The Bridge: Who's Your Daddy?

(Part 1 of 5)

By Darryl James

I like writing this column and doing lectures, because my positions are based on research, which is typically divergent from the positions of people who project the worst things about Black people, particularly Black men.

For example, when it comes to single parents, the only discussion many people want to entertain is one of Black men's absence and/or abdication of responsibility. Even if we have that discussion, the problem can not be fully addressed unless we examine all aspects of the situation.

I believe it is safe to say, and that most will agree with the simple fact that there are more children being born outside of marriages. There are also fewer marriages to begin with.

Over the past thirty-five years, marriage has declined and the number of so-called illegitimate children have increased. Okay? Okay.

Accordingly, many of us will acknowledge that there are fewer fathers in the lives of the children being born outside of marriages. And, we will probably agree that the diminishing number of fathers in the lives of children has contributed to a number of social problems, including teen crime, drug-related behaviors and child abuse.

But, sadly, what we probably won't agree upon is the root cause of childbirth outside of marriage, or even to whom the children are being born.

In 1965, seven percent of the nation's children were born to single parents. Currently the number is 33 percent.

There are three main factors that have contributed to that increase, including a decrease in the number of women who wait for marriage to have children; a decline in the birth rate of married women and an increase in the birth rate of unmarried women.

Now, first and foremost allow me to underscore the fact that this is not a Black phenomenon. This is something that is occurring in America and it affects everyone.

Having said that, if we know that the problem is that there are more unmarried women having children, why can't more of the solutions focus on encouraging more women who are unmarried to avoid unwanted pregnancies?

There are a plethora of choices, including myriad forms of birth control, abstinence, and whether you agree or disagree, abortion is also an option.

The point is that it is counterproductive and silly to only discuss absentee and deadbeat fathers, without also discussing the role and responsibility of the person who has the most control.

Examine the court system where child support is concerned and the focus is on assuring that fathers pay or are jailed, but very little focus is given to whether the woman who had the child is prepared and capable of supporting her offspring financially, emotionally or otherwise. Shall we force her to demonstrate financial responsibility or be jailed?

And the question that no one wants to ask is this: If neither the mother nor the father were financially prepared, why weren't steps taken to prevent the pregnancy? I'll follow up on this shortly.

The question of how to reduce out of wedlock births can not be boiled down to laying the blame at the feet of Black men. In addition to the dual responsibility for both parents, there is also societal responsibility.

For example, while television (both cable and network) has delivered more sexual content, our schools have delivered less sexual education.

And, the village that may have raised previous generations of children from single parent homes has splintered.

Today's single mothers are more than likely the children of single mothers themselves, who may have provided little sex education and/or preparation for sex and pregnancy.

A blip on the radar screen was the slight decline of single parent births in the Black community in the late 1990's.

But percentage-wise, things still don't look very good.

Before presenting the numbers, it is crucial to underscore the fact that while African Americans have a more dismal picture in terms of sheer percentages of populations, all Americans are dealing with the issue. In fact, Blacks don't actually have the highest actual number of out of wedlock children.

In terms of percentages, non-Hispanic Blacks have a total of 69.4 per cent of births out of wedlock, Hispanics have 40.92, whites have 21.54 and Asian/Pacific islanders have 15.64 percent.

But when you look at the actual numbers, the highest percentage of the total number of out of wedlock births is held by whites with 41 percent. Blacks hold 32 percent of that number and Hispanics hold 23 percent.

In fact, if you take a look at the trend of out of wedlock births from 1980 until the end of the last century, you'll find that the spike was more due to white illegitimate births. During that time period, annual Black non-marital births increased by roughly 100,000, while the same group in the white community increased twofold, rising from 328,984 to 793,202.

My point? When many Americans, including Black Americans talk about out of wedlock childbirth, invariably the picture of a Black mother is conjured up, yet, the reality is contrary.

