.2 shows that in all three subject matters [Arithmetic, English, Hebrew] children of matrifocal families have significantly lower scholastic achievement than children raised in two-parent families....
To make sure that these differences in achievement are not due to background factors, we applied a multivariate regression analysis to the data. Table 6.3 indicates that when many relevant background factors are controlled, children of intact families performed significantly better in arithmetic than children from matrifocal families....Similar regressions run on English and Hebrew scores also showed a highly significant new effect of parental marital status on achievement. In addition, regressions run on a sample from which children of hostile families and their controls were excluded (thus allowing us to assess the effect of 'pure' matrifocality) demonstrate that matrifocality has highly significant (negative) influence on all three measures of children's scholastic achievements. A similar overall detriment from father absence has been reported by several investigators over the last two decades.
Dale J. Hu et al., "Healthcare Needs for Children of the Recently Homeless," Journal of Community Health, 14, 1989, 1-7; epitomized in The Family in America: New Research, November, 1989: "Homeless children are usually fatherless children as well. In a recent survey of thirty parents with children in a homeless shelter in San Diego, researchers talked with only two fathers and with relatively few married mothers. Nine of the homeless parents interviewed had never married, while ten were separated, divorced or widowed, making a total of 63 percent of the homeless parents interviewed who were living without a spouse."
James Coleman, "Educational Achievement: What We Can Learn from the Catholic Schools," Associates Memo, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, No. 15, November 4, l988: "It is important to remember that schools as we know them have never been very successful with weak families. These days many more families have become weak, either because they are single-parent families or because both parents are working and the family cannot devote sufficient time and attention to children."
Henry B. Biller and Richard S. Solomon, Child Maltreatment and Paternal Deprivation: A Manifesto for Research, Prevention and Treatment (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath and Company, 1986), p. 136: "[C]omparison of children who have from an early age been consistently deprived of paternal influence with those who have had actively and positively involved fathers clearly reveals that the former are generally less adequate in their functioning and development."
Ibid., p 151: "The first investigator to present data suggesting an intellectual disadvantage among father-absent children was Sutherland (l930). In an ambitious study involving Scottish children, he discovered that those who were father-absent scored significantly lower than did those who were father-present....A number of more recent and better controlled studies are also generally consistent with the supposition that father-absent children, at least from lower-class backgrounds, are less likely to function well on intelligence and aptitude tests than are father-present children....
"Maxwell (l96l) reported some evidence indicating that father-absence after the age of five negatively influences children's functioning on certain cognitive tasks. He analyzed the Wechsler Intelligence Test scores of a large group of eight-to-thirteen-year-old children who had been referred to a British psychiatric clinic. He found that children whose fathers had been absent since the children were five performed below the norms for their age on a number of subtests. Children who had become father-absent after the age of five had lower scores on tasks tapping social knowledge, perception of details, and verbal skills. Father-absence since the age of five was the only family background variable which was consistently related to subtest scores....Compared to father-present students, those who were father-absent performed at a lower level in terms of verbal, language, and total aptitude test scores.
"In a related investigation, Landy, Rosenberg, and Sutton-Smith (l969) found that father-absence had a particularly disruptive effect on the quantitative aptitudes of college females. Total father-absence before the age of ten was highly associated with a deficit in quantitative aptitude. Their findings also suggested that father-absence during the age period from three to seven may have an especially negative effect on academic aptitude....
"For both boys and girls, father-absence was associated with relatively low ability in perceptual-motor and manipulative-spatial tasks (block design and object assembly). Father-absent boys also scored lower than did father-present boys on the arithmetic subtest....In a study with black elementary-school boys, Cortes and Fleming (l968) also reported an association between father-absence and poor mathematical functioning."
Ibid., p 154: "The high father-present group was very superior to the other three groups. With respect to both grades and achievement test scores, the early father-absent boys were generally underachievers, the late father-absent boys and low father-present boys usually functioned somewhat below grade level, and the high father-present group performed above grade level.
"The early father-absent boys were consistently handicapped in their academic performance. They scored significantly lower on every achievement test index as well as in their grades....
"Santrock (l972) presented additional evidence indicating that early father-absence can have a significant debilitating effect on cognitive functioning. Among lower-class junior high and high school children, those who became father-absent before the age of five, and particularly before the age of two, generally scored significantly lower on measures of IQ (Otis Quick Test) and achievement (Stanford Achievement Test) that had been administered when they were in the third and sixth grades than did those from intact homes. The most detrimental effects occurred when father-absence was due to divorce, desertion, or separation, rather than to death....
"Hetherington, Cox and Cox...also reported data indicating that early father-absence can impede cognitive development. They found differences between the cognitive functioning of young boys (five- and six-year-olds) who had been father-absent for two years because of divorce and that of boys from intact families Boys from intact families scored significantly higher on the block design, mazes, and arithmetic subtests of the WIPSI as well as achieving higher Performance Scale Intelligence scores and marginally higher Full-Scale Intelligence scores. Other data from this study clearly suggest that the decreasing availability of the divorced fathers for their sons during the two years following the divorce was a major factor in these boys' lower level of performance compared with boys from intact families."
Ibid., p. 155: "There is evidence that early paternal deprivation has a cumulative impact as the child grows older. In her excellent review, Radin (l98l) noted several studies that indicated few if any cognitive differences associated with father-absence for black children entering first grade, but evidence of clear-cut superiority of father-present children by the later elementary-school years. Differences in academic performance as a function of variations in the quality of early father involvement seem to become more apparent as children grow older...."
Henry B. Biller, Father, Child and Sex Role (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath and Company, 1971), p. 57: "Investigators have found that among lower-class black children, those who are father-absent score lower on intelligence and achievement tests than do those who are father-present."
Ibid., p. 59: "Boys from high father-present families are more likely to actualize their intellectual potential than are boys from families in which the father is absent or relatively unavailable."
Ibid., p. 60: "Barclay and Cusumano's data [Barclay, A. G. and Cusumano, D., "Father-Absence, Cross-Sex Identity, and Field-Dependent Behavior in Male Adolescents." Child Development, l967, 38, 243-50] point to difficulties in analytical functioning being associated with father-absence. Using Witkin's rod and frame procedure, these investigators found that, among adolescent males, those who were father-absent were more field-dependent than those who were father-present. Field dependence relates to an inability to ignore irrelevant environmental cues in the analysis of certain types of problems."
Ibid., p. 63: "For example, among children in the lower class, father-absence usually intensifies lack of exposure to experiences linking intellectual activities with masculine interests. Many boys, in their intense efforts to view themselves as totally masculine, perceive intellectual tasks and school in general as feminine. When the school presents women as authority figures and makes strong demands for obedience and conformity, it is particularly antithetical to such boys' desperate attempts to feel masculine."
John Guidubaldi and Joseph D. Perry, "Divorce, Socioeconomic Status, and Children's Cognitive-Social Competence at School Entry," American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 54 (3). July, l984, 459-68: "The direction of the relationships indicates that children from single-parent homes tended to have significantly lower academic and personal-social competencies than did children from two-parent families....This study provides evidence that children from divorced family homes enter school with significantly less social and academic competence than those from intact families....[S]ingle-parent status resulting from divorce predicts poor academic and social school entry competence in addition to and independent of SES [socio-economic status]."
