What Is the Worth of a Father?

Families are stronger with both a mother and a father, and strong families strengthen communities, states, and nations. Tomorrow is Father’s Day, so it is fitting that we discuss the importance of fathers in the home.

A majority of this post will come from an article authored by Jason S. Carroll (the family initiative director at Brigham Young University’s Wheatley Institute and a senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies) with contributions by Jenet Jacob Erickson (a fellow of the Wheatley Institute and a professor in Religious Education at BYU). 

Carroll shared some statistics about the historical decline of marriage and family formation in the United States and around the world. Pew Research Center announced that there is a “record high” number of 40-year-olds in America who have never married. Then the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics released an announcement two months ago titled “U.S. Fertility Drops to Another Historic Low.”

Carroll shared information from a report from his colleague Brad Wilcox that “the combined result of these trends is that America has just crossed a historic threshold where, of adults aged 18-55, there is now a greater share of single adults with no children than there are married adults with children.” He then wrote the following:

Undergirding these trends of delays and declines in family formation are patterns of reluctant adulthood among many young people. In fact, there is mounting evidence that fewer teens are entering their 20-something years feeling prepared to assume the responsibilities and commitments of adulthood. With a longer marriage horizon stretching out before them, many young people and their parents are framing young adulthood as a sort of “extended adolescence” in the modern life course.

Experts are finding that parents today often shield their children from the responsibilities of young adulthood for much longer than previous generations. Consequently, many of today’s young adults are less willing or able to take on responsibilities that are characteristic of their age and necessary for building a family.

Psychologist Jean Twenge was one of the first to document how contemporary teens are much slower to take on the responsibilities of young adulthood in her groundbreaking book “iGen.” According to Dr. Twenge, when it comes to hitting the developmental milestones of young adulthood, “18-year-olds now look like 14-year-olds.”

Unfortunately, there is solid data to support her conclusion, at least for a growing share of young people. Last year, the Institute for Family Studies released a study using data from the highly regarded Monitoring the Future Study that found significant declines in the percentage of two different milestones and foundational rites of passage into young adulthood: high-school seniors who work a part-time job during the school year and those who have their driver’s license.

The study’s author, policy analyst Thomas O’Rourke, concluded, “Today’s youth are shielded for too long from important responsibilities they need to mature, and, as a result, fail to develop the skills and capacities necessary to flourish as young adults. Because today’s teens are not conditioned to take on adulthood, the prospect of confronting the most significant responsibilities of adulthood – such as a lifelong commitment to love another person – may feel particularly weighty and out of reach.”

Carroll shared statistics from another study from the Pew Research Center showing that “young adults in the United States are now reaching key life milestones later than in the past.” One of the results from the study “found that young adults who are 21 are less likely than their predecessors a few decades ago to have reached five frequently cited milestones of adulthood: having a full-time job, being financially independent, living on their own, getting married and having a child.”

Carroll noted that 25-year-old adults have moved “closer to their predecessors in 1980 on two of these milestones: having a full-time job (73% vs. 66%) and financial independence (63% vs. 60%).” He continued, “However, young adults in their mid-20s still lag behind previous generations on milestones that relate more to family than finances (marriage: 63% vs. 22%; parenthood: 39% vs. 17%).”

This is where fathers and Father’s Day come into the discussion. Carroll connected fathers to the above statistics this way.

… Simply put, research shows that most fathers are particularly skilled at fostering independence in their children. And these social trends point to why children need the positive influence of their fathers in their lives more than ever. Years of lived experience, backed by parenting research, teach us that the effective nurturing of children requires not only the capacity to “hold them close,” but also the ability to “let them go” – something fathers seem particularly apt in preparing children to do.

Research based on observations of mothers’ and fathers’ different psychological dispositions and behaviors in parenting has consistently found that both mothers and fathers influence multiple aspects of child development, but they do so through different processes.

These studies show that fathers tend to be particularly attuned to developing children’s physical, emotional and intellectual independence – in everything from children making their own lunches and tying their own shoes to doing household chores and making decisions for themselves after they have left home. Fathers are also more likely than mothers to encourage children to take risks while also ensuring safety and security, thus helping children develop confidence, navigate new transitions, and bravely confront unfamiliar situations….

The benefits of loving and involved fathers go far beyond simply fostering independence. Research shows that fathers are much more than just a “second parent” in a child’s life. Involved fathers can bring numerous benefits to their children’s lives that no other person is as likely to bring. Too often as a society, we minimize the virtues and strengths of fathers and the unique role they can play in their children’s lives, despite the significant and growing body of research that shows otherwise….

Fathers play a unique role in the emotional development of their children. When fathers respond to children’s emotional distress, they are more likely to focus on fixing the problem than they are addressing the hurt feelings. This seeming “indifference to the emotion” may not appear nurturing but becomes very useful as children grow older….

Fathers also make unique contributions to children’s cognitive development, with an involved father identified as the strongest predictor of college graduation. This is partly because involved fathers are more likely to help with homework and provide financial support. But it’s also the case that involved fathers effectively monitor and guide children’s actions, helping them avoid behaviors that might negatively impact school achievement….

Father involvement has also been proven to be a strong protection against delinquent and criminal behaviors in their children’s lives that continue into adulthood. For boys, the mere presence of a father in the home predicts less delinquent behavior….

It should also be pointed out that research also shows that most fathers continue to play a significant role as a provider and protector in their children’s lives. Fathers are still the primary earners in most married families. And it is families without fathers who are most likely to suffer the challenging consequences of poverty.

Since it is Father’s Day on Sunday, I hope that my readers will understand the importance of fathers being involved in the loving, teaching, and training of their children. Families are stronger when they include both a father and a mother, and strong families strengthen their communities, states, and nations.