Now, earlier I asked why people would have children if they know that both the mother and the father are ill prepared. I posed that question because when it comes to out of wedlock births, the majority is not happening to teen mothers who may know very little about how life works.

Out of wedlock childbirth is not synonymous with teen pregnancy. The portion of unwed mothers under the age of 18 is only 13.17 percent of the total. The primary age group affected is 18 to 25, and actually, there are more out of wedlock births to women over the age of thirty than under the age of 18.

While the concept of the irresponsible father is widely touted, single mothers are not innocent victims of some man who, quoting Bill Cosby, is a "sperm-shooting machine," who wantonly impregnates women and "walks away from something called fatherhood."

Nearly 40 percent of childbirth out of wedlock involves a woman who is living with a man.

And, many of the births outside of marriage aren't necessarily unplanned.

Nearly half of those pregnancies are intentional, with 34 percent occurring earlier than the mother planned and only 14 percent resulting from unwanted pregnancies.

In fact, the decline in marriage among young adult women has come hand in hand with a sharp increase in sexual activity outside of marriage. Among non-married women from the age of 20 to 35, some 79 percent report being sexually active with 15 percent of that activity occurring without birth control.

Finally, roughly half of all out of wedlock births are second or third births for the mother.

What does this all mean?

It means a few things.

First, America must alter its view of out of wedlock childbirth and accordingly, its view of where the blame should lie. Two people have sex and a child is born"”both must be held equally responsible and liable, financially and otherwise.

Secondly, society itself must take responsibility and according action to provide more sex education to the masses.

And, if the focus is given to assuring that more unmarried mothers and fathers understand the importance of having fathers in the lives of children, then perhaps the resulting work can be focused on decreasing the number of children born without stable relationships with their fathers.

It also means that the consequences of raising children without fathers must be examined clearly with pragmatic resolution as the goal.

Darryl James is an award-winning author who is now a filmmaker. His first mini-movie, "Crack," was released in March of this year. James' latest book, "Bridging The Black Gender Gap," is the basis of his lectures and seminars. Previous installments of this column can now be viewed at www.bridgecolumn.com. James can be reached at djames@theblackgendergap.com.

THE BRIDGE: Who's Your Daddy, Part 2 of 5

The Consequences of Absentee Fathers.

By Darryl James

*Yesterday's single-mother household had support from the village consisting of their own fathers, uncles, brothers and other family members.

Today, more single mothers are disconnected from extended family members and typically from their own fathers, which means that if the fathers of their children are not on the scene, there more than likely will be no male figure in the children's lives.

There are very few cases of men simply fathering children and willfully shirking parental obligations.

Studies show that even among men who use fatherhood to "express their manhood," there is a desire to remain involved in the lives of the resulting offspring.

Yet, the overwhelming concept of the Absentee Father is of a man who "donates his DNA," and abandons the child along with all responsibilities.

The notion of Black fathers abandoning their children is typically the stereotype that many Americans are comfortable with. And this comfort generally comes without any attention to research.

For example, how many people with that comfort would remain comfortable with the fact that there are actually a growing number of single parent households headed by Black fathers?

However, the fact remains that the overwhelming majority of children in single parent households are being raised by mothers, frequently in the absence of a father or father figure.

There are a number of reasons why fathers are absent from their children's lives, even though the one that garners the most focus is the man being a proverbial "Deadbeat Dad," the father who willfully neglects to pay his financial obligations.

Some fathers may be absent because they were unprepared for fatherhood and are often unwilling, but have little say once the woman is pregnant. Some fathers may be absent because the mother may not actually know who impregnated her, and other fathers may be absent because their assigned financial responsibility is far above their financial capability.

While society seeks to imprison men who fail to pay child support, few focus on the fact that 70% of fathers who are in arrears on child support earn $10,000 a year or less.

In short, the majority of men who are being prosecuted for failure to pay often can not pay.