Rex Forehand, et al., "Adolescent Functioning as a Consequence of Recent Parental Divorce and the Parent-Adolescent Relationship," Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 8, [l987], 305-15; epitomized in The Family in America: New Research, June, l988: "University of Georgia researchers found that those from broken homes had greater difficulties both with their classes and with their relations with their peers. 'Adolescents from intact homes had higher grades and were perceived as more socially competent by teachers,' the authors report. Their explanation: 'When parents divorce, their use of effective monitoring and disciplinary procedures, as well as their positive relationship with their children, may diminish. As a consequence, the social competence and cognitive performance of the child...may deteriorate.'"
Patricia Moran and Allan Barclay, "Effects of Fathers' Absence on Delinquent Boys: Dependency and Hyper-masculinity," Psychological Reports 62 [l988], ll5-121; epitomized in The Family in America: New Research, June, l988: "[W]hen the father is absent from the home, young black males experience 'less internalization of society's norms.' Drs. Moran and Barclay suggest that it is precisely this 'lack of internalized norms' which may be responsible for 'behavior of an antisocial and delinquent nature.'
"Intriguingly, the new study found that black delinquents whose fathers were absent were 'more overtly masculine in their expressed interests and behavior' than were black adolescents whose fathers were present.' The authors speculate that 'delinquency represents defensive coping' among black youth who develop attitudes of 'hypermasculinity' to compensate for the absence of their fathers."
David H. Demo and Alan C. Acock, "The Impact of Divorce on Children," Journal of Marriage and the Family, 50 [August, 1988], 619-48; epitomized in The Family in America: New Research, November, 1988: "Young children, particularly boys, are hard hit by divorce. Children of various ages are disadvantaged in school performance. Children 'in disrupted families experience problems in peer relations, while adolescents in such families tend to be more active in dating and sexual relations.' And 'research on antisocial behavior consistently illustrates that adolescents in mother-only households and in conflict-ridden families are more prone to commit delinquent acts.'"
Gary Bauer, "Report to the President from the White House Working Group on the Family," quoted in Phyllis Schlafly Report, February, 1988: "A two-year study funded by Kent State, the William T. Grant Foundation and the National Association of School Psychologists, found that there were substantial differences between children of intact families and those of divorced families. "Children of divorce also are absent from school more frequently and are more likely to repeat a grade, to be placed in remedial reading classes and to be referred to a school psychologist,' says the study of 699 randomly chosen first, third and fifth graders in 38 states. In addition, John Guidubaldi, Professor of Early Childhood Education and director of the study, noted 'far more detrimental effects of divorce on boys than on girls. Disruptions in boys' classroom behavior and academic performance increased 'noticeably' throughout elementary school. Boys, he speculated, are much more affected by their parents' divorce because children fare better with single parents of the same sex, and 90 percent of all custody rights go to mothers."
Gilbert C. Hentschke [dean of the school of education, USC] and Lydia Lopez, co-chairpersons of the Education Working Group of the 2000 Partnership, Los Angeles Times, 30 August, 1989: "After several years of education reforms, it is more evident than ever that our Los Angeles public schools are failing....About 60% of the district's children come from impoverished families. While some poor children do succeed, poverty is closely correlated with failure, especially for children from single-parent families, according to a recent national study. The study also notes that poor students are three times more likely than others to become dropouts.
"These children who are failing swell the ranks of functionally illiterate adults (now estimated to be 20% of the population in Los Angeles County). They enter the economy at the bottom where they are likely to stay."
Henry Biller and Dennis Meredith, Father Power (Garden City, N. Y.: Anchor Books, 1975), p. 236: "The high father-present boys consistently received superior grades and performed above grade level on achievement tests. The late father-absent and low father-present boys scored a little below grade level on achievement tests. The lowest scores were achieved by the early father-absent group."
Maxine Thompson, Karl L. Alexander, and Doris R. Entwisle, "Household Composition, Parental Expectations, and School Achievement," Social Forces, 67, Dec., 1988, 424-451; epitomized in The Family in America: New Research, April, 1989: "Married black couples expect better school performance from their children than do single black parents--and their children respond accordingly. In a recent study conducted at the Johns Hopkins University and North Carolina State University, researchers found that black first-grade students from married-couple households outperform their peers from single-parent households....The researchers stress that these gaps cannot be explained by economic differences nor by any discernible differences in initial ability levels."
Frank J. Sciara, "Effects of Father Absence on the Educational Achievement of Urban Black Children," Child Study Journal, 5, No. 1, 1975, p. 45: "The analysis of variance revealed significant differences favoring the academic achievement of both boys and girls from father present homes in the two test areas. Father absence had a much greater effect on the achievement scores of boys and girls in this study whose IQ was above 100."
Ibid., p. 52: "From the analysis of the results, it would appear that for the 1,073 fourth grade Black children represented in this study, those from father present homes attained a significantly higher educational achievement level than those children from the same group coming from father absent homes.. This finding was consistent in both the reading and the arithmetic tests, affecting both boys and girls. When the group was analyzed by the three levels of IQ, the father absent children achieved lower reading and arithmetic scores than those from father present homes."
Betty Arras, California Monitor of Education [now National Monitor of Education], February, 1985: "As a kindergarten teacher in the late fifties in a ghetto school in Oakland, California, I can personally testify to the negative impact of the broken home upon school achievement and emotional stability. My observation shared by virtually all my colleagues in that school was that broken homes hurt children in every way--emotionally, academically, and socially. Obviously, there are children from single parent homes who grow up with few emotional scars but generally speaking, the elements for personality disintegration are more common in the broken home. Because of increasing numbers of families in which both parents work spending less time at home, children in both these and single-parent homes tend to experience a lack of nurturing. All children need psychological nourishment whether it be in the form of supporting them in their feelings, soothing their anxieties, helping them with homework, or just sharing conversation. What is frequently missing in the broken home is a lack of parental supervision which can result in feelings of isolation, excessive freedom or responsibility which the child cannot handle, and/or lack of attention and affection. In broken homes of the welfare variety there is the problem of no father figure with whom the sons can identity.
................................................................
"On February 5, ABC-TV national news aired the first in a series about violent crime in the cities. A New York City policeman who was interviewed pointed out that nearly all juveniles who commit violent crimes come from broken homes."
PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS
Neil Kalter, "Long-term Effects of Divorce on Children: A Developmental Vulnerability Model," American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 57 (4), October, l987: "A large national survey revealed that more than twice as many children of divorce, compared to youngsters from intact families, had seen a mental health professional. In a representative national sample, men and women who were l6 years of age or younger when their parents divorced reported significantly higher divorce rates, more work-related problems, and higher levels of emotional distress than did their counterparts who grew up in intact families. In addition to these rigorous cross-sectional studies, recent findings from two conceptually and methodologically diverse longitudinal research projects also indicate that divorce-related difficulties persist over time for many children....Clinical and research investigations have indicated that children of divorce constitute a population at risk for developing particular emotional, social, and behavioral problems that either persist or first appear years after the marital rupture. Prominent among these are aggressive and antisocial (externalizing) problems, sadness, depression, and self-esteem (internalizing) problems; and difficulty establishing and maintaining mutually enhancing heterosexual relationships."
