The term "fatherless" ("fatherlessness") is used in this series as it is in current research and policy rhetoric by the U.S. federal government, DHHS and the National Fatherhood Initiative, most U.S. states in connection with child custody law and policy, and various family values and fatherhood interest policy and lobbying groups.

Brief stories of fatherless childen can be found here. A list of famous fatherless children, all of whom grew up in father-absent homes, and succeeded in achieving greatness, can be found here.

Citations to research and studies can be found
here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The effects of fatherlessness??
Fatherless America? Yes indeed!  

Alexander Hamilton - the author of the Federalist Papers, first treasurer of the United States, and the founder of America's economic system.

John Hancock - president of the Continental Congress, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and financial underwriter of the American Revolution.

Twenty-five percent of America's presidents; a majority in America's first fifty years:

U.S. President Gen. George Washington - America's first founding father, first president, and most beloved hero.

U.S. President Thomas Jefferson - America's third president, and primary author of the Declaration of Independence

U.S. President James Monroe - America's fifth president

U.S. President Andrew Jackson - America's seventh president

U.S. President Andrew Johnson - America's seventeenth president

U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes - America's nineteenth president

U.S. President Grover Cleveland - America's twenty-second president

U.S. President Herbert Hoover - America's thirty-first president

U.S. President Gerald Ford - America's thirty-eighth president

U.S. President William Jefferson Clinton - America's forty-second president

U.S. President Barack Obama - America's forty-fourth president

Many of America's top jurists:

U.S. Supreme Court Justice James Wilson

U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Rutledge

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Johnson Field

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thomas Todd

U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Davis

U.S. Supreme Court Justice John McKinley

U.S. Supreme Court Ch. Justice (and U.S. Treasury Secretary) Salmon P. Chase

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Melville Fuller

U.S. Supreme Court Ch. Justice Edward D. White

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo

U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

U.S. Supreme Court Justice James F. Byrnes

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Arthur J. Goldberg

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas

nominee for U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor

More American leaders, heros, icons and achievers:

Frederick Douglas

Gen. Robert E. Lee

Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman

Booker T. Washington

Benjamin Rush - a founding father of America, physician and diplomat

Michael Phelps - the world's greatest Olympic athlete and swimmer

Annie Mansfield Sullivan - the "miracle worker", Helen Keller's teacher

Stephen Colbert

George Mason - a founding father of America

Fr. Gen. Marquis de Lafayette - supporter of the American Revolution

U.S. Senator Henry Clay

Meriwether Lewis

Eleanor Roosevelt

Jackie Robinson

Mark Twain

George Washington Carver

Nathanial Hawthorne

Linus Carl Pauling (Nobel Prize x 2)

Some of the world's greatest:

Aristotle

Nicolas Copernicus

Sir Isaac Newton

Mahatma Gandhi

Leonardo da Vinci

Plato

Confucius

Jesus of Nazareth

Queen Elizabeth I

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jurist William Blackstone

Alexander Fleming - scientist who discovered penicillin

Nelson Mandela

Catherine the Great of Russia

Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, Mother Theresa

Julius Caesar

Muhammed - prophet of Islam

Cleopatra

King Solomon - Biblical icon

More "fatherless children" (alphabetically):

U.S. Senator Bella Abzug

physician Hunter "Patch" Adams

comedian Steve Allen

cancer researcher Frederick W. Alt

medical researcher Dorothy Andersen

author Hans Christian Andersen

singer Marian Anderson

mogul nun Mother Angelica

poet Maya Angelou (Marguerite Annie Johnson)

silent film star Fatty Arbuckle

historian Hannah Arendt

cyclist Lance Armstrong

musician Louis Armstrong

author Ivo Andric'  (Nobel Prize)

author Jane Austen

actor Lauren Bacall

composer Johann Sebastian Bach

author Charles Baudelaire

Isabella Baumfree (Sojourner Truth)

scientist Sir Charles Bell

composer Irving Berlin

actor Halle Berry

California Supreme Court Justice Rose Bird

legendary surfer Tom Blake

scientist Katherine Burr Blodgett

reporter Nelly Bly

physicist Max Born

news correspondent Ed Bradley

U.S. Senator (and basketball great) William Warren "Bill" Bradley

actor Benjamin Bratt

scientist Herbert C. Brown (Nobel Prize Chemistry)

Ralph Johnson Bunche (Nobel Peace Prize 1950)

poet Lord Byron (George Gordon)