And, even if there are attempts to be involved, including sharing the care of the child, purchasing groceries, diapers or other necessities, those attempts are discounted if the assigned financial responsibilities are unmet.

The net result when a father is unable to pay, is that he will probably disappear from the child's life, after either running from the financial burden that he can not carry, or after being jailed for being unable to shoulder the financial burden.

These are the two most prominent results when Daddy can not pay, and while a great portion of society is comfortable with these results, there are some dire consequences of not having fathers in the lives of children.

There are a handful of pieces written about the consequences of absentee fathers, but generally the focus is on the male child. However, there are some very serious issues faced by fatherless females today, which stem from low self-esteem and very poor socialization with positive male role models in their lives as young girls.

These issues include fleeting and unstable love relationships with men, early experimentation with sex, increased out of wedlock childbirth and lower self-esteem. These issues must be addressed.

Increased absentee fathers result in increased poverty for the children. Fifty-one percent of the children raised by unmarried mothers are raised in poverty, while only seven percent of children in a marriage are poor. Even marriage after the child is born decreases poverty for the child by more than half.

That poverty, which typically includes Welfare dependence, has that dependence sustained through the child's minority years in 50% of the cases, while children in married households are only on Welfare 3% of the time until adulthood. Again, marriage after the child is born decreases Welfare dependence by more than half, while divorce will only increase Welfare dependence to 13%.

Children raised in single parent homes are more likely to have retarded cognitive development, lower educational achievement, increased behavioral problems, lower impulse control and increased emotional disturbances. Those children are also more likely to engage in criminal activity.

A summary from the National Institute of Child Health and Development found that inner city Black male children in households at or below poverty with little or no fatherhood involvement had lower mental development and decreased cognitive development. They also were more prone to difficulties with self control, impulse control and Attention Deficit Disorder.

Project TALENT, a federal survey, found that children born outside of marriage were more likely to become unwed parents themselves.

Those children have a higher likelihood of becoming single parents because they are experiencing earlier sexual activity and few, if any models of parenting partnerships and/or marriage. They are also more likely to end up on Welfare as single parents.

According to The National Health Interview Survey of Child Health, children of unwed parents have greater behavioral and emotional problems than children of married parents.

A 1988 study by the University of Illinois showed that a boy's educational achievements are diminished the longer he spends in a single parent home.

In 1988, a study of eleven thousand people showed a dramatic association between rates of violent crime and children from single parent households between the ages of 12 and 20. The study underscored the fact that neither poverty alone, nor race alone can be associated with high crime rates.

And, data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, reveals that young Black men raised in homes lead by a single mother are twice as likely to engage in criminal activities as those from two parent homes.

Society at large and the Black community in specific would do well to understand the importance of the father's role in child rearing, focusing on more important aspects such as time spent on a regular basis than simple assignment of financial responsibility.

Even if all the fathers pay, who will be there to provide male role models for the children?

Am I making excuses for Absentee Fathers?

Not hardly.

What I am doing is underscoring the very real fact that focusing on financial child support has done little to increase the quality of life for the throngs of young boys and girls who are growing up without male influence.

More men have been jailed for child support, but that has not resulted in more men in the lives of those children or even more non-welfare support for the children, which means, quite frankly, that the Child Support Industry has failed.

Absentee fathers are not the only deadbeats.

The Bridge: Who's Your Daddy, Part 3 of 5

Who's A Deadbeat?

By Darryl James

Some phrases fall too quickly off of the lips of the masses.

Take "Deadbeat Dad," for example.

How many of us even bother to think about other people who could be found "Deadbeat," aside from fathers?

For example, our very own society is a Deadbeat.

First, because the overwhelming majority of children in single parent homes are born to parents who are already living in poverty, society's "remedies" often do more harm than good, with the net result of fewer fathers in the lives of children.