Adelaide M. Johnson and S. A. Szurels, "The Genesis of Antisocial Acting Out in Children and Adults," Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 1952, 21: 323-343; quoted in Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: W. W. Norton, 1963), p. 297: "Regularly the more important parent--usually the mother, although the father is always in some way involved--has been seen unconsciously to encourage the amoral or antisocial behavior of the child. The neurotic needs of the parent...are vicariously gratified by the behavior of the child. Such neurotic needs of the parent exist either because of some current inability to satisfy them in the world of adults, or because of the stunting experiences in the parent's own childhood--or more commonly, because of a combination of both of these factors."
Carol Z. Garrison, "Epidemiology of Depressive Symptoms in Young Adolescents," Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 28, 1989, 343-351; epitomized in The Family in America: New Research, November, 1989: "Teens living in single-parent or step-family households are more likely to suffer from depression than teens living in intact families.... Persistent symptoms of depression showed up significantly less often among young teens living with both natural parents than among peers living with only one parent or with one parent and a stepparent."
John Beer, "Relation of Divorce to Self-Concepts and Grade Point Averages of Fifth Grade School Children," Psychological Reports, 65 [1989], 104-106; quoted in The Family in America: New Research, December, 1989: "Children from divorced homes score lower on self-concept than do children from nondivorced homes."
Berthold Berg and Lawrence A. Kurdek, "Children's Beliefs About Parental Divorce Scale: Psychometric Characteristics and Concurrent Validity," Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 55, [October, 1987], 712-18; epitomized in The Family in America: New Research, January, 1988: "In a recent study of 170 children (ranging in age from six to 17) with divorced parents, psychologists at the University of Dayton and Wright State University uncovered a disturbing pattern. The research team found that many of the children surveyed expressed one or more 'problematic beliefs' about their parents' divorce. Over one-fourth of the children blamed themselves for their parents' divorce and suffered 'low self-concepts.' Over one-fourth of children also harbored illusory hopes that 'once my parents realize how much I want them to, they'll live together again.' Approximately one-third express 'fear of abandonment' by their parents, a fear which actually appears higher among children whose divorced mothers have remarried than among children whose divorced mothers have not remarried."
Tony Campolo, "Too Old, Too Soon: The New Junior Higher," Youthworker, 4, [Spring, 1987], 20-25; epitomized in The Family in America: New Research, August, 1987: "...Dr. Compolo observes that young Americans now 'do things in their early teens that a generation ago were reserved for older high schoolers.' The primary reason for this 'transformation of junior highers,' he believes, is the 'diminishing presence of parents' in the lives of young adolescents. Because many of them live in single-parent homes or in two-income homes where both parents are 'out of their homes much of the time,' young teenagers are 'left with the freedom to do what they want to do.'...Dr. Campolo reports that many young teenagers become 'emotionally disturbed and psychologically disoriented' when given personal autonomy prematurely."
Carolyn Webster-Stratton, "The Relationship of Marital Support, Conflict and Divorce to Parent Perceptions, Behaviors, and Childhood Conduct Problems," Journal of Marriage and the Family, 51 [1989], 417-30, quoted in The Family in America: New Research, October, 1989: "Compared with the maritally distressed [households in which couples reported relatively unsatisfactory marriages] and supported [households in which mothers reported satisfactory marriages] mother groups, single mothers reported more parenting stress and perceived their children as having significantly more behavior problems."
Robert Zagar, et. al., "Developmental and Disruptive Behavior Disorders among Delinquents," Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 28 (1989), 437-440; epitomized in The Family in America: New Research, September, 1989: "Psychotic delinquents rarely come from intact families. Officials documented a familiar pattern in a recent survey of almost 2,000 children and adolescents referred by the Circuit Court of Cook County--Juvenile Division for psychiatric evaluation. This group of troubled children included 84 orphans (4 percent), 1,272 from single-parent homes (65 percent), 269 from stepparent families (14 percent) and just 331 from two-parent families (17 percent).
"As the court officials noted in reporting their findings, there was nothing new about the linkage between delinquency and broken homes."
Statement of William P. Wilson, M. D., Professor of Psychiatry, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, N. C. to the House Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families, 10 November, 1983; printed in Paternal Absence and Fathers' Roles, U. S. Government Printing Office, 1984, pp. 12ff.: "As you know, it is estimated that 40 percent of children born in America today will grow up in a broken home. In 1974 only 14 percent of children could anticipate this fate. At that time 18 million children experienced a disruption of parental relationship. Since 85 percent of the parents remarried, and of these 40 percent divorced a second time, a huge percentage of children could expect to experience the trauma of a broken home more than twice.
"These children are at risk psychiatrically. The risks are as follows: First, the child may become psychiatrically disturbed; second, that they may turn away from marriage as a satisfactory mode of human relationships; and third, the children of divorce can develop psychiatric disorders in later adult life that have as their origin the broken home which is at the least a contributing factor.
...............................................................
"Now, after children of divorce marry many problems arise in role modeling. Young men often have problems because the mother projects a variety of role models. Sometimes she has turned her son into a substitute husband. Other times she takes out all of her hostility and anger on him and attributes to him the same problems that his father had, the same personality patterns. If he tries to live up to her expectations he finds that it is beyond his capacity. Children of divorce also have poor impulse control.
"Many mothers feel incapable of administering firm discipline. If you have a 6 foot 2 son and the mother is 5 foot 4, it is difficult for her to discipline that child and deal with him in a way that is effective.
"Since the behavior of parents before, during, and after divorce most often reflects a disparate value system, the child also grown up with poorly defined values.
"In the past our interest has been in comparing the homelife of normal people with people with mental problems. We came to the conclusion that normal people come from homes where there is a stable, harmonious marriage of the parents, where there is love and order in the home, where there is administration of consistent and just discipline, where roles are well defined, and where the presentation of a traditional value system is presented, and where there is a philosophy to live by, this gives some structure to their thinking and to their lives.
"The studies of people like Grinker, Valliant and ourselves have clearly demonstrated the influence of these particular basic principles of home life.
"In contrast, the observations of Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck of people who have been delinquent--have clearly demonstrated that you can grow up in the ghetto, and if you have a well-structured home life, your chances of being a normal person and being out of that ghetto in a few years--is extremely high. Whereas if you grow up in a broken home with an harassed mother where value systems are poorly presented and where discipline is often harsh and unjust and inconsistent, you will grow up to be delinquent. At the end of 20 years' followup, you will still be delinquent and still living in the ghetto.
"The same thing can be said to be true about heroin addicts and alcoholics. In our study of over 450 alcoholics and 80 heroin addicts--we found that the absent father is a very common phenomenon. As a matter of fact, it is the rule rather than the exception.
..............................................................
"We find also that there is enormous distortion in the structure of the homes of manic depressive patients and schizophrenic patients. There father operates in roles which are grossly distorted. Many times they are emotionally absent.
"In a different version, Frances Welsing had emphasized that the biggest problem facing blacks in America today is the absence of the father from the home and the role reversals found in the black family. Her observations now are beginning to apply equally to all families, whether they are black or white or other racial origins.
.................................................................
"Finally I would add that we also have looked at the family structure of abused children who have grown up. Most of these children are now what we call borderline personality disorders. They too often have a father who is in and out of the home or is not available on a consistent basis.
"Now, just to summarize what I had to say, and I did not prepare any long statements because I think the data and the literature speaks for itself. The absence of the father from the home has the following effects on a growing child:
"After the second year of life it profoundly distorts the development of normal role assumption. A person really does not come to know who he is within his own sex. Second, it is a primary cause of low self-esteem....[Coopersmith's] work and the work of Rosenberg has shown that the father's presence in the home is an absolute necessity for the development of good self-esteem in males. Our own studies have demonstrated quite clearly that it is also necessary for the mother to be in the home for a female to develop good self-esteem.
"Third, it created a model of separation and/or divorce for the management of marital conflict in their own lives as they become adults.
"Fourth, it also distorts values development so that the child has a tendency to adopt peer values rather than the conventional values of the parent with whom they continue to live. We find this very frequently among heroin addicts and alcoholics."
Ibid., p. 97: "[A]bout half of the kids who come from broken homes end up with a broken home fairly promptly after they contract their first marriage."
Ibid., pp. 79ff.: Statement of Henry B. Biller, Ph.D, Professor of Psychology, University of Rhode Island to House Committee on Children, Youth, and Families, 10 November, 1984: "There is much evidence that paternally deprived children are more at risk for cognitive and behavioral adjustment difficulties and are more vulnerable to negative developmental influences than are adequately fathered children.
................................................................. "Father-absent males seem particularly likely to develop insecurity in their self-concept and sexuality. There is some evidence that males are more affected by father absence than are females, but there is a growing body of research which supports the conclusion that by adolescence, females are at least as much influenced in their interpersonal and heterosexual development by father absence as are males.
"Research points to a particularly high frequency of early and continuing father absence among emotionally disturbed children and adults. Of course, in some cases constitutionally atypical children contribute to the development of marital stress, conflict and parental separation.
"Some data indicate that individuals who suffered early father loss because of their father's death are more likely to show symptoms of inhibition, lack of assertiveness, anxiety and depression, but are less likely to have the cognitive, academic and impulse control problems often found in children of divorced parents.
..............................................................
"Much of the interest in paternal deprivation has been an outcome of growing concern with the psychological, social and economic disadvantages often suffered by fatherless children. There is much evidence that paternally-deprived children are more at-risk for cognitive and behavioral adjustment difficulties, and are more vulnerable to negative developmental influences than are adequately fathered children.
...............................................................
"Father absence before the age of four or five appears to have a more disruptive effect on the individual's personality development than does father absence beginning at a later period. For example, children who become father absent before the age of four or five are likely to have more difficulties in their sex role and sexual adjustment than either father-present children or children who become father-absent at a later time. Father-absent males seem particularly likely to develop insecurity in their self-concept and sexuality even though they may strive to be highly masculine in more manifest aspects of their behavior.
"Other data have indicated that early father absence is often associated with difficulties in intellectual and academic functioning (particularly analytical and quantitative abilities), a low level of independence and assertiveness in peer relations, feelings of inferiority and mistrust of others, antisocial and delinquent behavior, and difficulties in later occupational performance.
............................................................
"Both boys and girls need to learn how to relate with adult males. Many children who are paternally deprived become enmeshed in a cycle of difficulty in establishing intimate relationships that continues into adulthood and interferes with the development of a stable family life. The experience of divorce is likely to be a family heirloom that extends into the next generation. Growing up with divorced parents does relate to increased risks in development, although certainly some children who have been subjected to divorce, and broken homes, strive and succeed as adults to have very stable, positive marital and family relationships.
"But in a general way there may be a kind of generation-to-generation effect relating to the divorce experience not only in disadvantaged families, but also among the affluent."
Ibid., pp. 86ff., Statement of Michael E. Lamb, Professor, Department of Psychology, Psychiatry and Pediatrics, University of Utah to House Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families, 10 November, 1984: "As Dr. Biller reported, it appears in general that boys whose fathers are absent, usually due to divorce, tend to manifest problems in the areas of achievement, motivation, school performance, psychological adjustment, and heterosexual relationships. They also tend to manifest less stereotypically masculine sex roles and may have difficulties in the areas of self-control and aggression.
"The effects seem to be most marked when the father's absence begins early, and at least some effects can be ameliorated by having substitute relationships with males such as stepfathers, grandfathers, and so on. At least in the areas of sex role and achievement, the effects of psychological father absence appear qualitatively similar to, although quantitatively less than, the effects of physical father absence.
"The effects of father absence on girls have been less thoroughly studied and appear to be less severe than the effects on boys. Problems in heterosexual relationships may emerge in adolescence even though, as in boys, the effects again are more severe when father absence began earlier.
Ibid., p. 111. Statement of David W. Bahlmann, Executive Vice President of Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America, and Chair of the National Collaboration for Youth: "Present research indicates that children from one-parent homes show lower achievement and present more discipline problems than do their peers. It also shows that they tend to be absent from school more often, late to school more often, and may show more health problems than do their peers."
Ibid., p. 128. Statement of Rev. Herman Heade, Jr., National Director of Urban Affairs and Church Relations, Prison Fellowship, Washington,D.C.: "[P]aternally deprived individuals are overrepresented among individuals with psychological problems."
Heather Munroe Blum, et al., "Single Parent Families: Academic and Psychiatric Risk," Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 27 [1988], 214-219; epitomized in The Family in America: New Research, July, 1988: "The children of broken homes are frequently emotionally disturbed and academically incompetent. In a new study of nearly 3,000 Canadian children (ages 4-16), researchers found that 'children with psychiatric disorder are 1.7 times more likely to be from a single-parent family than a two-parent family.' One major disturbance--'conduct disorder'--was found to be well over twice as common in children of single parents. The same children who are suffering emotionally are also suffering educationally: 'single-parent children are 1.7 times as likely to demonstrate poor school performance as are two-parent children.'
"Perhaps fearful of antagonizing some feminists, the authors suggest that it is poverty, not divorce and illegitimacy, that is the cause of the children's problems. They state that, when household income is allowed for, single-parent family status 'does not have a significant independent relationship with either child psychiatric disorder or poor school performance, except in particular subgroups'(emphasis added). But the list of 'particular subgroups' who suffer in one-parent homes regardless of income turns out to be surprisingly inclusive: "rural children, girls, and older boys.' Since when were girls merely a 'particular subgroup' of the young population? Furthermore, the authors concede, 'the younger boys might also develop problems' in later years."
Richard Polanco, Los Angeles Times, 7 May, 1989: "As of 1988, more than 35,000 adolescents nationwide were in psychiatric treatment in the private sector. This figure has doubled since 1980, and the numbers are growing....The absence of involvement of the father in so many post-divorce families, coupled with the overburdened state of many single mothers, seems at least partly responsible for the prevalence of externalizing, aggressive behavior problems among children of divorce."
