State-of-the-Dads-Report
Life Without Father by David Popenoe
Jeffrey S. Trimbath
April 1, 1996
Life Without Father: Compelling New Evidence That Fatherhood and Marriage Are Indispensable for the Good of Children and Society by David Popenoe (The Free Press, 1996), 275 pp. ALTHOUGH THERE IS NO SHORTAGE of fatherhood books published for Father's Day '96, one book to consider is Life Without Father by David Popenoe. With the lengthy subtitle "Compelling new evidence that fatherhood and marriage are indispensable for the good of children and society," Dr. Popenoe paints a bleak picture of the state of fatherhood and marriage in America and addresses what can be done to restore both of these badly broken social institutions. Popenoe's thesis is clear, concise, and indisputably supported by the social science evidence: children are better off growing up in homes in which their biological parents are present and married. Indeed, Popenoe puts his entire distinguished career on the line by making this statement of confidence: "In my many years as a functioning social scientist, I know of few other bodies of evidence whose weight leans so much in one direction as does the evidence about family structure: On the whole, two parents—a father and a mother—are better for the child than one parent." Although this thesis was uncontested in our society not so many years ago (and painfully obvious to those of us who call ourselves orthodox Christians), one must ask why so many families are currently breaking up, and further, why so many fathers are missing from the lives of their children and families. The decline of marriage and its relation to fatherhood Popenoe claims as the primary culprit. Popenoe says that, because men are not as biologically attuned as women to being involved parents (especially in the early years), societies have ...
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