Those "remedies" pursue the assigned father to reimburse the state for benefits provided to the mother, sending some men to jail for their inability to pay, and forcing others out of the workforce, by taking away their driving privileges, leaving many of them to choose to quit their job or leave the state when they can not pay.

But if we pay taxes into a pool to be called on in times of need, then the overseers of those tax dollars would do greater good for society by assuring that custody agreements are being complied with and that the goal of more fathers in the lives of children be paramount.

But there are no state programs to enforce custody and no incentives for being present in the lives of children, only penalties for failure or inability to pay.

This makes society a "Deadbeat Society," because millions of children are left without fathers in their lives while the focus is on making them pay, ostensibly so that society does not have to.

There are laws to assign a father the financial responsibility, laws to access his bank account to take the money and laws to penalize him further by taking away his driver's license or imprisoning him.

Yet, there are no laws to address the very real phenomena of the "Deadbeat Mom," a mother who has a child without having the financial wherewithal to support the child, even in tandem with child support, if collected.

Society will continue to diminish itself if all single mothers are looked upon as mere victims who have been abandoned by the male parent, or as strong, heroic women who stoically shoulder the parental burden alone, instead of viewing a portion of them in realistic terms as Deadbeat Moms who give little forethought to parenthood, viewing men as sexual partners and/or ATM machines.

But that isn't a discussion that many people want to have.

If a woman knowingly has unprotected sex and a full term birth with a partner who was underemployed or unemployed to start with, why shouldn't she be taken to task for bringing a child into the world without properly preparing for that child with emotional and financial support?

That has been the focus when it comes to fathers who have failed to prepare emotionally and financially for their children.

Even Michael Jackson understood that in the ˜eighties when he admonished in Wanna Be Startin' Something: "If you can't feed your baby, then don't have a baby."

If we're going to address men who don't pay and don't show up, we should also address the lifestyles and habits of the women who should be equally prepared and responsible.

For example, we should examine the rate of unpaid child support among non-custodial mothers.

According to the United States Census Bureau, non-custodial mothers failed to make child support payments 37% of the time, compared to 24% of the time for men.

And, while 70% of non-custodial fathers paid their child support obligations, only 57% of non-custodial mothers paid their assigned financial obligations.

Many of these are "Deadbeat Moms."

Let's talk about who the so-called "Deadbeat Dads" are. There is no one simple catch-all description.

In some cases, men who father children abdicate all aspects of their responsibility.

In other cases, men pay the amount of child support proscribed by law and never participate in the lives of those children.

The men in both categories are Deadbeat Dads.

But, some men are paying child support and making every human effort to participate in their children's lives, but are actually being prevented from seeing their children. Yet, they, too, are labeled "Deadbeat Dads."

In still other cases, some men care for their children daily, participating in the rearing of their offspring and are just unable to pay the legally mandated child support. Some are doing it well and some are even doing it without the mothers, but they get lumped into the Deadbeat Dad category as well.

However, it may surprise some of us who care that according to the Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement, 70% of fathers who are in arrears on child support earn $10,000 a year or less. Fathers who earn above $40,000 a year account for less than 4% of the arrears.

And, also for those who care, many of those fathers still make contributions to their children's lives, in the form of groceries, toys, diapers and baby furniture. Many non-custodial fathers actually share in the daily care of the child, which is perhaps more crucial than being assigned child support that may financially overwhelm them.

The problem is that once child support is assigned to men earning very little salary, absenteeism increases.

There is no accounting for a father's contributions to the child if he is not paying the assigned child support.

The question may be posed: "Why not pay child support instead of making purchases?" And the answer is simple: Primarily, the purchases may be less than the assigned child support and according to surveys, many fathers feel connected to their children when they are able to show up with items they have paid for.

Again, these purchases as well as any time spent with the child are completely discounted if the assigned child support is not paid.

The point is not to exonerate Deadbeat Fathers, but to examine all sides, because for far too long, society has pointed the finger of responsibility solely at men, leading to many of them being imprisoned and many of them otherwise falling out of society. Yet, at the end of the day, there are still children growing up without fathers and there are still single mothers on Welfare.

