WADE'S WORLD:
THE MYTHS AND THE FACTS.In brown, what the pundits, spin-meisters, and study summarizers SAY the studies have found (frequently interposed with could-bes, should-bes, what-ifs, comments, faulty conclusions, and suppositions without cites), and, in black: what the research actually says!
with special emphasis on the misrepresentations and fluff in Wade Horn's taxpayer-funded National Fatherhood Initiative article "Father Facts" (see note)
Fluff -- Children learn critical lessons about how to recognize and deal with highly charged emotions in the context of playing with their fathers.
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts" quoting Joseph J. Pleck: "Attempts to understand the 'active ingredient' in fathers' play that promotes peer competence have revealed that children learn critical lessons about how to recognize and deal with highly charged emotions in the context of playing with their fathers. Fathers, in effect, give children practice in regulating their own emotions and recognizing others' emotional cues."]
Fact: Children learn the very same lessons playing with anyone. Contrary to the implication in Horn's misinformation, above, Pleck's research has found the following: Mothers and fathers influence their children in similar ways with regard to the development of morality, competence in social interactions, academic achievement, and mental health.
Lamb, M. E., Pleck, J. H., & Levine, J. A. (1986). Effects of increased paternal involvement on children in two-parent families. In R. A. Lewis & R. E. Salt (Eds.), Men in families (pp. 141-158). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.
Fluff -- Children with an involved father have more varied social experiences and are more intellectually advanced than those who only have regular contact with their mother.
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts" quoting Henry B. Biller in Fathers and Families, Paternal Factors in Child Development, Auburnhouse, Westport, CT 1993]: "Children with an involved father are exposed to more varied social experiences and are more intellectually advanced than those who only have regular contact with their mother. Infants with two involved parents can cope better with being alone with strangers and also seem to attend more effectively to novel and complex stimuli. Well-fathered children have a greater breadth of positive social experiences than those exclusively reared by their mothers."]
Fact: Contrary to the implication above, long-time fatherhood exaltation advocate Biller actually refers only to "father involvement" in the context of an intact home -- even he cannot characterize the research as unequivocably supporting father involvement by divorced and unmarried men. Biller is perhaps best known for his decades of research-cum-hand-wringing to the effect that a lack of paternal influence can cause boys to be either overly aggressive or effeminate. Biller admits, however, that fathers in intact U.S. households spend, on average, less than thirty minutes per day in one-on-one time with their children. (And the definition of "more varied social experiences"? Ah come on...)
Biller, "The Father Factor and the Two Parent Advantage: Reducing the Paternal Deficit," unpublished paper, 1994.
Fact: "[C]hildren who have had no contact with their fathers in more than a year are more likely to be involved in extracurricular activities than children who have seen their fathers in the past year but whose fathers participated in none of the school activities. Part of the explanation for this pattern may be that children are spending time with their nonresident fathers instead of participating in extracurricular activities."
NATIONAL CENTER FOR EDUCATION STATISTICS, Statistical Analysis Report: Fathers' Involvement in Their Children's Schools, October 1997, (NCES 98-091), http://www.nces.ed.gov/pubs98/fathers/
Fact: "Lessing, Zagorin, and Nelson (1970) found children in father-absent households had lower IQ, verbal, and performance scores than children in father-present households [but] Hunt and Hunt (1977) found race and class were factors in related variables such as aspirations, with lower income children having lower aspirations. According to Mott (1994), girls are more likely to be helped with poor school performance if the father is not in the home... Assessing intellectual functioning in relation to family structure is difficult at best... Although children of divorce experience disruption of academic performance in the aftermath, within two years most children return to their normal patterns of performance. Boys experience greater disruption and girls experience greater recovery of their academic performance... [G]irls' experience challenges to their emotional stability, but their school success is somewhat enhanced by father absence."
National Center on Fathers and Families, Father Presence Matters: A Review of the Literature, Toward an Ecological Framework of Fathering and Child Outcomes, by Deborah J. Johnson http://fatherfamilylink.gse.upenn.edu/org/ncoff/litrev/fpmlr.htm; Lessing, E. E., Zagorin, S. W., & Nelson, D. (1970). WISC subtest and IQ score correlates of father absence. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 117, 181-195.; Hunt, J. G., & Hunt, L. L. (1977). Race, daughters and father loss: Does absence make the girl grow stronger? Social Problems, 25(1), 90-102.; Mott, F. L. (1994). Sons, daughters and fathers' absence: Differentials in father-leaving probabilities and in-home environments. Journal of Family Issues, 15(1), 97-128.
Fact: "Using data from four national surveys, Biblarz and Raftery (1999) show that mother-absence is much more detrimental than father-absence to children's educational and occupational attainment. They find that once parents' socioeconomic status is taken into account, children raised by single mothers are much better off than children raised by single fathers or fathers and stepmothers, and are just as likely to succeed as children raised by both birth parents. Biblarz and Raftery conclude that the pattern of effects across family types and over time is consistent with an evolutionary perspective which emphasizes the importance of the birth mother in the provision of children' resources (Trivers 1972). According to this view, children raised by their birth mothers do better than children raised apart from their birth mothers. Furthermore, being raised by a single birth mother is better than being raised by a birth mother and step father since step fathers compete with children for mother's time and lower maternal investment."
Case, Anne, I-Fen Lin and Sara McLanahan. Educational Attainment in Blended Families, August 2000.
Fluff -- Baby Boomer men say that being a good father is important to their definition of "success."
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." "A survey of over 500 Baby Boomer men found that 84% said that being a good father was a very important factor in their definition of success. Source: Goldstein, Dr. Ross. "The New American Adulthood." National Survey. Consumer Survey Center. Half Moon Bay, California, 1996.']
