Life Without Father: Compelling New Evidence that Fatherhood and Marriage are Indispensable for the Good of Children and SocietyThe American family is changing. Divorce, single parents, and stepfamilies are redefining the ways we live together and raise our children. Many "experts" feel these seemingly inevitable changes should be celebrated; they claim that the "new" families, which often lack a strong father, are actually healthier than traditional two-parent families - or, at the very least, do children no harm. But as renowned family sociologist David Popenoe shows in Life Without Father, this optimistic view is severely misguided. Examining evidence from social and behavioral science, history, and evolutionary biology, Popenoe shows why fathers today are deserting their families in record numbers. The disintegration of the child-centered, two-parent family - especially in the inner cities, where as many as two in three children are growing up without their fathers - and the weakening commitment of fathers to their children that more and more follows divorce, are central causes of many of our worst individual and social problems. Juvenile delinquency, drug and alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy, welfare dependency, and child poverty can be directly traced to fathers' lack of involvement in their children's lives. Our situation will only get worse, Popenoe warns, unless men are willing to renew their commitment to their marriages and their children. Yet he is not just an alarmist. In Life Without Father, he suggests concrete policies, and new ways of thinking and acting, that will help all fathers improve their marriages and family lives, and tells us what we as individuals and as a society can do to support and strengthen the most important thing a man can do. |
Contents
The Remarkable Decline of Fatherhood and Marriage | 19 |
The Human Carnage of Fatherlessness | 52 |
Victorian Fathers and the Rise of the Modern Nuclear Family | 81 |
The Shrinking Father and the Fall of the Nuclear Family | 109 |
Reclaiming Fatherhood and Marriage | 191 |
Notes | 229 |
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adolescent adult American Family became become behavior biological fathers births breadwinner role century changes chil child abuse Child Development childhood childrearing cial cohabitation couples cultural decades decline delinquency divorce rate domestic dren early economic especially evidence evolutionary factor family form father absence father involvement father role fatherhood fatherlessness female girls growing Henry Harpending household human husbands important increased individual infants institution John Demos Journal of Marriage Kingsley Davis Kung San living Lystra male Margo Wilson marital marriage married Martin Daly McLanahan ment modern nuclear family modern societies monogamous moral mothers National nonmarital cohabitation nurturing parents percent polygamy problem psychological recent relationship relatively reproductive revolution riage romantic love sexual abuse sexual revolution single-parent families social stepfamilies stepfathers stepparents strong studies teenage thers tion traditional trends University Press Victorian era Victorian family violence vorce well-being women York young