If we focus on getting more fathers involved in the lives of their children, as opposed to viewing them as cash machines, we will end up with more positive male role models in the lives of the women and children who need them.

At that point, there will be fewer instances of people asking "Who's Your Daddy?"

Sadly, there is overwhelming focus on making men pay, as opposed to making sure that more fathers are present in the lives of children.

The Bridge: Who's Your Daddy, Part 4 of 5

Making Him Pay vs. Making Him Present

By Darryl James

In this nation, violent crimes typically work their way through the underclass, who are both the majority of victims and perpetrators.

Over the past forty years, more and more youth who are born into underclass families tumble further away from upward mobility. These fallen youth have little motivation to become productive members of society, leaning more toward gangs, violent crime and drugs than education and participation in the workforce.

In study after study, this trend has been linked directly to the decline in the number of fathers present in the lives of underclass children.

When fathers are in the home, boys are taught self control, which is crucial in their teen years. Without limits set by a stable male figure, many young boys have difficulty determining where the world begins and where they end.

And, having fathers around provides healthy role models for boys who are able to imagine what their future lives can be like based upon a stable adult male figure. A young man is able to make the transition to husband, father and productive member of society when an example is in his life.

Without such examples, negative role models become the standard bearers, including gang members, pimps, thugs and other scourges from the bottom of society.

What does this mean?

Simple: Even if a man can not pay child support, his presence in the lives of his children is better for society overall.

At some point we must ask ourselves why the child support system focuses on the idea that a father's best contribution is financial. Very little effort is spent toward assuring that children have emotional and/or physical connections to fathers whether they are paying child support or not.

Sadly, the goal for most existing laws and efforts are simply to "make him pay," including laws suspending driver's licenses and providing access to bank accounts. But making him pay does very little for making him present. In fact, focusing on making him pay may actually assure that he won't be present.

Focusing on making him pay has failed.

Ten years ago, $31 billion was in arrears on child support, according to the federal government. By 2003, that number had soared to $96 billion, along with the number of fathers in jail and/or out of the workforce.

Further evidence that the "make him pay" focus has failed was found by the Urban Institute, a Washington think tank. According to the Urban Institute, current measures designed to coerce fathers to pay child support has played a "crucial role" in forcing low-income Black men from 25 to 34 out of the workforce altogether.

The end result of aggressive child support collection is often the flight of fathers from financial burden that may be overwhelming and/or insurmountable.

The system is so anxious to make him pay, that it often holds men financially responsible without their knowledge and without them actually being fathers.

A bill named for Senator Bill Bradley (D-New Jersey), dictates that once a man is assigned financial responsibility, he can not even go to court to have it reduced or erased.

The amendment keeps fathers up under child support even if it is determined that they are not the biological parent. This is really disturbing, when according to a report in the Los Angeles Times, roughly 70% of fathers are not in court when paternity is established and their monthly obligations are determined.

Fathers who are not present may not even know that they owe child support, and worse, according to that same LA Times report, "on average, more than 350 men every month are incorrectly named as fathers."

Going back to the Bradley Amendment, those fathers are still held under retroactive child support orders, even after being determined not to be fathers.

There are no legal measures to seek the actual father, or to garner the physical presence of either the biological father, or the father who is being forced to pay child support.

And, in many cases, the mother has no idea who the father is. This situation has lead to alarming "solutions" within the law. In some states, financial responsibility is assigned to men who just happen to be around when the woman gets pregnant, whether it is his biological child or not.

The best example of this case is when a couple is married, but the wife has sex with someone other than the husband and produces a child. Even after the couple divorces and even if DNA tests prove that someone else is the father, the ex-husband can still be assigned fatherhood and child support. And, in most cases, judges will refuse to end established child support, claiming that responsibility must remain with the only father the child has ever known.

