How Unwed Fathers Are Seen As A Leading Social Problem

Demographically, over 90% of the participants strongly agreed that fatherhood is crucial in our society. A little over 47% of fathers, that encouragement from the mothers of their children matters because of the obstacles they faced with finance, and their duties on the job. The final results of marital status statistics is over 80% married fathers, nine percent divorced, and six percent never married. One surprising statistic was 90% cohabitate with the mother and focal child (Glenn & Popenoe, 2006).

The book is about how unwed fathers are seen as a leading social problem, but goes on to explain the flaws that occur after pregnancy that lead to the end of the couple’s romance. The book looks at the bond between the father and child rather than that between the parents. The book also goes through how changes economically and culturally for the urban poor as well as the obstacles they must overcome has changed fatherhood.

Often condemned as one of the primary societal problems of today, non-marital childbirth has been the subject of many sociologist’s explorations in an attempt to understand its rapid increase and growth in desirability. In their book Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage, Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas delve into the underlying reasons for the increase in non-martial child bearing, especially among women in low-socioeconomic communities. Through their two-and-a-half-year study, in which they conducted by interviewing over one hundred single mothers living in Philadelphia and Camden, Edin and Kefalas strove to understand why poor, single women were purposefully getting pregnant. Nearly eight years after Promises

Children born to single or unwed parents causes serious problems and discussions not only within society, but also the welfare system. Becoming a parent seems to be one of the most beautiful things life has to offer to people. The laughter of children warms the heart like nothing else can, and the way their eyes light up when they receive something as small as a piece of candy reminds us all that the little things in life are the most important. However, children require time and money which often gets overlooked by many people. Raising a child with two married parents seems difficult enough, but today many people are having children out-of -wedlock which also seems to create more single parent homes and puts more pressure on that one parent who struggles to support the child. From 1960 to 2000, out-of-wedlock births grew by 600%

Libertarian Charles Murray proclaims that “the evil of the modern welfare state is not that it bribes women to have babies — wanting to have babies is natural — but that it enables women [that are not married] to bear children without the natural social restraints” (qtd. in Tanner). However, it is clear that Murray oversimplifies the situation since not all single women choose to get pregnant outside of a marriage. In order to understand these types of situations it is important to factor in the death of a spouse, abandonment, and sexual assault. Many single parents raise their children alone because their partner died, they were rejected by their loved ones, or [in the case of women] they were forcefully impregnated without their consent. In these situations the government should view the parents as victims and not irresponsible con artists. Programs that help single parents should be supported because no child deserves to be without a home. Children need stable housing to feel secure, and it is the federal government’s duty to provide security to all its

Biological father consists of the male genetic contributor to the creation of the baby. Legal father is a recognized by the law as the father of the child (i.e. step parent or adoptive parent). Willing parent are grandparents or relatives that nurture the orphans. In the early 1900s, social scientists have concentrated on families that lack the male’s biological kinship to the child as opposed to the universally accepted maternal kin (Furstenberg & Harris, 1992, p. 197). As a man raising his children, married or not, Grace Massey explains that they are, “expected to ‘prove’ their manhood through providing the primary economic support of their families and the lack of means to play this role puts ‘manhood’ for Black men at risk” (1991, p.

According to the U.S. Census, one in three children, or approximately fifth teen million, are growing up without their father. This is what I would consider an epidemic because the numbers continue to rise yearly. With the numbers continuing to grow, American children continue to suffer. It is critical that a father is positively active in their child or children’s lives because father’s provide a sense of safety, mothers cannot teach a child everything that a child needs to know, and households gain balance when the father is present. I will now better explain.

American families have never been as diverse as they are today. There is a constant changing definition of what we call “family”. We as Americans are straying further and further from the idea of a classic nuclear family. One of the biggest reasons is a dramatic rise in kids living with a single parent. In 2014, just 14% of children younger than 18 lived with a stay-at-home mother and a working father who were in their first marriage (Livingston, 2015). This research will address in depth why households are now more diverse than ever, what’s the normal family now, and why aren’t the laws adjusting to how the average American family lives today.