Fact: What some men say they think defines neither "good fathering" nor "success." This is not a "positive effect of fatherhood."
See the research at http://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/017.htm
Fluff -- Gallup Poll says that most Americans believe "fathers make a unique contribution to their children's lives."
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." "According to a 1996 Gallup Poll, 90.3 percent of Americans agree that "fathers make a unique contribution to their children's lives." Source: Gallup Poll, 1996. National Center for Fathering. "Father Figures." Today's Father 4.1 (1996): 8."]
Fact: The myths people believe do not constitute a "positive effect of fatherhood." (George Gallup is on the Board of Directors of the National Fatherhood Initiative.)
See the research at http://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/017.htm)
Fluff -- Fathers who don't care about their families are more likely to be fathers who don't support their families.
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." "Children whose fathers showed little emotional involvement were more likely to have experienced poverty than children whose fathers were emotionally involved with their children. Source: Mullan Harris, Kathleen and Jeremy K. Marmer. "Poverty, Paternal Involvement, and Adolescent Well-Being." Journal of Family Issues 17 (1996): 614-640."]
Fact: This is not a "positive effect of fatherhood." It's a circular statement of the "duh" variety.
See the research at http://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/017.htm
Fluff -- Children are better off when their relationship with their father is close and warm.
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." "Whether the outcome variable is cognitive development, sex-role development, or psycho-social development, children are better off when their relationship with their father is close and warm. Source: Lamb, M.E. The Father's Role: Applied Perspectives. New York: J. Wiley, 1986."]
Fact: "Better off" than... when they have a relationship with a father who is distant or cold? or in lieu of a relationship with a mother that is close and warm? or in lieu of no relationship at all? It's not stated. That's because this research compared different fathers and was not about fathers' contributions in the abstract. "[T]he great majority of children brought up in single-parent families do well. In particular, differences in well-being between children from divorced and those from intact families, tend, on average, to be moderate to small."
U.S. government census statistics 1998; DHHS, "Percentage Distribution of Children in United States by Number of Parents in Household, see Family Structure, http://aspe.os.dhhs.gov/hsp/98trends/98SEC1.HTM
and Zill, N., Morrison, D. and Coiro, M., 1993. "Long Term Effects of Parental Divorce on Parent-Child Relationships: Adjustment and Achievement in Early Adulthood," Journal of Family Psychology, 7(1):91-103.
Fluff -- Children who have intelligent and interested fathers are likely to do better than children whose fathers are unintelligent, inarticulate, uninterested and/or boring.
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." "A study using a nationally representative sample of 1,600 10-13 year olds found that children who shared important ideas with their fathers and who perceived the amount of time they spent with their fathers as excellent had fewer behavior problems and lived in more cognitively stimulating homes than their peers who did not share important ideas or view the amount of time they spent with their fathers as excellent. Source: Williams, Malcolm V. "Reconceptualizing Father Involvement." Masters Thesis Georgetown University, 1997."]
Fact: Again, the above is not a "positive effect of fatherhood." It's a comparison of different fathers. However, father presence or absence per se "does not significantly influence the level of well-being of either daughters or sons. Rather... children's perceptions of their relationships with both parents have a more direct influence on their psychological well-being than does the physical presence or absence of their father."
Wenk, D., Hardesty, C. L., Morgan, C. S., & Blair, S. L. (1994). The influence of parental involvement on the well-being of sons and daughters. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 56 (1), 229-234.
Fluff -- Children from two-parent families do better in school, are less prone to depression and are more successful in relationships than children from one parent families.
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." "Children with fathers at home tend to do better in school, are less prone to depression and are more successful in relationships. Children from one-parent families achieve less and get into trouble more than children from two-parent families. Source: One-Parent Families and Their Children: The School's Most Significant Minority. The Consortium for the Study of School Needs of Children from One-Parent Families. National Association of Elementary School Principals and the Institute for Development of Educational Activities, a division of the Charles F. Kettering Foundation. Arlington, VA. 1980."
Fact: Children from two-parent homes indeed appear to do better in some ways, especially ways that are influenced by socio-economic status, but serious design errors and methodological problems render many studies (such as the outdated study Horn quotes, above) that ostensibly show harm from father absence inconclusive, e.g. they shortchange the impact of family-related variables (socio-economic status, number of children, cause of parental absence, etc.) This notwithstanding, no study has found fathers' apparent contributions in two-parent households to carry over to nonresidential father involvement -- other than his economic contributions.
Blechman, E. A. (1982). Are children with one parent at psychological risk? A methodological review. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 44, 179-195.
Fact: "Meta-analysis supports the notion that the impact of father absence appears to be mediated by family conflict; father absence in itself may not affect children's well-being. The family conflict perspective was strongly confirmed by the data. This perspective holds that children in intact families with high levels of conflict should have the same well-being problems as children of divorce, and the data supported this hypothesis."
Amato, P. R., & Keith, B. (1991). Parental divorce and the well-being of children: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 110, 26-46.
Fact: "Critical to understanding child outcomes of divorce is viewing divorce as a process (Hetherington, Cox & Cox, 1978; Wallerstein, 1987) and not an isolated event in the life of the child. The process of divorce likely encompasses declining marital relations, a family context to which the child is exposed for an extended time. In the aftermath of the divorce the child's stressful familial experience may be culminated. Few studies have ascertained what children may have witnessed prior to the divorce, nor have they controlled for these factors when attempting to predict child outcomes from fathers' presence or absence. Predivorce conflict may have greater explanatory power in predicting child outcomes than changes in father residence and contact (Lamb, 1987)."
