America's Youth | Society Must Help Fathers Stay Involved in Youths’ Lives

The decline of fatherhood is one of the most basic, unexpected, and extraordinary social trends of our time. Its dimensions can be captured in a single statistic: in just three decades, between 1960 and 1990, the percentage of children living apart from their biological fathers more than doubled, from 17 percent to 36 percent. By the turn of the century, nearly 50 percent of American children may be going to sleep each evening without being able to say good night to their dads.

No one predicted this trend, few researchers or government agencies have monitored it, and it is not...

[The entire page is 3679 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the: