Fathers don't matter??

Below is an excerpt from the article “Fathers Disappear from Households across America” published in the Washington Times.

“America is awash in poverty, crime, drugs and other problems, but more than perhaps anything else, it all comes down to this, said Vincent DiCaro, vice president of the National Fatherhood Initiative: Deal with absent fathers, and the rest follows.

People “look at a child in need, in poverty or failing in school, and ask, ‘What can we do to help?’ But what we do is ask, ‘Why does that child need help in the first place?’ And the answer is often it’s because [the child lacks] a responsible and involved father,” he said.

The near-total absence of male role models has ripped a hole the size of half the population in urban areas.”[1]

63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes -- U.S. D.H.H.S.,

Bureau of the Census

85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes –Center for Disease Control

80% of rapists motivated with displaced anger come from fatherless homes –

Criminal Justice and Behavior, Vol. 14, p. 403-26

71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes --National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools

70% of juveniles in state operated institutions come from fatherless homes --U.S. Dept. of Justice, Special Report Sept., 1988

85% of all youths sitting in prisons grew up in a fatherless home --Fulton County Georgia jail populations & Texas Dept. of Corrections, 1992 Translated, this means that children from a fatherless home are:

    5 times more likely to commit suicide

    32 times more likely to run away

    20 times more likely to have behavioral disorders

    14 times more likely to commit rape

    9 times more likely to drop out of school

    10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances

    9 times more likely to end up in a state operated institution

20  times more likely to end up in prison 

The word “father” means source, sustainer (Isaiah 9:6 – Col.1:17), foundation (founding fathers), and one who nourishes. The Greek πατήρ, patḗr, from the root pa, "nourisher," "protector," "upholder") according to the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.

Whatever it produces, it sustains. Just producing a child does not qualify a male for being a father, it is whether he sustains what he’s produced…

The culture must return to the biblical order of the family and start taking the covenant of marriage seriously again. When the foundation of fatherhood is destroyed, then society crumbles.

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[1] http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/dec/25/fathers-disappear-from-households-across-america/