Hetherington, E. M., Cox, M., & Cox, R. (1978). The aftermath of divorce. In J. J. H. Stevens & M. Matthews (Eds.), Mother-child, father-child relations. Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children; Wallerstein, J. S. (1987). Children of divorce: Report of a ten-year follow-up of early latency-age children. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 57, 199-211; Lamb, M. (1987). Introduction: The emergent American father. In M. E. Lamb (Ed.) The father's role: Cross-cultural perspectives (pp.3-26). New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Also see the research at http://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/017.htm
Fluff -- Father-child interaction promotes a child's physical well-being, perceptual abilities, and competency for relatedness with others, even at a young age.
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." "Father-child interaction has been shown to promote a child's physical well-being, perceptual abilities, and competency for relatedness with others, even at a young age. Source: Krampe, E.M. and P.D. Fairweather. "Father Presence and Family Formation: A Theoretical Reformulation." Journal of Family Issues 14.4 (December 1993): 572-591."]
Fact: So does positive interaction with anyone. "[T]he various patterns of coresidence did not differ from the children in intact families on the outcome measures, suggesting that during the initial adjustment period after marital dissolution, the absence of a father-figure or the presence of biological-father-substitutes appear to have no influence on most children's intellectual or psychosocial functioning."
Christine Winquist Nord and Laura Spencer Loomis Westat, Inc., ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY: SELECTED CHILD SUPPORT ARTICLES citing Hawkins, Alan J. and David J. Eggebeen. 1991. "Are Fathers Fungible? Patterns of Coresident Adult Men in Maritally Disrupted Families and Young Children's Well-being." Journal of Marriage and the Family 53(4): 958-972.
Fluff -- Boys are more likely to cite their fathers as role models when they live with them than when they do not live with them.
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." "In a study of 254 African-American male adolescents, boys living with both biological parents were most likely to cite their fathers as role models (96 percent), compared to only 44 percent of those not living with their fathers, and were more likely to stay in school. Source: Zimmerman, Marc A. "African-American Male Teen's Relationships With Their Father." Child Development (December 1995).']
Fact: As we would expect. (Just as whoever is the First Lady du jour gets on Americans' "most admired" lists.) This is not a "positive effect of fatherhood," and is meaningless in that regard without adding first the unwarranted assumption that there is something important about the father being the child's role model, rather than his mother, a beloved uncle, or someone else. Boys who hang out in gangs also are more likely to cite juvenile delinquent gang leaders as role models.
Fluff -- Children in intact homes with highly involved fathers do better than children in intact homes with non-highly involved fathers.
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." "A longitudinal study of 584 children from intact families indicated that children whose fathers are highly involved with them attain higher levels of education and economic self-sufficiency than children whose fathers are not highly involved. A high level of paternal involvement and improved father-child relations throughout adolescence were associated with lower levels of delinquency and better psychological well-being. Source: Mullan Harris, Kathleen, Frank F. Furstenberg, and Jeremy K. Marmer. "Paternal Involvement with Adolescents in Intact Families: The Influences of Fathers over the Life Course." American Sociological Association. New York. 16-20 Aug. 1996."]
Fact: And at least in part this is because the children have inherited the same innate characteristics of their fathers that have contributed to these fathers' higher intelligence, compassion, and interest in their families. (Note that again, this is not a "positive contribution of fatherhood" but a comparison of different kinds of fathers -- and an implicit acknowledgement that some of them are not so hot.) "Analyses examining associations among father involvement, parenting characteristics, and toddler development demonstrated significant relationships... However, results highlighted the salience of qualitative characteristics (attitudes, behavioral sensitivity) rather than quantitative characteristics (amount of father's time with child) of parenting for toddler development."
Easterbrooks, M. A. & Goldberg, W. A. 1984. Toddler development in the family: Impact of father involvement and parenting characteristics. Child Development, 55, 740-752.
Fact: Achiever-type people tend to have achiever-type kids. To a great extent, it's genetic. That's not special to "fatherhood" at all. Neither is involvement. Children will benefit from harmonious and complementary involvement of relatives, coaches, teachers, and so forth. While the research involving good and bad fathers in intact homes may indicate something about the negative effects of bad fathering, these claims offer nothing useful about "father involvement" for divorced and unwed homes.
See the research at http://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/017.htm
Fluff -- Men who have had responsible fathers are more likely to become responsible fathers themselves.
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." "A survey of African-American men revealed that men who had experienced a positive relationship with a father who cared and sacrificed for them are more likely to be responsible fathers themselves. Source: Furstenberg, F. "Good Dads-Bad Dads: Two Faces of Fatherhood." The Changing American Family and Public Policy. Ed. A.J. Cherlin. Washington DC: The Urban Institute Press, 1988."]
Fact: "More likely than" who? than men who had alcoholic fathers who beat the crap out of them? than men who had irresponsible fathers who landed in prison? or than men who had only responsible mothers? (Research has eliminated the last possibility.) You are to assume from the misleading way this (and other statements similarly) have been worded by Horn that the comparison is to "father-absent" households. However, that's not true; the comparison is not stated because that was not the finding. None of these studies comparing different kinds of fathers (and boding against introducing the bad kind into children's lives, contrary to NFI initiatives) are "positive effects of fatherhood."
See the research at http://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/017.htm
Fluff -- Children from intact homes with responsible fathers tend to be more successful as adults than children from intact homes with irresponsible fathers.
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." "A longitudinal study on over 1,000 children who lived with both biological parents found that children whose fathers wore seat belts, had car insurance, and had precautionary savings were more successful as adults than their peers whose fathers did not engage in these activities."]
