Involved fathers make difference

Published 7:10 pm Friday, January 23, 2015

Much of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address on Tuesday focused on what government can do to ensure better outcomes for the nation’s children. But something else is happening today that will have a far more dramatic effect to do just that — fathers are becoming more and more involved in their children’s lives.

That’s good news.

“In a 2012 Pew Research Center survey, 46 percent of fathers and 52 percent of mothers said they personally spend more time with their children than their own parents spent with them,” the Pew Research Center reported last year. “Very few said they spend less time with their children than their parents spent with them. Even so, many fathers feel they’re still not doing enough. Nearly half of all fathers (46 percent) said they spend too little time with their kids.”

But many are selling themselves short. As Pew notes, “The amount of time parents spend with their children continues to go up. Fathers have nearly tripled their time with children since 1965.”

What does this mean, in light of the State of the Union speech? Well, President Obama talked a lot about college.

“Children with involved fathers are more likely to graduate from college — particularly among middle- and upper-income families but also among those from lower-income backgrounds, a recent study found,” notes Rachel Sheffield for The Daily Signal, a blog run by the Heritage Foundation. “According to this new research by Brad Wilcox at the University of Virginia, the family structure that best promotes this involvement is a married, intact family. This is the case for youth from lower-educated homes as well as those from more highly educated homes.”

Wilcox says the link is made clear in many, many studies.

“Family scholars from sociologist Sara McLanahan to psychologist Ross Parke have long observed that fathers typically play an important role in advancing the welfare of their children,” Wilcox explains. “Focusing on the impact of family structure, McLanahan has found that, compared to children from single-parent homes, children who live with both their mother and father have significantly lower rates of nonmarital childbearing and incarceration and higher rates of high school and college graduation. Examining the extent and style of paternal involvement, Parke notes, for instance, that engaged fathers play an important role in ‘helping sons and daughters achieve independent and distinct identities’ and that this independence often translates into educational and occupational success.”

Involved fathers, therefore, play a big role in college success.

“Specifically, compared to their peers whose fathers are not involved, young adults with involved fathers were at least 98 percent more likely to graduate from college,” Wilcox notes. “Moreover, paternal involvement is especially prevalent among young adults from college-educated homes, and these young adults are also more likely to live in an intact family. This means that young adults from such homes tend to be triply advantaged: they typically enjoy more economic resources, an intact family and an involved father.”

Obama and Congress should focus on public policies that encourage this.