Elyce Wakerman, Father Loss: Daughters Discuss the Man that Got Away (Garden City, N. Y: Doubleday, 1984), p. l09: "A study of teenage girls by Dr. E. Mavis Hetherington revealed that daughters of divorced parents had lower self-esteem than those of intact or widowed families. By aligning with mother's anger, they may have blunted the reconciliation wish, but it was at the cost of their own self-image. Describing the self-defeating pattern, Deidre Laiken writes, 'Being one with Mother means relinquishing our natural and necessary longings for Father...[But] low self-esteem is a natural and very evident result of a merger with the...parent who was left...' Identifying with the rejected female, as most daughters of divorce do, has two other, far-reaching influences on the young girl's developing attitudes. First, she may incorporate her mother's bitterness and distrust of men. And she is reluctant to succeed where her mother has failed. Having lost her father, she is acutely dependent on her mother's continued affection, and to surpass her in the romantic arena would be to risk separation from her one remaining parent."
Ibid., p. 169: "It is little wonder that fatherless girls are visibly anxious around men. In fact, both fatherless groups in the Hetherington study scored a higher overall anxiety level on the Manifest Anxiety Scale than did girls with fathers at home. Craving male attention, they are equally resolved to remain invulnerable. They would like to be loved, without the threat posed by loving. That way, the need for approval may be safely gratified and the attachment to father unrelinquished."
Sara McLanahan and Larry Bumpass, "Intergenerational Consequences of Family Disruption," American Journal of Sociology 4 [July, l988], l30-52; epitomized in The Family in America: New Research, October, l988: "In a new study at the University of Wisconsin, sociologists found that daughters raised in single-parent households do not do well in building successful family life as adults. A particularly striking pattern emerged among white women who had lived in a single-parent family created through divorce or illegitimacy. Compared to white women raised in intact families, these women were '53 percent more likely to have teenage marriages, 111 percent more likely to have teenage births, l64 percent more likely to have premarital births, and 92 percent more likely to experience marital disruptions.' Overall, 'there appears to be some lower family orientation associated with one-parent childhood experience.'...The study concludes that the present upheaval in the American family is liable to have aftershocks which will be felt for generations to come: 'More than half of today's children will have had family experiences that are likely to have negative consequences for their
subsequent marital and fertility life courses.'"
Alfred A. Messer, "Boys' Father Hunger: The Missing Father Syndrome," Medical Aspects of Human Sexuality, 23, January, 1989, 44-47, epitomized in The Family in America: New Research, July, 1989: "Nightmares often trouble the sleep of young boys who have lost their fathers. A psychiatrist at Northside Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, Alfred A. Messer describes 'father hunger' as 'the newest syndrome described by child psychiatrists.' Dr. Messer reports that this syndrome, which occurs in boys ages 18 to 36 months, 'consists primarily of sleep disturbances, such as trouble falling asleep, nightmares, and night terrors, and coincides with the recent loss of the father due to divorce or separation....In boys who exhibit the father-hunger syndrome, these sleep disturbances usually begin within one to three months after the father leaves home.'
"Young boys suffer from troubled sleep because of 'the abrupt loss of a father' during a 'critical period of gender development.' Dr. Messer explains that 'children recognize the difference between maleness and femaleness as early as 14 months of age' and that between the ages of 18 to 36 months, a young boy 'learns to establish his physical and gender role identity.' 'If the young boy is deprived of the father's presence, the result can be deeply traumatic,' Messer emphasizes. When the father is absent, the young boy may 'remain in a prolonged state of dependence on the mother, with "sissy" behavior often a concomitant.'"
Henry Biller, Father, Child and Sex Role (Lexington, Mass: D. C. Heath and Company, 1971), p. 3: "In a very thorough investigation, Stolz et al. [Stolz, L. M., et al. Father Relations of War-Born Children. Stanford: Stanford University Press, l954] gathered data concerning four- to eight-year-old children who from approximately the first two years of their lives had been separated from their fathers. Interview results revealed that the previously father-separated boys were generally perceived by their fathers as being 'sissies.' Careful observation of these boys supported this view. They were less assertively aggressive and independent in their peer relations than boys who had not been separated from their fathers; they were more often observed to be very submissive or to react with immature hostility."
Ibid., pp. 6f.: "A study of lower-class fifth grade boys by Santrock [Santrock, J. W., "Influence of Onset and Type of Paternal Absence on the First Four Eriksonian Developmental Crises," Developmental Psychology, l970, 3, 273-4.] revealed that boys who became father-absent before the age of two were more handicapped in terms of several dimensions of personality development than were boys who became father-absent at a later age. For example, boys who became father-absent before age two were found to be less trusting, less industrious, and to have more feelings of inferiority than boys who became father-absent between the ages of three to five. The impact of early paternal deprivation is also supported by Carlsmith's findings [Carlsmith, L., "Effect of Early Father-Absence on Scholastic Aptitude," Harvard Educational Review, l964, 34, 3-21] concerning cognitive functioning. Additional evidence is consistent with the supposition that early father-absence is associated with a heightened susceptibility to a variety of psychological problems."
Ibid., p. 14: "However, many boys separated from their fathers between the ages of 6 and 12 exhibited a feminine-aggressive pattern of behavior. A feminine-aggressive pattern of behavior can be a consequence of sex-role conflict and insecurity. It is interesting that Tiller [Tiller, P. O., "Father-Absence and Personality Development of Children in Sailor Families," Nordisk Psyckologi's Monograph Series, 1958, 9, 1-48] described a somewhat similar pattern of behavior for Norwegian father-separated boys."
Ibid., p. 18: "Comparisons of father-absent and father-present boys suggested that availability of the father is an important factor in the masculine development of young boys. There is evidence that the young father-absent boy is more dependent, less aggressive, and less competent in peer relationships than his father-present counterpart. He seems likely to have an unmasculine self-concept."
Ibid., p. 65: "In societies in which fathers have little contact with their young children, there is more of a tendency to blame others and/or supernatural beings for one's illness. Blaming one's self for illness was strongest in nuclear households and least in polygamous mother-child households. Such evidence is also consistent with the view that paternal deprivation can inhibit the development of trust in others."
Ibid., p. 65: "Father-absent boys consistently scored lower than father-present boys on a variety of moral indexes. They scored lower on measures of internal moral judgement, guilt following transgressions, acceptance of blame, moral values, and rule-conformity."
Ibid., p. 65: "A number of clinicians including Aichorn [Aichorn, A., Wayward Youth, New York: Viking Press, l935] and Lederer [Lederer, W. "Dragons, Delinquents, and Destiny," Psychological Issues, l964, 4, (Whole No. 3)] have speculated about inadequacies in the conscience development of the father-absent boy. In his experience as a psychotherapist, Meerloo [Meerloo, J. A. M., "The Father Cuts the Cord: The Role of the Father as Initial Transference Figure," American Journal of Psychotherapy, l956, l0, 471-80] found that a lack of accurate time perception is also common among father-absent children. Meerloo assumed that the father represents social order and that his adherence to time schedules gives the child an important lesson in social functioning. The paternally deprived boy may find it very difficult to follow the rules of society. Antisocial acts are often impulsive as well as aggressive, and there is evidence that inability to delay gratification is associated with inaccurate time perception, lack of social responsibility, low achievement motivation, and juvenile delinquency....the father-absent boy may lack a model from whom to learn to delay gratification and to control his aggressive and destructive impulses. A boy who has experienced paternal deprivation may have particular difficulty in respecting and communicating with adult males in positions of authority. There is some evidence that perceived similarity to father is related to positive relationships with authority figures....The boy whose father has set limits for him--in a nurturant and realistic manner--is better able to set limits for himself. Investigators have found that boys who receive appropriate and consistent discipline from their fathers are less likely to commit delinquent acts even if they are gang members."