Fact: This also is a nonsensical statement. "More successful" than what? What was compared? Why were these fathers more responsible in these ways? Was it their genes and inherent characteristics (and did they pass them on)? family economics? role modeling? This is not a "positive effect of fatherhood" but yet another comparison of different kinds of fathers and an acknowledgement that some of them indeed do not benefit children. It's safe to say that children who are surrounded generally by more well-adjusted persons with more admirable traits will tend to do better than those who are not. Research comparing different kinds of fathers in intact homes offers nothing useful about fatherhood. Among other things, it leaves open the question of whether some fathers in fact are enhancing their children's well-being or whether the differences noted were because some fathers' involvement is harming that.
Fluff -- Children from intact homes with more successful fathers tend to be more successful as adults than children from intact homes with less successful fathers.
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." "In addition, the father's educational attainment and wage rate were positively associated with higher outcomes for the children when they entered the labor market. Source: Yeung, Wei-Jun J., Greg J. Duncan, and Martha S. Hill. "Putting Fathers Back in the Picture: Parental Activities and Children's Adult Attainments." Conference on Father Involvement. Bethesda, Maryland, 10-11 Oct. 1996."]
Fact: The consensus of research already has established (in accord with what we all have observed and already knew) that children from homes with higher socio-economic status and whose parents are more intelligent end up being higher achievers. Children's educational attainment, however, has been far more strongly correlated with their mother's socio-economic status and educational attainment than with father's. And again, this research merely compares different fathers. It says "fathers can have influence, just like other persons such as mothers, teachers, grandparents, and coaches who might contribute in some way to a child's education, contacts, genes, and so forth." This is not a "positive effect of fatherhood."
See the research at http://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/response.html
Misrepresentation -- Children who live with both parents are more likely to finish high school, become economically self-sufficient, and have a healthier life style than their peers who grow up in a broken home.
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." "Using nationally representative data on over 2,600 adults born in the inner city, it was found that children who lived with both parents were more likely to have finished high school, be economically self-sufficient, and have a healthier life style than their peers who grew up in a broken home. Source: Hardy, Janet B. et al. "Self Sufficiency at Ages 27 to 33 Years: Factors Present between Birth and 18 Years that daughters...to a Predict Educational Attainment Among Children Born to Inner-city Families." Pediatrics 99 (1997): 80-87."]
Fact: Children who live in even "inner city" households with more money are more likely to finish high school, become economically self-sufficient, and have a healthier lifestyle than children who grow up in impoverished homes. The homes of single teenage mothers, included here in the definition of "broken," skew the statistics in most "broken home" and "fatherlessness" studies. But it has nothing to do with father presence or absence. Another study "attempted to determine whether biological father presence made a difference in children's cognitive ability or behavioral adjustment and sought to find how many of the effects of father presence were explicable by referring to background or indirect effects such as economic provision... when maternal characteristics and family resources were controlled for, almost all of the impacts of father presence disappeared... almost all of the father's impact on the family is related to economic support."
Crockett, L. J., Eggebeen, D. J., & Hawkins, A. J. (1993). Father's presence and young children's behavioral and cognitive adjustment. Journal of Family Issues, 14 (3), 355-377.
Misrepresentation -- Children do better in school when their fathers are involved.
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." "A survey of over 20,000 parents found that when fathers are involved in their children's education including attending school meetings and volunteering at school, children were more likely to get A's, enjoy school, and participate in extracurricular activities and less likely to have repeated a grade. Source: Fathers' Involvement in Their Children's Schools. National Center for Education Statistics. Washington DC: GPO, 1997.]
Fact: "[W]hen maternal characteristics and family resources were controlled for, almost all of the impacts of father presence disappeared... almost all of the father's impact on the family is related to economic support." In other words, when fathers are involved, that also correlates most of the time with the presence of mothers who are emotionally and financially supported and highly involved, making the difference.
Crockett, L. J., Eggebeen, D. J., & Hawkins, A. J. (1993). Father's presence and young children's behavioral and cognitive adjustment. Journal of Family Issues, 14 (3), 355-377.
Fact: "All of the protective factors except father involvement predicted behavior problem scores; children's sociability and attentiveness and the quality of the mother-child relationship predicted school readiness. Less harsh discipline [associated with mothers] was related to fewer behavior problems, while increased cognitive stimulation and maternal warmth were associated with increased school readiness."
Zaslow, M. J., Dion, M. R., Morrison, D. R., Weinfeld, N., Ogawa, J., & Tabors, P. (1999). Protective factors in the development of preschool-age children of young mothers receiving welfare. In E. M. Hetherington (Ed.) Coping with divorce, single parenting, and remarriage: A risk and resiliency perspective (pp. 193-219). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum
Fact: Children raised by single fathers were less well behaved in the classroom. Teachers judged youths raised by a single father as less successful at getting along with others and as putting forth less effort in class. "It is well-known that there are a lot of problems associated with children who grow up in single-mother households... [b]ut our results suggest the problems aren't mainly due to the lack of a father... the problems rise more from the absence of a second parent in general, and the fact that single mothers are more likely to be disadvantaged in terms of income and other factors."
Downey, Douglas.(1998). Ohio State research news release SINGLE MOTHERS, FATHERS EQUALLY SUCCESSFUL AT RAISING CHILDREN, http://www.acs.ohio-state.edu/units/research/archive/singpar.htm (Notwithstanding the unfortunate and misleading headline, this study did not find that single mothers and single fathers were equivalent, but that as a group they were equal to intact homes.)
Offensive -- "White" children do better in school when their fathers are involved.