Sarah Breedlove aka Madam C.J. Walker

actor Charles Bronson

actor Pierce Brosnan

"father of soul" musician James Brown

comedian Lenny Bruce

satiricist Art Buchwald

Canadian rocket scientist Gerald Bull

actor Carol Burnett

vaudevillian George Burns (Nathan Birnbaum)

philosopher Albert Camus (Nobel Prize)

author Elias Canetti (Nobel Prize)

cancer researcher Mario Capecchi (Nobel Prize)

first "celebrity chef" Antonin Careme

comedian George Carlin

pioneering surgeon Benjamin Carson

author Willa Cather

scientist Ernst B. Chain (Nobel Prize)

fashion designer Coco Chanel

actor Charlie Chaplin

Oona O'Neil Chaplin

actor/singer Cher

author Agatha Christie

musician Eric Clapton

computer guru Jim Clark (Silicon Graphics, Netscape)

author Mary Higgins Clark

U.S. Gen. (Ret.) Wesley Clark

science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke

philanthropist Thomas Green Clemson (Clemson University)

singer Patsy Cline

pilot Bessie Coleman

educator Ward Connerly

journalist Anderson Hayes Cooper

comedian Bill Cosby

scientist Donald Cram (Nobel Prize Chemistry)

composer Stephen Crane

actor Tom Cruise

author Roald Dahl

actor Dorothy Dandridge

actor-comedian Rodney Dangerfield

actor Bette Davis

actor James Dean

scholar Daniel Dennett

psychologist/author Peggy Drexler

author Alexandre Dumas

pop psychologist Wayne Dyer

industrialist George Eastman (Eastman Kodak)

psychologist Albert Ellis

computer scientist Clarence Ellis

author Ralph Ellison

author Ralph Waldo Emerson

rapper Eminem (Marshall Bruce Mathers III)

U.S. Senator John Ensign

psychologist Erik Erikson

actor Douglas Fairbanks

psychophysicist Gustav Theodor Fechner

politician Geraldine Ferraro

actor Jodie Foster

cancer researcher Emil J. Freireich

educator Frederick Wilhelm August Froebel

poet Robert Frost

steamboat inventor Robert Fulton

author/businessman Chris Gardner (The Art of Happyness)

social reformer/journalist William Lloyd Garrison

actor Gloria Gaynor

author Andre Gide (Nobel Prize)

architect Cass Gilbert

author Charlotte Perkins Gilman

actor Paulette Goddard

actor Whoopi Goldberg

actor Cuba Gooding

writer Kenneth Grahame

Alabama Governor Bibb Graves

U.S. economist, Chair of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan

actor Gene Hackman

Gen. Alexander Haig

nuclear engineer Susanna Harding

crystallographer David Harker

first governor of British India Warren Hastings

opera singer Catherine "Kate" Hayes

Alan J. Heegar (Nobel Prize Chemistry 2000)

baseball player Rickey Henderson

actor Audrey Hepburn

conductor Victor Herbert

geophysicist J. Marvin Herndon

scientist Gerhard Herzberg (Nobel Prize Chemistry 1971)

industrialist William Reddington Hewlett (Hewlett-Packard)

union organizer, poet, author Joe Hill

pharmaceutical researcher George Hitchings (Nobel Prize)

singer Billie Holliday

scientist Robert Hooke

Tennessee Governor Sam Houston

industrialist Roy Wilson Howard (Scripps-Howard)

U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hamilton Hoyer

writer Langston Hughes

philosopher David Hume

Iraqi president Saddam Hussein

writer John Irving

civil rights activist and politician Jesse Jackson

scientist Edward Jenner

actor Carolyn Jones (Morticia)

dictator Chiang Kai-shek

chess great Garry Kasparov

author John Keats

social scientist reformer Frances Alice Kellor

author Stephen King

singer Eartha Kitt

physiologist Karl Landsteiner (Nobel Prize)

photographer Dorothea Lange

archaeologist Mary Leakey

mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz

musician John Lennon

literary critic John Leonard

economist Sir Arthur Lewis (Nobel Prize)

actor Sophia Loren

computer whiz Ada Lovelace

actor-comedian Bernie Mac

baseball great Billy Martin

author Harry Martinsson (Nobel Prize)

actor Steve McQueen

economist Franco Modigliani (Nobel Prize)

author Lucy Montgomery

author Herman Melville

Tom Monaghan (Domino's Pizza)

actor Marilyn Monroe

U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan

WWII hero Audie Murphy

comedian Eddie Murphy

musician Willie Nelson

actor Jack Nicholson

philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche

activist Rosa Parks

Massachusetts Gov. and civil rights attorney Deval Laurdine Patrick

Secretary of the Air Force F. Whitten Peters

detective Allan Pinkerton

poet Sylvia Plath

author Edgar Allen Poe

composer Giacomo Puccini

short story writer Horacio Quiroga

painter Raphael

actor Doris Roberts

prosecutor Jim Rogan

psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach

scientist Peyton Rous (Nobel Prize)

political genius Karl Rove

philosopher Bertrand Russell

Revolutionary War soldier Deborah Sampson

businessman Colonel Harland Sanders (Kentucky Fried Chicken)