We know that there are plentiful measures designed to make him pay, but where are the measures designed to make him present?

Sadly, there are few.

This is not only in reference to measures which would urge fathers to be present in the lives of their children, but also measures designed to enforce custody rights of non-custodial fathers.

Government provides custodial parents with free assistance in locating the so-called "Deadbeat Dad," but no state will assist a non-custodial father with locating a mother who has skipped town with the child.

Can society assure that more fathers will be present in the lives of children?

Yes. But that will require that we change our minds about the propaganda disseminated about the so-called "Deadbeat Dad." Even though I have proven that the system allows fraudulent assignment of child support, and that very few men actually want to walk away from their children, some people will continue to babble on with their negative views of single fathers-based on rumors and innuendo, not fact.

Securing more fathers in the lives of children will also require that society's focus actually be placed on making fathers present as opposed to making them pay. Even though it has been proven that making him pay has failed, society dredges on with the prosecution of impoverished fathers for debts which continue to go uncollected.

And, finally, if we wish to see more fathers in the lives of children, we must stop the Welfare System from supplanting the father as breadwinner of the family, which I'll deal with next week.

In some ways, society is waking up to the fact that making him pay has not made him present and that the system needs to be changed.

The times, they are a' changin'. Proof comes from mothers who not only care about their children, but about the relationships those children have with their fathers.

For example, Jacqueline Kennedy, an unwed mother from Los Angeles, told the Los Angeles Times that she prefers personal involvement to child support from her child's father.

"He calls. He sends cards. He's an excellent father," said Kennedy, who supports her family with her job as a child-care worker. "You don't have to be together to raise a child. Women need to get off Aid to Families With Dependent Children and stop thinking about fathers paying child support. What makes a good father is whether he gets involved."

Children have needs.

Fathers should pay when they can. So should mothers. So should society.

Fathers can't carry children in a womb, but once a child is in the world, fathers can provide nurturing and support to children in a way that is as necessary as the nurturing and support a mother provides.

That is more about being around than being a cash machine.

The Bridge: Who's Your Daddy, Part 5 of 5

When Welfare Replaces Daddy

By Darryl James

If we are truly concerned about the future of our children, then we would focus on the benefits, not the costs of amending the Welfare system, because as study after study has shown, our children are doing worse with fewer fathers in the home.

An early study from the Journal of Genetic Psychology found that the differences in development between children were connected more to the amount of interaction with the father as opposed to the socio-economic status of either parent or even the number of adults in the household.

Current studies prove that children without fathers in the home are more prone to an assortment of difficulties.

Yet, society focuses on jailing fathers who do not pay, which has not proven to make them pay or make them show up.

The problem is not that fathers just want to have children and walk away, as we have been told. The problem is that Welfare, in many ways, supplants the father, and in other ways, the courts simply ignore or impede fathers who desire to be present.

Earlier in this series, I highlighted that nearly 40 percent of unwed mothers are living with a man and are already mothers to one or more additional children., but the "income-tested" Welfare System creates blockages to marriage.

Governmental assistance programs often root out males who may be dating single mothers prior to deciding to marry and attempt to assign financial responsibility to them, often resulting in a breakup.

For example, if a mother who is living with her boyfriend applies for benefits as a single head of household, she will have support from the system, while her mate ostensibly will have his own income, even if it's minimum wage.

But if the two do decide to marry, the system will immediately count the man's income against the woman's Welfare eligibility, reducing or ending her benefits.

What this means, as dramatized in the ˜seventies movie Claudine, is that benefits are maximized when a single mother remains single, and slashed if she marries. The two incomes represented by the man's income and Welfare benefits, are reduced to solely the man's income"”a huge burden delivered with no preparation.