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." Source: "A study using a nationally representative sample of over 6,300 teenagers found that for the white children in the sample, father involvement is associated with better quantitative and verbal skills, intellectual functioning, and overall academic achievement. Source: Goldstein, Harris S. "Fathers' Absence and Cognitive Development of 12-17 Year Olds." Psychological Reports 51 (1982): 843-848.]
Fact: Apparently, above, the presence of minority fathers is not so beneficial. The finding could have been written up in quite an interesting alternate way. This old study notwithstanding, the far and away most powerful predictors of child educational attainment have been established by the research; they are the mother's education and household economic well-being (married or not.)
http://www.hull.ac.uk/children5to16programme/briefings/joshi.pdf Also see the research at http://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/response.html
Fluff -- Children in intact families do better in school when their fathers are involved.
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." Source: "A study using a national probability sample of 1,250 fathers showed that children whose fathers share meals, spend leisure time with them, or help them with reading or homework do significantly better academically than those children whose fathers do not. Source: Cooksey, Elizabeth C. and Michelle M. Fondell. "Spending Time with His Kids: Effects of Family Structure on Fathers' and Children's Lives." Journal of Marriage and the Family 58 (August 1996): 693-707.]
Fact: Mothers' education is a primary predictor of child well-being. Moreover, there is some indication that fathers' involvement follows children's successes (fathers become more interested under such circumstances), as much as influencing such successes.
Russell Sage Foundation, c/o CUP Services, P.O. Box 6525, Ithaca, NY 14851 http://cpmcnet.columbia.edu/dept/nccp/news/fall97/5fall97.html
Misrepresentation -- Girls do better at math when their fathers are involved (and also are more feminine).
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." Source: " '...for girls, studies link a sense of competence in daughters - especially in mathematics and a sense of femininity - to a close, warm relationship between father and daughter.' Source: Radin, N. and G. Russell. "Increased Father Participation and Child Development Outcomes.' Fatherhood and Family Policy. Eds. M.E. Lamb and A. Sagi. Hillside Lawrence Erlbaum, 1983: 191-218."]
Comment: Higher femininity in girls has been correlated with lower interest and achievement in mathematics and the hard sciences.
Fact: "[G]irls' ...[academic] success is somewhat enhanced by father absence."
Mott, F. L. (1994). Sons, daughters and fathers' absence: Differentials in father-leaving probabilities and in-home environments. Journal of Family Issues, 15(1), 97-128, quoted in National Center on Fathers and Families, Father Presence Matters: A Review of the Literature, Toward an Ecological Framework of Fathering and Child Outcomes, by Deborah J. Johnson
Fact: The greatest predictors of child academic success are (1) the educational level of a child's mother and (2) the socioeconomic level of the home. (There also is a genetic component influencing native brain power and disposition in families in which fathers stay married to mothers, mothers have higher education, and there is a higher overall socioeconomic level.) When research isolates out the "father factor," the findings are that "adolescents from single father households are judged by teachers to be less well behaved and to show less effort in class. They also score slightly less than their single-mother counterparts on standardized tests, both verbal and math, and are perceived to be less academically qualified for college. Children raised by single fathers attain on average six months less education."
See Downey, D. B., Ainsworth-Darnell, J. W., & Dufur, M. J. (1998). Sex of parent and children's well-being in single-parent households. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 60(4), 878-893
Misrepresentation -- Fathers are the most important factor for the development of empathy.
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." "In a 26 year longitudinal study on 379 individuals, researchers found that the single most important childhood factor in developing empathy is paternal involvement. Fathers who spent time alone with their kids performing routine child care at least two times a week, raised children who were the most compassionate adults. Source: Koestner, Richard, Carol Franz, and Joel Weinberger. "The Family Origins of Empathic Concern: A Twenty-Six Year Longitudinal Study." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 58 (1990): 709-717."]
Fact: We really can't make this statement. In part, personality traits are genetic. Higher empathy also is correlated with persons who have suffered some in childhood. No studies have found that children reared by well-adjusted single mothers have less empathy than children reared in intact homes with involved well-adjusted fathers. This study found that the more empathetic children had fathers in their intact homes who in the 1960s were spending time caring for toddlers, i.e. fathers who themselves had unique personality traits including nurturing and empathy. The study argues in favor of the influence of parental genes; that's not about "fatherhood" or the unique contributions of fathers per se.
See: Bjorklund, David F., Origins of Human Nature: Evolutionary Developmental Psychology, Anthony D. Pellegrini, American Psychological Association 2001.
Fluff -- Empathetic, nurturing fathers pass on empathetic, nurturing qualities.
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." "A study of 47 first grade boys and their married parents found that fathers who participated important childhood more in childcare had sons who were more empathetic than sons whose fathers did not participate often in childcare. Source: Bernadett-Shapiro, Susan, Diane Ehrensaft, and Jerold Lee Shapiro. "Father Participation in Childcare and the empathy is paternal Development of Empathy in Sons: An Empirical Study." Family Therapy 23 (1996): 77-93."]
Fact: The statement is true, but it's fluff just the same, not a "positive effect of fatherhood." Both parents pass on to their children inherent characteristics. Two empathetic parents are more likely to have a child with their characteristics than unempathetic fathers coupled with either empathetic or unempathetic mothers. (See above study.) In effect, this study merely compares different kinds of fathers. Horn misrepresents when he implies that paternal involvement is a "cause" and not itself an "effect."
Fluff -- "White" children from single mother families whose fathers are not convicted criminals, alcoholics, or drug addicts -- and therefore not "absent" -- have lower incidences of delinquency, heavy drinking, and drug use than "white" children from the group of single mother families whose fathers are criminals, alcoholics, or drug addicts.