Irma Moilanen and Paula Rantakallio, "The Single Parent Family and the Child's Mental Health," Social Science and Medicine, 27 [l988], l8l-6; epitomized in The Family in America: New Research, October, l988: "The evidence mounts that children without two parents are much more likely to develop psychiatric problems....Finnish researchers found that children from single-parent homes were at significantly greater risk from most psychiatric disorders than children from intact homes. Those who had only one parent through the child's life were at greatest risk: boys were three times as likely to be disturbed as their counterparts from intact families, and girls were four times as likely to be disturbed. Nor was the harm strictly mental."
Patricia Cohen and Judith Brook, "Family Factors Related to the Persistence of Pshchopathology in Childhood and Adolescence," Psychiatry 50 [November, 1987]: 332-345; quoted in The Family in America, April, 1988: "One-parent families and families with multiple marital disruptions are apparently unable to mount effective means of counteracting pathological reactions that have developed in their children."
R. G. Robertson, et al., "The Female Offender: A Canadian Study," Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 32 [December, 1987], 749-755; epitomized in The Family in America, April, 1988: "Two thirds had children, but almost as many had never been married, and less than one in 10 was married at the time of her arrest. The majority...were single or divorced mothers. Most came from broken homes...."
Viktor Gecas, "Born in the USA in the 1980's: Growing Up in Difficult Times," Journal of Family Issues 8 [December, 1987], 434-436; epitomized in The Family in America: New Research, July, 1988: "'What are the consequences of these family trends [rising levels of divorce, illegitimacy and maternal employment] for child rearing? Not good. At the very least, these trends suggest decreasing contact between parents and children, and decreasing parental involvement in child rearing....Poor cognitive and emotional development, low self-esteem, low self-efficiency, antisocial behavior, and pathologies of various kinds are some of the consequences.'
"Professor Gecas blames family breakdown for the disturbing levels of drug use, teen pregnancy, teen suicide, delinquency, and academic failure now found in America. Nothing, he urges, could be more important than to strengthen the family 'if the next generation is to have much of a chance.'"
Richard Dalton, et al., "Psychiatric Hospitalization of Preschool Children: Admission Factors and Discharge Implications," Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 26, No. 3 [May, 1987], 308-12; epitomized in The Family in America: New Research, August, 1987: "When preschoolers end up in psychiatric wards, they typically come from homes where there is no father and where the mother is herself mentally disturbed....In assessing the 'family situation' of all of the preschool children admitted to the psychiatric units of two New Orleans hospitals over a 34-month period, [Dalton's] study found a depressingly uniform pattern. When preschool autistic patients were excluded from the sample, it was found that the fathers were not living in the homes of almost 80 percent of the preschool patients and that the mothers suffered with 'major psychiatric disorders' in over 90 percent of the homes. The authors of the study observe that 'the data reflect the fact that most of the preschoolers were hospitalized because their severe symptoms could be neither contained nor successfully treated within their disturbed and unsupported family settings.'"
Boris M. Segal, "A Borderline Style of Functioning--the Role of Family, Society and Heredity: An Overview," Child Psychiatry and Human Development, 18 [Summer, 1988], 219-238; epitomized in The Family in America: New Research, November, 1988: "According to psychiatrist Boris M. Segal, the 'borderline style of functioning' (a diagnosis used 'to describe conditions which lie between psychosis and neurosis') should be understood as a symptom of a broader social malaise. Dr. Segal concludes that 'borderline organization' is increasing among Americans in part because of the 'decline of paternal authority.' 'The decline of the father-centered family...has left children to develop their own standards of behavior. This new freedom has been conducive...to such modern phenomena as lack of discipline and lack of a feeling of duty, overindulgence, narcissism, hedonism, sexual permissiveness, intolerance to frustration, [and] sex role confusion....All these behavioral patterns meet certain criteria of borderline organization.' Dr. Segal observes that 'disorganization of the family lead[s] to the loss of its protective functions....Children who have been brought up in "broken homes"...tend to develop a high rate of borderline pathology.'"
Irwin Garfinkel and Sara S. McLanahan, Single Mothers and Their Children: A New American Dilemma (Washington, D. C.: The Urban Institute Press, 1986), pp. 1f.: "Half of all American children born today will spend part of their childhood in a family headed by a mother who is divorced, unwed, or widowed....About half of them are poor and dependent on welfare. The mothers and children in such families also have poorer than average mental health and use a disproportionate share of community mental health services. Most important, perhaps, compared with children who grow up in two-parent (husband-wife) families, the children from mother-only families are less successful on average when they become adults. They are more likely to drop out of school, to give birth out of wedlock, to divorce or separate, and to become dependent on welfare."
Paul G. Shane, "Changing Patterns Among Homeless and Runaway Youth," American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 59, 1989, 208-214; epitomized in The Family in America: New Research, July, 1989: "Teenagers who turn to state officials for shelter typically come from broken families. In a recent study of over 500 homeless and runaway youth in New Jersey, Paul Shane of Rutgers University discovered a clear pattern implicating 'family breakdown as a major cause of homelessness among youth.' Professor Shane found that a remarkably low 14 percent of the youth in his study come from 'a family with both biological parents.'"
Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: W. W. Norton, 1963), p. 288: "[I]n recent years the "symbiosis" concept has crept with increasing frequency into the case histories of disturbed children. More and more of the new child pathologies seem to stem from that very symbiotic relationship with the mother, which has somehow kept children from becoming separate selves. These disturbed children seem to be 'acting out' the mother's unconscious wishes or conflicts--infantile dreams she had not outgrown or given up, but was still trying to gratify for herself in the person of her child....Thus, it would seem, it is the child who supports life in the mother in that 'symbiotic' relationship, and the child is virtually destroyed in the process."
HEALTH PROBLEMS
Ronald Angel and Jacqueline Lowe Worebey, "Single Motherhood and Children's Health," Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 29 [March, 1988], 38-52; epitomized in The Family in America: New Research, July, 1988: "[S]ingle mothers report poorer health in their children than do mothers in intact marriages. The authors cite a number of factors to account for this disparity. Living in poverty, many children of single mothers decline in health because of simple deprivation. Because many were low-birth-weight babies, they suffer from chronic illnesses. And some may be developing psychosomatic illnesses owing to the general misery of their lives."
Nicholas Eberstadt, researcher at Harvard's University's Center for Population Studies and the American Enterprise Institute, Los Angeles Times, 3 November, 1989: "An enormous--and growing--number of American children suffer from a serious health threat inflicted on them by their parents. Bluntly put, their health is at risk because they have been born out of wedlock.
"In some circles, it is fashionable to see illegitimacy merely as an 'alternataive life style,' as good as any other. From the standpoint of the children in question, this view is tragically wrongheaded. Illegitimacy, and the parental behavior that accompanies it, directly endangers the newborn and may even cost a baby its life....
"Indeed, if it were a medical condition rather than a social disorder, illegitimacy would be seen as one of the leading killers of children in America today."