President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy

philosopher-author Jean-Paul Sartre (Nobel Prize)

beauty products businessman Vidal Sassoon

lawyer Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg

U.S. Senator Al Sharpton

Washington State Senator Paull Shin

rock star Gene Simmons

New York Governor Al Smith

U.S. Senator Robert C. "Bob" Smith

geologist William Smith

author Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn(Nobel Prize)

Federal judge Sonya Sotomayor

microwave oven inventor Percy Spencer

Russian dictator Joseph Stalin

writer Henry Morton Stanley

actor Barbara Stanwyck

musician Ringo Starr (Richard Starkey Jr.)

activist Gloria Steinem

comedian Jon Stewart

author Jonathan Swift

inventor Henry Talbot

physicist Joseph John ("J.J.") Thomson (Nobel Prize)

scientist Arne Wilhelm Kaurin Tiselius (Nobel Prize)

author J.R.R. Tolkien

author Leo Tolstoy

singer Tina Turner

novelist Sigrid Undset (Nobel Prize)

physical chemist Harold Clayton Urey (Nobel Prize)

musician Ritchie Valens

President of Ireland Eamon de Valera

Queen Victoria of Britain

scientist Alessandro Volta

poet Derek Walcott (Nobel Prize)

zoologist Max Weber

singer Hank Williams

scientist Charles Thomson Rees Wilson (Nobel Prize Physics)

musician Barry White

industrialist Eli Whitney, Jr.

Indiana Supreme Court Justice William Allen Woods

poet William Wordsworth

author Richard Wright

activist Malcolm X

actor Loretta Young

author Emile Zola

and many, many more....

The notion is FALSE that children require a certain kind of family composition (two married biological parents) in order to do well, rather than that certain family characteristics and lifestyle advantages (such as educational opportunities, financial opportunities, stability, attention, and so forth) may be beneficial.

No research has shown that when a child's parents do not live together, joint custody is in their long-term best interests, or that "the best parent is two parents." See the research: here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and still more, along with discussions and articles in the index here.

(Interesting, though, how "motherlessness" is almost glorified in our society, e.g. Disney.)
At thelizlibrary.org, we don't "hate men". We hate lies.