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." "Using a representative household sample of over 600 Buffalo, New York, adolescents and their parents, researchers found that white adolescents in single mother families who were involved with their non-resident fathers had lower incidence of delinquency, heavy drinking, and drug use than their peers living with a single mother with no father involvement. Source: Thomas, George, Michael P. Farrell, and Grace M. Barnes. "The Effects of Single-Mother Families and Nonresident Fathers on Delinquency and Substance Abuse in Black and White Adolescents." Journal of Marriage and the Family 58 (November 1996): 884-894."]
Fact: The hypothesized per se "absence" of the father correlation was not found for "nonwhite" children, indicating that it's not about father-presence or absence. It's not about father "involvement" but about the parental characteristics of the fathers who in pre-joint-custody days stayed around (and also the relatively higher socio-economic status of and financial support given to white mothers).
Thomas, George, Michael P. Farrell, and Grace M. Barnes. "The Effects of Single-Mother Families and Nonresident Fathers on Delinquency and Substance Abuse in Black and White Adolescents." Journal of Marriage and the Family 58 (November 1996): 884-894.
Fluff -- Studies reveal that even in high-crime, inner-city neighborhoods, well over 90 percent of children from safe, stable, two-parent homes do not become delinquents.
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." "Source: Richters, John E. and Pedro E. Martinez. "Violent Communities, Family Choices, and Children's Chances: An Algorithm for Improving the Odds." Development and Psychopathology 5 (1993): 609-627."]
Comment: What about the "unsafe" two-parent homes in high-crime neighborhoods? Isn't that by definition pretty much all of them?
Fact: "[T]he great majority of children brought up in single-parent families do well. In particular, differences in well-being between children from divorced and those from intact families, tend, on average, to be moderate to small."
U.S. government census statistics 1998; DHHS, "Percentage Distribution of Children in United States by Number of Parents in Household, see Family Structure, http://aspe.os.dhhs.gov/hsp/98trends/98SEC1.HTM
and Zill, N., Morrison, D. and Coiro, M., 1993. "Long Term Effects of Parental Divorce on Parent-Child Relationships: Adjustment and Achievement in Early Adulthood," Journal of Family Psychology, 7(1):91-103.
Fact: "[C]onduct disorder was associated with maternal absence, low mother-adolescent contact, changes in the participants' living arrangements, and negative parental role models. While father absence was not statistically significant for this sample, the author found that 70% of negative parental role models were fathers. The author also argues that the extent to which adolescents associate with conduct disordered peers will have an effect on the youth's own conduct problems. The author recommends further research into maternal absence."
Crawford-Brown, C. (1999). The impact of parenting on conduct disorder in Jamaican male adolescents. Adolescence 34(134), 417-435.
Fact: "Whether parents are chronically stressed or depressed often more powerfully influences a child's fate than whether there are two parents in a home or whether a family is poor."
Weissbourd, Richard. The Vulnerable Child: What Really Hurts America's Children and What We Can Do About It. Reading: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1996
Also see: Coontz, Stephanie. The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms with America's Changing Families, New York: BasicBooks, 1997.
Fact: "This perception that boys are in crisis is being fueled by psychotherapists and by the few horrifying cases... it is normal for people to think that some well-publicized behavior is common when it is in fact rare. This way of thinking is so normal that social psychologists have given it a name: "the availability heuristic." Indeed, the worry that boys today are emotionally crippled is powerfully contradicted by cross-cultural research showing that males and females are equally happy with their lives. In North America, in particular, the number of individuals of both sexes who view themselves as pretty happy or very happy is 90 percent."
Broude, Gwen J. ''Growing Up: A Cross-Cultural Encyclopedia.'' 1999. The Christian Science Publishing Society. [Originally published in the Sept./Oct. issue of the Harvard Education Letter. ]
Fluff -- When both boys and girls are reared with engaged fathers they demonstrate "a greater ability to take initiative and evidence self-control."
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." "Source: Pruett, K.D. The Nurturing Father. New York: Warner Books, 1987."]
Comment: (Note that children reared during the Great Depression had to take more initiative and children reared in abusive households frequently learn extreme forms of self-control. Perhaps they had to -- "necessity is the mother of invention.") The statement also begs the question: "greater" than who or what -- children who are reared with "disengaged" fathers? Once again, the above statement is not a "positive effect of fatherhood."
Fact: "Also examined was whether the history of father involvement up to 1984 had any effect on youths' well-being in 1987. Indicators of well-being include measures of educational and employment attainment, whether or not the adolescent had a child before age 19, whether the adolescent had spent time in jail, and signs of depression. The presence of fathers at home and regular contact with fathers was found to have little to no effect on these well-being outcome measures in the bivariate analyses."
Christine Winquist Nord and Laura Spencer Loomis Westat, Inc., ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY: SELECTED CHILD SUPPORT ARTICLES citing Furstenberg, F.F. and K.M. Harris. 1993. "When and why Fathers Matter: Impacts of Father Involvement on the Children of Adolescent Mothers." in Young Unwed Fathers: Changing Roles and Emerging Policies, R.I. Lerman and T.J. Ooms (Eds.) pp.117-138.
Also see the research at http://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/017.htm
Misrepresentation -- Being from a two-parent family decreases the likelihood that girls will engage in premarital sex.
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." "In rural South Carolina a survey of 564 adolescent young women revealed that "being from a two-parent family increased the likelihood of not engaging in premarital sexual intercourse." Source: Lock, Sharon E. and Murray L. Vincent. "Sexual Decision Making Among Rural Adolescent Females." Health Values 19.1 (1995): 47-58."]