Sara A. Mullett, et al., "A Comparison of Birth Outcomes by Payment Source," Minnesota Medicine, 72, [June, 1988], 365-69; Wilma Bailey, "Child Morbidity in the Kingston Metropolitan Area, Jamaica 1983," Social Science and Medicine, 26 [1988], 1117-1124; both articles epitomized in The Family in America: New Research, October, 1988: "In a new study at the University of Minnesota, researchers found that an infant's birth weight depends heavily on the mother's marital status. 'Single women,' they reported, 'had smaller infants, with a mean birth weight of 3,192 grams as compared with 3,534 grams for infants of married women.'
..............................................................
"Mothers in Jamaica confront much harsher economic challenges than those in Minnesota. Yet in a recent study in Kingston, Jamaica, geographer Wilma Bailey at the University of the West Indies found a parallel pattern of impaired health among children in female-headed households compared to children in two-parent households. Dr. Bailey found a statistical correlation between the percentage of female-headed households in any given area and the hospital admissions of children in that same area. Her findings suggest 'that the children of young, unemployed and single women may be particularly vulnerable' to ill health and malnutrition. Dr. Bailey interprets her work in light of American studies which have 'documented the vulnerability of families of female-headed households in the U.S.A.'"
Lorian Baker and Dennis P. Cantwell, "Factors Associated with the Development of Psychiatric Illness in Children with Early Speech/Language Problems," Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 17 [1987], 499-507; epitomized in The Family in America: New Research, July, 1988: "Children with speech problems, according to a growing body of evidence, are at risk of developing psychiatric problems. Now a new study suggests that broken homes are causing or aggravating speech-related problems. Researchers from the University of California at Los Angeles studied 600 children who were patients at a Los Angeles speech clinic, finding half of them to be psychiatrically ill. While the background of the ill children differed little from the mentally healthy in most respects--gender, parental education and occupation, birth order, language background, etc.--one distinction stood out: the 'ill' children were nearly twice as likely to have unmarried parents."
DRUGS
Judith A. Stein, et al., "An 8-Year Study of Multiple Influences on Drug Use and Drug Use Consequences," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, No. 6 [December, 1987], 1094-1105; epitomized in The Family in America, March, 1988: "[N]ewer research...suggests that the family is often the most important factor in whether or not a teenager abuses drugs. In an eight-year study of 654 young people, psychologists at the University of California at Los Angeles found that early parental influence--especially parental drug use--'exerted a potent and pervasive influence on a teenager that apparently continues for many years into adulthood.' The authors also suggest that 'inadequate family structure and a lack of positive familial relationships' often lead to 'substance use...as a coping mechanism to relieve depression and anxiety.' The study stresses that parental divorce can often foster teen rebelliousness, which leads to poor selection of friends and to social perceptions conducive to drug use."
Bryce Christensen, "From Home Life to Prison Life: The Roots of American Crime," The Family in America, April, 1989, pp. 5f.: "In two new studies on drug use conducted at the University of California at Los Angeles, researchers have provided new evidence of the importance of the family. In 1987, UCLA psychologists published an eight-year study of 654 young people. Their findings demonstrate that 'inadequate family structure and a lack of positive familial relationships' often caused young people to use drugs as 'a coping mechanism to relieve depression and anxiety.' The authors also stressed that parental divorce can foster teen rebelliousness, leading to poor selection of friends and self-destructive attitudes. In a different study published just last year, UCLA psychiatrists examined drug use among 443 young people, concluding that paternal authority was decisive. In families with strict fathers, only 18 percent of the youth studied used drugs and alcohol, compared to 27 percent where fathers were less strict and 40 percent in homes with permissive fathers. Frequent drug use occurred in 35 percent of mother-dominant homes. Overall, the UCLA researchers concluded that 'with regard to youthful drug use, fathers' involvement is more important' than mothers'."
Clarence Lusane, staff aide to Rep. Walter Fauntroy, and Dennis Desmond, staff aide to D. C. Counmcilmember Hilda Mason, The Guardian, 25 October, 1989: "Women, particularly women of color, are disproportionately victimized by the drug epidemic. For the first time, health officials see more women drug users than men. In New York, Washington, D.C., Kansas City and Portland, women outnumber men in drug abuse. Girls as young as 12 trade sex for crack as prostitutes in crack houses.
"This has led directly to the rise in boarder babies--abandoned babies born of drug-addicted parents. According to the Wall Street Journal, about 375,000 babies a year are born exposed to drugs. D.C. General, Harlem Hospital and other hospitals nationally have opened prenatal clinics for women addicts. At some Washington, D.C. hospitals, 40% of women having babies are drug addicts. This has resulted in the highest infant mortality rate in the nation at 32 per 1000 live births. In central Harlem, 21% of all pregnant crack users receive no prenatal care. Howard University hospital had no boarder babies until May, 1988; this year it had 21 in one week, five with AIDS.
"These infants' care costs $100,000 each per year. More than half of these babies develop smaller heads and smaller abdomens. They sometimes suffer strokes in the womb. Boarder babies stay in the hospital an average of 42 days while the normal stay is three days. At the human level, these children will probably grow up without love or closeness."
Carmen N. Velez and Jane A. Ungemack, "Drug Use Among Puerto Rican Youth: An Exploration of Generational Status Differences," Social Science and Medicine 29, 1989, 779-89; epitomized in The Family in America: New Research, November, 1989: "Researchers from Columbia University and the University of Puerto Rico recently took a hard look at the drug problem among Puerto Rican youth in Puerto Rico and in New York City. They discovered more drug use among Puerto Rican students living in non-intact households than among students living in intact homes. Among students living in a nonintact household, three quarters live in female-headed households, suggesting to the researchers that greater vulnerability to drug use may be one 'effect of living in a female-headed family.'"
CHILD ABUSE
Los Angeles Times, 16 December, 1986: "Child molesters have a stronger relationship to their mothers during childhood than rapists do, a study of sex offenders suggests.
"Researchers at the North Florida Evaluation and Treatment Center interviewed 64 convicted sex offenders--21 rapists and 43 child molesters, Psychiatric News has reported.
"'Whereas the general pattern with both groups is characterized by a lack of fathering,' the study said, 'the pattern of the child molester is characterized by a singular degree of closeness and attachment to the mother.
"'Almost 83% of this group claimed to have had a close or very close relationship with their mothers.'"
L. Mitchel, "Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities: A Review of the Problem and Strategies for Reform," Working Paper 838. Monograph of the National Center on Child Abuse Prevention Research, National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse, Chicago, Illinois, 1987, p. 6; quoted in R. L. McNeely and Gloria Robinson-Simpson, "The Truth About Domestic Violence Revisited: A Reply to Saunders," Social Work, March/April, 1988, p. 186: "Active victims are typically males, under two years of age, living in low socioeconomic status families with multiple young siblings, and who die at the hands of a single mother."
Terrence Cooley, Inter-Office Communication, County of Milwaukee, "AFDC/Child Abuse Information," [11 September, 1989]; epitomized in The Family in America: New Research, December, 1989: "Child abuse typically occurs in impoverished single-parent households. In a recent survey, social-service officials established that of all 1,050 ongoing substantiated child abuse and neglect cases in Milwaukee County in May 1989, 83 percent involved households receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). Since AFDC goes predominantly to single-parent households (generally the households of unmarried mothers), this survey reveals a remarkably high risk of child abuse in such homes. This new survey also clarifies the great difficulty of curtailing child abuse without reducing illegitimacy and divorce."
