STATISTICS FATHERLESSNESS CHILDREN- DIVORCE- UNITES STATES

US CONGRESS - 2003 - S.657- Strengthening Families Act of 2003

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

Congress makes the following findings:

1. Nearly 24,000,000 children in the United States, or 34 percent of all such children, live apart from their biological father.
2. Sixty percent of couples who divorce have at least 1 child.
3. The number of children living with only a mother increased from just over 5,000,000 in 1960, to 17,000,000 in 1999, and between 1981 and 1991 the percentage of children living with only 1 parent increased from 19 percent to 25 percent.
4. Forty percent of children who live in households without a father have not seen their father in at least 1 year and 50 percent of such children have never visited their father's home.
5. The most important factor in a child's upbringing is whether the child is brought up in a loving, healthy, supportive environment.
6. Children who live without contact with their biological father are, in comparison to children who have such contact:
   1. 5 times more likely to live in poverty;
   2. moe likely to bring weapons and drugs into the classroom;
   3. twice as likely to commit crime;
   4. twice as likely to drop out of school;
   5. more likely to commit suicide;
   6. more than twice as likely to abuse alcohol or drugs; and
   7. more likely to become pregnant as teenagers.
7. Violent criminals are overwhelmingly males who grew up without fathers.
8. Responsible fatherhood includes active participation in financial support and child care, as well as the formation and maintenance of a positive, healthy, and nonviolent relationship between father and child and a cooperative relationship between parents.
9. States should be encouraged to implement programs that provide support for responsible fatherhood, promote marriage, and increase the incidence of marriage, and should not be restricted from implementing such programs.
10. Fatherhood programs should promote and provide support services for:
    1. loving and healthy relationships between parents and children; and
    2. cooperative parenting.
11. There is a social need to reconnect children and fathers.
12. The promotion of responsible fatherhood and encouragement of married 2-parent families should not:
    1. denigrate the standing or parenting efforts of single mothers or other caregivers;
    2. lessen the protection of children from abusive parents; or
    3. compromise the safety or health of the custodial parent;
13. but should increase the chance that children will have two caring parents to help them grow up healthy and secure.
14. The promotion of responsible fatherhood must always recognize and promote the values of nonviolence.
15. For the future of the United States and the future of our children, Congress, States, and local communities should assist parents to become more actively involved in their children's lives.
16. Child support is an important means by which a parent can take financial responsibility for a child and emotional support is an important means by which a parent can take social responsibility for a child.
17. Despite declining national and State rates, in the United States 4 out of 10 girls get pregnant at least once by age 20, nearly 1,000,000 girls each year. There are nearly 500,000 teen births each year.