Fact: Girls 15-19 raised in homes with fathers are significantly more likely to become married as teenagers and to not complete college. In 1958 more teenage girls gave birth than in 1998. The only difference was that in 1958, most were married.
The National Center for Health Statistics, see http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/99trends/index.htm
Fact: "Those subjects who reported unwanted sexual experiences rated their fathers' and mothers' views of women as significantly more traditional than subjects who had not reported such experiences. These data suggest that parents' attitudes about gender roles may be related to vulnerability and lead to unwanted sexual experiences."
Neal, Cynthia J. and Michael W. Mangis, "Unwanted Sexual Experiences Among Christian College Women: Saying No on the Inside," Wheaton College http://www.biola.edu/admin/JPT/past/23_3/Neal_Mangis.html
Fact: "70% of the sexually active teenage girls studied had initiated sexual relations with male peers as a result of parental restrictions on activities and as a way to assert autonomy."
Jacobs, J. L. (1994). Gender, race, class, and the trend toward early motherhood: A feminist analysis of teen mothers in contemporary society. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 22, 442-462.
Fact: "[C]ompared to children living with only females after separation, children living with males in their household after separation" -- whether or not that male is the natural father or someone brought into the family by the child's mother-- "were more than 7 times more likely to be abused. Girls living with males in the household after separation are not only at a markedly higher risk for sexual abuse, but that risk is substantial: Bolen found that 53% were sexually abused."
Wilson, Robin Fretwell "CHILDREN AT RISK: THE SEXUAL EXPLOITATION OF FEMALE CHILDREN AFTER DIVORCE," Cornell Law Review, 86 Cornell L. Rev. 251, January, 2001.
Misrepresentation -- Children's self-image is affected most by how loving their fathers are to them; or how loving the fathers are toward the fathers' wives.
Fact: Findings of a survey of 98 female and 88 male students in grades 6 to 8 were that self-image was correlated with how loving the children's fathers were toward the children's mothers. (See studies below regarding stepmothers.)
Parish, Thomas S. and James R. Necessary. "Parents' Actions: Are They Related to Children's Self-Concepts, Evaluations of Parents, and to Each Other?" Adolescence 29.116 (Winter 1994): 943-947.
Fact: "[A] seven-year study by Dallas's Timberlawn Psychiatric Institute found the one factor that was the most important in helping children become healthy, happy adults, was the quality of the relationship between their parents. This one factor was more important than giving kids hugs, providing good discipline, building their self esteem, or any other aspect of what is traditionally considered 'good parenting'."
-- from article in The Family Law Commentator, Vol.XX, No 3, l994, by H. Schleifler, M. A., LMHC
Misrepresentation -- "A study of 90 Oklahoma college students found that a strong attachment to fathers had a larger impact on young adult self esteem than attachment to their mothers."
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." "Source: McCurdy, Susan J. and Avraham Scherman. "Effects of Family Structure on the Adolescent Separation-Individuation Process." Adolescence 31 (1996): 307-318."]
Fact: Absolutely not. The research only hypothesized a correlation between self esteem and a higher attachment to fathers, comparing intact and single mother households, because of the correlations between self esteem and intact family homes, and that (as would be expected) there was higher attachment to resident fathers in intact families than to nonresident fathers of children of single parent homes. Given the many advantages of intact homes, including financial and social, the different histories and characteristics of parents who succeed in keeping their marriage together, and the good relationship between the two parents (a factor which HAS been demonstrated to be directly related to children's self-esteem and well-being), this hypothesis is wishful thinking.
McCurdy, Susan J. and Avraham Scherman. "Effects of Family Structure on the Adolescent Separation-Individuation Process." Adolescence 31 (1996): 307-318.
Fluff -- In a sample of 455 adolescents, aged 14 to 19, "students who have higher self-esteem and lower depression reported having greater intimacy with their fathers."
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." Source: Field, Tiffany et al. "Adolescents' Intimacy With Parents and Friends." Adolescence 30.117 (Spring 1995): 133-140.]
Fact: There is no cause-effect relationship special to fathers. Persons with higher self-esteem and less depression tend to have better relationships in general with other persons. Another study that delved into determining what causative factors might bear on adolescents' well-adjustedness found that "conduct disorder was associated with maternal absence, low mother-adolescent contact, changes in the participant's living arrangements, and negative parental role models. While father absence was not statistically significant for this sample... 70% of negative parental role models were fathers."
Crawford-Brown, C. (1999). The impact of parenting on conduct disorder in Jamaican male adolescents. Adolescence 34(134), 417-435.
Blather -- "A study on parent-infant attachment found that fathers who were affectionate, spent time with their children, and overall had a positive attitude were more likely to have securely attached infants..."
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." Source: Cox, M.J. et al. "Prediction of Infant-Father and Infant-Mother Attachment." Developmental Psychology 28 (1992): 474-483.\
Fact: The statement is true, but it still is blather. It's likely about genetics, and that the fathers were married to and in good relationships with the primary caregiving mothers of those children. Subsequent studies also indicate that whether the father's attachment with the infant is secure largely is dependent upon whether the mother-infant attachment is secure.
See the research at Myths and Facts about Fatherhood and Myths and Facts about Motherhood
Fluff -- "In a study of 75 toddlers it was found that children who were securely attached to their fathers were better problem solvers than children who were not securely attached to their fathers."
Lie -- "Children whose fathers spent a lot of time with them and who were sensitive to their needs were found to be better adapted than their peers whose fathers were not as involved and were less sensitive."
"In a study of 75 toddlers it was found that children who were securely attached to their fathers were better problem solvers than children who were not securely attached to their fathers. Children whose fathers spent a lot of time with them and who were sensitive to their needs were found to be better adapted than their peers whose fathers were not as involved and were less sensitive."