In this manner, the Welfare System forces impoverished couples to choose to remain unmarried over combining incomes in a marriage. While the popular concept of single Black mothers is of Welfare Queens, that concept is neither based on truth or intelligence. Welfare benefits are scarcely enough for a family to survive on and most of the Welfare fraud is actually committed by white women.

Welfare case workers will even deduct gifts from a man from the amount of monthly assistance provided to the single mother.

What must be stated and underscored is that these solutions are designed to create financial responsibility, not to place fathers in the lives of children.

And, in reality, there is no huge single parent Welfare drain on the economy. Total Welfare program costs in the United States are just over $400 billion per year, which is only FIVE PER CENT of the Gross Domestic Product. And only half of this goes to households with children.

But, even as our retarded president seeks more billions for a failing war effort overseas, many stupid ass Americans fly into a rage over the possibility of Welfare's five percent of the GDP growing to a whopping six percent.

The total arrearages in child support is just under $100 billion dollars, while the cost of the Iraq War will be over $1 trillion by the time things are all said and done.

If we acknowledge the fact that 70 percent of men in arrears earn less than $10,000 annually, then forcing a single woman off of Welfare benefits if she marries, tacitly creates fewer marriages and more single parent households. It also makes for less fathers in the lives of children, when the man is pursued for repayment of Welfare benefits.

Can the Welfare and Child Support System be revamped to make more fathers present in the lives of more children?

The easy answer is yes.

First, since the focus on making him pay has failed (arrears have actually risen despite arrests), more efforts to make him present should be pursued, which will benefit everyone.

Instead of continuing to penalize parents, society would fare better to actually reward couples who marry and combine incomes while improving their standing.

For example, instead of slashing Welfare benefits when a man is in the home, the system would be pragmatic to provide assistance for education or the acquisition of trades, in addition to time-limited extension of daycare support and transportation costs for both parents.

The net result will be fewer families languishing in poverty and on Welfare.

Additionally, a single father who is present in the home and taking full advantage of those incentives should also have his debt to the Welfare system reduced substantially. Largely, impoverished men are being jailed and their licenses are being revoked for being unable to reimburse the Welfare system, not for refusing to pay into a single mother headed household.

A great many fathers hit the road when facing a loss of license and/or jail.

If we wish to have more fathers in the lives of children, then we must stop viewing them as responsible for repaying the government. If a single mother's benefits were to be unaffected by marriage, particularly to an already impoverished father, no one would have to make choices between marriage and Welfare benefits.

The net benefit here would be mostly for single Welfare mothers and the low-wage earning, fathers with low or no skills, who are the overwhelming majority of so-called "Deadbeat Dads." Both groups are also among those for whom marriage is most elusive.

Funny, but with all the current hoopla over same sex marriages, there are no huge outreach programs by either church or state to urge single parents to set marriage as a goal to better the lives of their children.

Political and social leaders would do their communities justice by providing the positive message that marriage will improve the lives of all involved, as opposed to the negative message that fathers desire to be absent, which has generally been proven to be a lie.

And, both church and state must stop delivering confusing messages about sex, while allowing the media and entertainment to deliver sex and sexuality. The battle is against sex education in the schools, with little other education suggested. We know that people will learn from somewhere, so the decision is whether they will learn in the schools or in the streets. Some adults have yet to learn.

Finally, the Welfare System must stop competing with fathers as the breadwinner in the lives of single mothers and children.

The bottom line to all of this is that single fathers, especially single Black fathers, have gotten a bad rap. Most of the negative views are based on mythology and personal biases, not fact.

The sad reality is that even though I have presented research and statistics in this series, many ignorant people have still responded with their same old, tired stereotypes, ignoring everything except their silly misconceptions, which they have allowed to pose as truth. Damn them all to hell.

If we truly desire to improve the lot of those at the bottom, then those above had better be about the business of creating pragmatic solutions

We can continue to chase after men who have little money, and we can continue to crow about how fathers "just need to pay," but at the end of the day, that campaign has failed.

Perhaps it's time for something new.