Richard J. Gelles and Murray Straus, Intimate Violence: The Causes and Consequences of Abuse in the American Family (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988), p. 112: "One skeptical reader of our study, Frederick Green, noted that he was seeing more child abuse now than ten years ago. Since he also reported that he sees a largely minority, single-parent, and poor population, this is not surprising."
Henry B. Biller and Richard S. Solomon, Child Maltreatment and Paternal Deprivation: A Manifesto for Research, Prevention and Treatment (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1986), pp. 21f.: "Upwards of 25 percent of children in our society do not have a father living at home. Children in such families are overrepresented in terms of reported cases of physical abuse and other forms of child maltreatment."
Persuasion at Work, August, l985: "The constant media focus on abusive parents from intact, suburban families belies the fact that a greatly disproportionate number of the serious physical abuse cases are found in the otherwise celebrated 'female-headed families,' commonly involving the illegitimate father or mother's current boy friend."
Los Angeles Times, l6 September, l985: "Most [victims of child molestation] were from single parent families or were the children of [pedophile] ring members."
There has arisen a murmuring and a discontent among academic feminists who sense a threat to the feminist/sexual revolution in the public's awareness of the social pathology of female-headed families, a pathology whose existence they would like to deny. According to Terry Arendell,
This is like saying that pygmies are no shorter than other people with whom they have been matched for height. "After controlling for socioeconomic variables" means after leaving out most of the evidence. Arendell wants to limit her comparison to female-headed homes where divorce or illegitimacy does not produce economic deterioration and lowered standards of living. But the whole thrust of her book and of Lenore Weitzman's Divorce Revolution and of half a library of other feminist literature is that divorce, father-absence and illegitimacy do lower the standard of living of ex-wives and "their" children; so Arendell is saying that there is no deterioration in school achievement, social adjustment, etc.--except in almost every case.
Arendell's framing of her assertion contains the suggestio falsi that the problem of single women is wholly economic and that therefore it can be solved by further amercing the ex-husband or ex-boyfriend who, for the purpose of making him justifiably amerceable, must be misrepresented (by the gerrymandering of evidence discussed in Chapter VIII) as enriched by divorce or non-marriage.
What she is here acknowledging is that money, a good thing, commonly keeps company with other good things--high status, high educational achievement, social stability and so forth. She explains what happens when these good things are expelled along with Dad:
The children suffer both paternal and maternal deprivation--paternal deprivation inflicted by Mom's throwing Dad out of the house, maternal deprivation by Mom's absenting herself as a wage earner because she no longer has Dad as a provider.
"There is," say Henry B. Biller and Richard S. Solomon,
According to Elizabeth Herzog and Cecilia Sudia,
No one would assert the father's presence is indispensable to the proper socializing of children. Many single mothers do an excellent job of child-rearing on their own or with the assistance of a father-surrogate. So do many orphan asylums. What the evidence cited in the Annex shows is that there exists an ominous correlation between father-absence and delinquency. Herzog and Sudia maintain merely that the correlation is less than one hundred percent--which is unquestionable, but irrelevant.
The same faulty logic occurs in the following:
No one would suppose the father was the "only" source or that his absence "necessarily" impaired the boy's masculine identity. No one would suppose, in other words, that there existed a hundred percent correlation between father-absence and impaired masculinity in sons. But having thus triumphantly disproved what was never asserted, Herzog and Sudia affect to believe that they have disproved what is asserted, that there exists a significant correlation between father absence and impaired masculinity in sons.
They continue:
The correlations established in the Annex show that the father's presence is often not merely "another factor," but the most relevant factor, that the absence of the father often means the absence of more competent supervision and its replacement by less competent supervision. Herzog and Sudia's argument is comparable to saying that the absence of the father's paycheck is not as important as "other factors" such as adequate income. It is the father's paycheck which commonly provides the adequate income children need; and it is the father' socialization which commonly provides the competent supervision children need.
It is often, say Herzog and Sudia,
They had better be. The intertwining of family factors and SES is an essential part of the patriarchal system, which motivates males to create wealth, in exchange for which it guarantees them a secure family role. It is for this reason that families must be headed by fathers and why fathers must not permit their paychecks to be taken from them for the purpose of subsidizing ex-wives and fatherless families.
According to the feminist sociologists Patricia Van Voorhis, Francis T. Cullen, Richard A. Mathers and Connie Chenoweth Garner, "Marital status (single versus two-parent home) and marital conflict were weak predictors of delinquency." No one would suppose otherwise. The correlation between broken home and delinquency is nowhere near high enough to predict that a particular child from such a home will become delinquent--any more than the Highway Patrol can predict which drunk will have an accident. What can be predicted is that children from broken homes will be overrepresented in the class of delinquents and that people who drink will be overrepresented among those who have accidents. Assertions that evidence concerning the problems of fatherlessness "are a dubious predictor...most of these studies...typically show overprediction of problems" are irrelevant.
Herzog and Sudia's insistence that father-absence is not of primary importance because "other factors are more important, especially competent supervision of the child and general family climate or harmony" is inconsistent with another point they make when they are grinding a different axe and wish their readers to believe in the inability of single mothers to provide what they previously insisted they could provide. The mothers cannot provide the "competent supervision...and general family climate or harmony" because of their "sense of incompleteness and frustration, of failure and guilt, feelings of ambivalence between them and their children, loneliness, loss of self-esteem, hostility toward men, problems with ex-husbands, problems of income and how to find the right job, anxiety about children and their problems, and a tendency to overcompensate for the loss to their children....This anxious picture seems related to the findings of M. Rosenberg...and J. Landis...that children of divorce show less self esteem....Among low-income mothers, Rainwater...found a majority of female respondents saying that a separated woman will miss most companionship or love or sex, or simply that she will be lonesome. Descriptions of AFDC mothers repeatedly stress their loneliness and anxiety, which breed and are bred by apathy, depression, and lethargy."
Is it any wonder that women family heads such as these generate a disproportionate amount of social pathology?
When the single mothers do properly socialize children along patriarchal lines, they fall foul of other feminists like Phyllis Chesler, who rails at them for perpetuating patriarchy and "sexism":
It is acknowledged that there is an "officially recognized" correlation between delinquency and father-absence but this is said to be the result of prejudice: police and social workers and teachers expect fatherless children to be more delinquent and they stereotype them and discriminate against them on the basis of their stereotype. "Teachers and other social agents," say Van Voorhis, Cullen, Mathers and Garner,
"Since agencies of juvenile justice routinely include the stability of the home as a criterion for legal intervention," says feminist Margaret Farnsworth,
Why do social workers, teachers and juvenile authorities--the people who interact day in and day out with disturbed kids--why do they expect those without fathers to be more frequently messed-up? These people are far more qualified as experts than academic feminists sitting in offices and writing tendentious articles enveloped in impenetrable jargon and statistical mystifications. "My observation," writes Mrs. Betty Arras (quoted in the Annex above), shared by virtually all my colleagues in that school [in the Oakland ghetto] was that broken homes hurt children in every way--emotionally, academically, and socially.