Fact: The first statement is nonsensically comparing fathers; the second statement is false. The researchers actually found that time spent with the father was irrelevant. "[R]esults highlighted the salience of qualitative characteristics (attitudes, behavioral sensitivity) rather than quantitative characteristics (amount of father's time with child) of parenting for toddler development."
Esterbrooks, M. Ann and Wendy A. Goldberg. "Toddler Development in the Family: Impact of Father Involvement and Parenting Characteristics." Child Development 55 (1984): 740-752.
Misinformation -- A study of Swedish infants found that those who were securely attached to their fathers were more sociable with strangers than their peers who were less attached to their parents.
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." Source: Lamb, M.E. et al. "Security of Mother- and Father-Infant Interaction Involving Play and Holding in Traditional and Nontraditional Swedish Families, Infant Behavior and Development." (1982): 355-367. "The Development of Father-Infant Relationships." The Role of the Father in Child Development, by Lamb, Michael E. New York: Wiley, 1997. ]
Fact: A fathers'-interest study that advertised for self-selected interview participants, and skewed the definition of "primary caregiver" in order to best support the definition of stay-home fathers as fulfilling that role, found that a comparison of the nurturing roles in primary caregiving father and primary caregiving female families revealed marked differences between mothers and fathers. In the primary caregiving female family, the child most often turned to the mother for nurturing. In the primary caregiving father family, the child utilized both parents for nurturing, but still turned more often to the ostensibly "non-primary caregiving" mother. "While primary caregiving fathers may be "capable" of nurturing, the child preferred the working mother as often as the primary caregiving father when both were available. As a consequence, the working mothers were providing an equal share of the nurturing in primary caregiving father families. "
Frank, Robert A. (1996) "Is the male in child care role changing? Primary caregiving males demonstrate the changing family structure: Implication for social work practice." http://www.slowlane.com/research/index.htm
Blather -- "...six-month old babies whose fathers had been actively involved scored higher on the Bayley Test of Mental and Motor Development, and babies whose fathers were involved during the first eight weeks of life managed stress better during their school years."
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." Source: Pedersen, F.A. et al. "Parent-Infant and Husband-Wife Interactions Observed at Five Months." The Father-Infant first eight weeks of Relationship. Ed. F. Pedersen. New York, 1980. 65-91.]
Fact: Another study "surveyed] 646 employed women with children age 4 or younger about their childcare arrangements and, one year later, about their employment status... [W]omen whose husbands were the primary childcare providers while the women worked were more likely to have terminated their employment at the end of a year than were women using other childcare arrangements, including daycare centers, nonrelatives, and grandmothers or other relatives." (Go back and re-read the studies correlating mothers' socio-economic status and intelligence with children's academic success.)
Maume, D. J. & Mullin, K. R. (1993). Men's participation in childcare and women's work attachment. Social Problems, 40, 533-546
Disinformation -- A study assessing the level of adaptation of one-year olds found that, when left with a stranger, children whose fathers were highly involved were less likely to cry, worry, or disrupt play than other one-year olds whose fathers were less involved.
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." Source: Kotelchuk, M. "The Infant's Relationship to His Father: Experimental Evidence." The Role of the Father in Child Development. by Michael Lamb. 2nd ed. New York: Wiley, 1981. ]
Comment! danger! alert! The same results hold for this-age babies who are used to being left in daycare with high caregiver turnover and prolonged separations from their mothers. It's not necessarily an indication of well-adjustedness.
See, Solomon, Judith and Carol George, The Development of attachment in separated and divorced families: Effects of overnight visitation, parent and couple variables, Attachment & Human Development VOl.1 No. 1, April 1999; Jennifer McIntosh, "Enduring Conflict in Parental Separation: Pathways of Impact on Child Development, 9 J. of Family Studies 63, April 2003. (Alternating custody, e.g. week-on/week-off, was associated with disorganized attachment in 60 percent of infants under 18 months; older children and adults who had endured this arrangement as youngsters exhibited what the researcher described as "alarming levels of emotional insecurity and poor ability to regulate strong emotion.")
Blather -- "Premature infants whose fathers spent more time playing with them had better cognitive outcomes at age 3."
[Wade Horn's "Father Facts." Source: Yogman, M.W., D. Kindlon and F.J. Earls. "Father Involvement and Cognitive Behavioral Outcomes of Premature Infants." Journal of the American Academy Child and Adolescent Psychology 34 (1995): 58-66.]
Fact: "Complete or optimal parenting is not limited to a particular familial structure... Optimal parenting may be defined as the rearing of a child in a nurturing, loving, and safe environment where skills and ideals are engendered that enable the child to be a happy, whole, contributing member of society. Using this definition, many family configurations, irrespective of parental residence of either gender, can achieve this end if given proper supports."
National Center on Fathers and Families, Father Presence Matters: A Review of the Literature, Toward an Ecological Framework of Fathering and Child Outcomes, by Deborah J. Johnson http://fatherfamilylink.gse.upenn.edu/org/ncoff/litrev/fpmlr.htm
Most of the items on this page are directly based on and respond to Wade Horn's prevarications, half-truths, and equivocations parading as "Positive Effects of Father Presence" from his taxpayer-paid-for propaganda piece Father Facts at http://www.fatherhood.org/pdf/effects.pdf. Since so many of these "father facts" are filler, not even rising to the level of a "myth" or a lie, they are labeled as "fluff." The "father facts" in this section of Horn's Father Facts paper, ostensibly being "positive effects of father presence," are mostly addressed in the order in which they appear in Horn's paper." RETURN TO TEXT
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