According to “The Role of the father:Past, Present, and the Future” , “Industrialization in the 19th century changed the father's role, however. ‘The new economic structure separated the home and the work place, which led to a new fatherly ideal,’ said Morantz-Sanchez. ‘The men became the breadwinners, and the women stayed at home. This took childrearing out of the traditional male role.’” However from this stereotypical role, “ ‘The role of the father has changed again in this past century, as economic demands have pulled the mother into the workplace.’ According to Morantz-Sanchez, the family is moving towards a more democratic partnership, a move that took place largely in the last third of the 20th century. ‘A lot of this was stimulated by the feminist movement, which critiqued the absentee father and the obligations of the breadwinner for overburdening both the mother and the father.’” Motherhood today still follows the same ideals but with a lesser focus on domesticity.

Fathers every year in Washington go to jail for nothing more than being broke (Deadbeat). They are called “dead beat dads” by their peers, scorn by society, and treated as subclass citizens (THE, ASSOCIATED). This is a very grim reality that men of every age range face daily. Both men and women make the choices which result in babies. However, women are given a choice at every stage of the child’s development to adopt out, abort, or even use contraception (Why). Thus, men and women share equal responsibility in the acts that conceive children. However, men do not have the same options women do (Why). Despite this, DCS hunts men down as if they are the answer to all of society’s problems, treating men like criminals until they lay a golden

Divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing are now epidemic in American society. Both forms of disrupted families are harmful to children and to society. The children of single parents are more likely to do poorly in school, commit crimes, and become single parents themselves. In addition, the increase in single-parent families contributes to such social problems as poverty, crime, and a decline in the quality of public education.

Fatherhood has rapidly evolved over the years. Before the mother of the child was the most important player in the game of pregnancy. Now, the fathers have taken on just as big of a role as the mothers (Fägerskiöld, 2008). One of the

Single parent households are a sensitive topic that is highly debated today. This topic is one that has repercussions for both the parents and the children involved. However, regardless of the different consequences, these households continue to grow in the coming years. “In 1970, traditional two-parent married households dominated, making up 81 % of all households in the United States (US). By 2012 this number dropped to around 66 % … In 2012, approximately 21 million children, or 28 % of all children in the US, lived with one parent” (Kramer, 2015). It is interesting to look at the way the single parent households continue to grow throughout the years, all while being a hot topic for discussion on its consequences. When thinking about a book to read for this course, there was no real choice. I stumbled upon this book and knew right away that I could benefit from this book, as well as connect to it on a deeper level and relate to it personally.

Married couples make up 68% of all families with children under 18, compared to 93% in 1950 (US 2015 Census). This demonstrates that more and more children are living in households with single parents. Single parents have to deal with jobs and other sources of stress making it difficult to give their children the attention they need. Additionally, single parents are the only ones that are providing for the family so they have a lot on their plate. This can provide stress on the child because they can feel unloved or even hated. As the rate of single parents go up, so does the amount of children that are not receiving enough

Especially in today’s society, it’s disturbingly common for a child to have to grow up in a single parent household, letting the consequences of this scenario internally destroy the child like a virus. The effects are usually the same, but the frequency of the effects shouldn’t deter the severity. Another misconstrued ideal about single parent households, is whether or not the “statistics” and the “studies” taken on these families is enough to summarize the general population. They aren’t. The same goes for the causes, but on a much more significant scale. The causes and effects of single parent households implied by the studies and statistics are all true, but there’s a much bigger story that can’t be accurately measured or recorded. What the numbers show, are what represent the average. The non-hispanic White race represents the average race, low class to poverty level, and women to gender. But, as can be seconded by most struggling families in this situation, “average” doesn’t describe “real.” There are some things that can’t be taken into account, and those are the things that affect the child the most.