Alexander Hamilton - President Gen. George Washington - President Thomas Jefferson - President James Monroe - President Andrew Jackson - President Andrew Johnson - President Rutherford B. Hayes - President Herbert Hoover - President Grover Cleveland - President Gerald Ford - President William Jefferson Clinton - President Barack Obama - U.S. Supreme Court Justice James Wilson - U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Rutledge - John Hancock - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Johnson Field - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thomas Todd - U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Davis - U.S. Supreme Court Justice John McKinley - U.S. Supreme Court Ch. Justice (and U.S. Treasury Secretary) Salmon P. Chase - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Melville Fuller - U.S. Supreme Court Ch. Justice Edward D. White - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo - U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas - U.S. Supreme Court Justice James F. Byrnes - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Arthur J. Goldberg - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas - Frederick Douglas - Gen. Robert E. Lee - Booker T. Washington - Benjamin Rush - Stephen Colbert - George Mason - Maya Angelou - Fr. Gen. Marquis de Lafayette - U.S. Senator Henry Clay - William Tecumseh Sherman - Meriwether Lewis - Eleanor Roosevelt - Donald Cram - Jackie Robinson - Mark Twain - George Washington Carver - Nathanial Hawthorne - Eli Whitney Jr. - U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hamilton Hoyer - Michael Phelps - Linus Carl Pauling - Aristotle - Nicolas Copernicus - Sir Isaac Newton - Mahatma Gandhi - Leonardo da Vinci - Confucius - Jesus of Nazareth - Queen Elizabeth I - Jean-Jacques Rousseau - William Blackstone - Annie Mansfield Sullivan - Alexander Fleming - Nelson Mandela - Eartha Kitt - Catherine the Great of Russia - Robert Frost - Langston Hughes - Alexandre Dumas - Gen. Alexander Haig - Mario Capecchi - Alabama Governor Bibb Graves - New York Governor Al Smith - Tennessee Governor Sam Houston - Clarence Ellis - Bernie Mac - Indiana Supreme Court Justice William Allen Woods - U.S. Senator Al Sharpton - U.S. Senator Senator Robert C. "Bob" Smith - U.S. Senator John Ensign - U.S. Senator Bella Abzug - U.S. Senator William Warren "Bill" Bradley - U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan - Queen Victoria of Britain - Alan Greenspan - Plato - Alessandro Volta - Jim Clark - Ada Lovelace - Jane Austen - George Eastman - Arne Wilhelm Kaurin Tiselius - Rosa Parks - Mother Theresa - Roy Wilson Howard - Washington State Senator Paull Shin - Johann Sebastian Bach - Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz - Lance Armstrong - John Lennon - Hans Christian Andersen - Billy Martin - Edward Jenner - George Hitchings - Ringo Starr - Giacomo Puccini - Joseph John ("J.J.") Thomson - Bertrand Russell - Hermann Rorschach - Herman Melville - Ivo Andric' - John Keats - Albert Camus - Marian Anderson - Ernst B. Chain - Garry Kasparov - Sylvia Plath - Leo Tolstoy - Peyton Rous - Herbert C. Brown - Benjamin Carson - Jean-Paul Sartre - Raphael - David Hume - Hannah Arendt - Erik Erikson - Ralph Waldo Emerson - Stephen Crane - Lord Byron - Geraldine Ferraro - Friedrich Nietzsche - Agatha Christie - William Wordsworth - Max Weber - Cleopatra - Jesse Jackson - Audie Murphy - Gustav Theodor Fechner - Edgar Allen Poe - Alam J. Heeger - Emile Zola - Elias Canetti - William Smith - Colonel Sanders - Oona O'Neil Chaplin - Gerald Bull - Willa Cather - Ritchie Valens - Daniel Dennett - Cass Gilbert - Mary Leakey - Harry Martinsson - Joseph Stalin - Charlie Chaplin - Nelly Bly - Henry Morton Stanley - Max Born - Sarah Breedlove - Frederick Froebel - Steve Allen - Mary Higgins Clark - Louis Armstrong - Warren Hastings - Allan Pinkerton - Billie Holiday - Hank Williams - Malcolm X - Carol Burnett - Thomas Green Clemson - John Irving - J.R.R. Tolkien - Charles Bronson - Albert Ellis - Tom Blake - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - Gene Simmons - Paulette Goddard - Gene Hackman - Sir Arthur Lewis - Robert Hooke - James Byron Dean - Halle Berry - Benjamin Bratt - Eddie Murphy - Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg - Charles Baudelaire - Deborah Sampson - Karl Landsteiner - Ralph Ellison - California Supreme Court Justice Rose Bird - Eric Clapton - Eamon de Valera - William Reddington Hewlett - J. Marvin Herndon - Mother Angelica - Karl Rove - Lauren Bacall - Nicolas Sarkozy - Antonin Careme - Julius Caesar - Gerhard Herzberg - Muhammed - Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick - John Leonard - Andre Gide - Dorothea Lange - Dorothy Dandridge - F. Whitten Peters - Henry Talbot - Sigrid Undset, - Arthur C. Clarke - Jim Rogan - Frederick W. Alt - Emil J. Freireich - Willie Nelson - Charlotte Perkins Gilman - Victor - George Burns - Herbert - Bessie Coleman - Dorothy Andersen - Chiang Kai-shek - Videl Sassoon - Coco Chanel - Anderson Hayes Cooper - James Brown - Kenneth Grahame - Hunter "Patch" Adams - Jack Nicholson - Rodney Dangerfield - Roald Dahl - Lucy Montgomery - William Lloyd Garrison - Douglas Fairbanks - David Harker - Robert Fulton - Irving Berlin - Jonathan Swift - Peggy Drexler - Art Buchwald - Carolyn Jones - Sojourner Truth - Judge Sonya Sotomayor - Doris Roberts - Loretta Young - Marilyn Monroe - Barbara Stanwick - Steve McQueen - Cher - Pierce Brosnan - Wayne Dyer - Francis Alice Kellor - Sophia Loren - Eminem - George Carolin - Joe Hill - Stephen King - Franco Modigliani - Derek Walcott - Sir Charles Bell - Whoopi Goldberg - Charles Thomson Rees Wilson - Richard Wright - Percy Spencer - Ward Connerly - Fatty Arbuckle - Katherine Burr Blodgett - Cuba Gooding - Dorothea Lange - Frances Kellor - Gloria Steinem - Gloria Gaynor - Jon Stewart - Harold Clayton Urey - Bette Davis - Audrey Hepburn - Tom Cruise - Horacio Quiroga - Tina Turner - Kate Hayes - Bill Cosby - Barry White - Susanna Harding - Jodie Foster - Patsy Cline - Ralph Bunche - Ed Bradley - Tom Monaghan - Rickey Henderson - Sonia Sotomayor....