The Absent Black Father Myth— Debunked By Cdc

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The Myth Of The Absent Black Father
BY TARA CULP-RESSLER POSTED ON JANUARY 16, 2014 AT 4:53 PM

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"The Myth Of The Absent Black Father"


CREDIT: SHUTTERSTOCK

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recentlypublished new data on the role that American fathers play inparenting their children. Most of the CDC’s previous research on family life — which the agency explores as an important contributor to public health and child development — has focused exclusively on mothers. But the latest data finds that the stereotypical gender imbalance in this area doesn’t hold true, and dads are just as hands-on when it comes to raising their kids.

That includes African-American fathers.

In fact, in its coverage of the study, the Los Angeles Times noted that the results “defy stereotypes about black fatherhood” because the CDC found that black dads are more involved with their kids on a daily basis than dads from other racial groups:


CREDIT: LOS ANGELES TIMES

In some cases, the differences between black fathers and white or Latino fathers weren’t statistically significant. Nonetheless, the fact that there’s no dramatic drop-off for African-American fathers is still asurprising revelation for some people.

Considering the fact that “black fatherhood” is a phrase that is almost always accompanied by the word “crisis” in U.S. society, it’s understandable that the CDC’s results seem innovative. But in reality, the new data builds upon years of research that’s concluded that hands-on parenting is similar among dads of all races. There’s plenty of scientific evidence to bust this racially-biased myth.

The Pew Research Center, which has tracked this data for years, consistently finds no big differences between white and black fathers. Gretchen Livingston, one of the senior researchers studying family life at Pew, wasn’t at all surprised by the new CDC data. “Blacks look a lot like everyone else,” she pointed out.

Although black fathers are more likely to live separately from their children — the statistic that’s usually trotted out to prove the parenting “crisis” — many of them remain just as involved in their kids’ lives. Pew estimates that 67 percent of black dads who don’t live with their kids see them at least once a month, compared to 59 percent of white dads and just 32 percent of Hispanic dads.

And there’s compelling evidence that number of black dads living apart from their kids stems from structural systems of inequality and poverty, not the unfounded assumption that African-American men somehow place less value on parenting. Equal numbers of black dads and white dads tend to agree that it’s important to be a father who provides emotional support, discipline, and moral guidance. There’s one area of divergence in the way the two groups approach their parental responsibilities: Black dads are even more likely to think it’simportant to financially provide for their children.

Dr. Roberta L. Coles, a sociology professor at Marquette University, has also researched black fathers for nearly a decade. Her most well-known work includes The Best Kept Secret: Single Black Fathers andThe Myth of the Missing Black Father: The Persistence of Black Fatherhood in America. Like Pew, Coles has also found that even though black dads may be less likely to marry their kids’ mothers, they typically remain involved in raising their children.

In an interview with the Grio this week, Coles explained that she’s invested in continuing to challenge the prevailing stereotypes in this area. “It’s important to get it out there that that’s not the whole picture,” Coles noted. “People need to know there are men out there trying to do their best.”

That’s the same reason that Kenrya Rankin Naasel recently publishedBet On Black, a collection of essays in which African-American women share their stories of being raised by great fathers. “For years, we’ve all been bombarded with statistics that scream our men are not up to the important task of fathering,” she explained in an interview with BETabout her project. “Ultimately, I hope that Bet On Black challenges the rhetoric about our families and changes the conversation to one that celebrates rather than denigrates.”

Despite the concrete evidence to dispel the prevailing assumptions about black dads, the conversation is still dominated by headlines like “What’s the Problem with Black Fathers?” and “Who’s Your Daddy: The Epidemic Of Absent Black Fathers.” President Obama has drawn somecriticism for repeatedly delivering speeches about the importance of fatherhood to nonwhite audiences. And this past fall, when Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson’s two-year-old son tragically passed away, the media wasted no time falling back on all the stereotypes about irresponsible black dads.

The resistance to the research in the field may speak to the fact that racially-motivated stereotypes are particularly hard to break out of. For instance, despite the wealth of evidence disproving Americans’ assumptions about welfare recipients, the deeply-ingrained myth of the “welfare queen” remains."

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/01/16/3175831/myth-absent-black-father/

My own take on this is that I bet it was a big problem when I was a kid. Crack was tearing up black communities on an epidemic level (to fund CIA operations in Nicoragua), but around my generation and on grew up without fathers, so we knew how important it was to stay in our kids lives no matter what. Things change, but people tend to keep repeating catch phrases they hear, not bothering to check if they are still true.

Now we just need more people to know that the absent black father line is a myth.

 

Barns, I'm not black, and I haven't done any research on this particular issue.

But, it seems pretty obvious to me that there IS an issue in certain urban areas as least with Baltimore as a case in point. I'm referring to the rioting and looting.

However, I am not extrapolating and claiming some culture wide problem.

 

The rioting and looting is a debatable topic in regards to why it's happening, how much of it is justifiable anger at all these cop killings being expressed in the wrong way, Agent provocateur instigation, poverty issues, etc.

That is a separate issue IMO to the topic of the absent black father myth that is continually being spread.

It just simply isn't a true stereotype. Multiple studies have come to the same conclusion, that black fathers are involved in there kids lives at about the same rate as any other ethnic group.

 

Look at the right column. That portion is significant.

 

Are you sure you're not reading that wrong John?

The right column just says black fathers that don't live with there kids typically do XYZ with there kids more than the other ethnicities listed. Were you reading that to mean the number of black fathers living away from kids is higher?

 

The two things are connected in my world Barns. Because of the way my father raised me you will never see me rioting or looting, no matter what the provocation.

It may be an issue of absentee fathers, or it may be an issue of bad fathering by present fathers, but it is for sure related to how they were raised.

 

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...on-lemon-says-more-72-percent-african-americ/

I'm either not understanding the right column, or it's simply wrong. Way wrong.

72 - 76% of black children grow up without the father in the home. Can a father still be a positive influence, despite not being in the home? Sure. But the majority of the time, I'd say that's not the case -- no matter the race.

"With a pops in the house all the BS stops." -- Chuck D

 

Eh. Name an area of the world that doesn't have rioting of some kind (or it's equivalent) when they feel they are suffering an injustice and their demands for change aren't being taken seriously.

Whether it's China, Eastern Europe, South Africa, etc, it doesn't matter, people often riot when they feel they have no other recourse. Parenting has nothing to do with it as a whole. People of all races riot at times. No one is exempt. Search the term riot for any country, any ethnicity and you'll find riots.

Riots are the exact same thing as any historic revolution. It just depends on who you ask and the annals of history to declare it one instead of the other. The roots of anger for injustice for the Boston Tea Party are no different than these riots in Baltimore, American history has just had time to declare the Boston Tea Party a revolution instead of a riot. If the British had won the revolutionary war, they would have called the BTP a riot (or it's equivalent for it's time).

Note, I'm not advocating rioting, I'm just saying riots are not unusual for when a group feels they aren't receiving justice by those in power.

 

First, I don't want to get too far off track for this thread, because I don't feel the findings of this study are being acknowledged. Black men are not absent fathers any more than anyone else, but instead of being amazed that we all believed the myth, i'm answering about other perceived problems in black communities. Can we take a second to acknowledge how we've all believed the hype about black absentee fathers?

This thread was not about rioting in Baltimore, or black parents being married or any other complaint about black culture. It's about the fact that the line we've been fed as far back as I can remember, and continues to be perpetuated, has been proven to be untrue. Black men are not absent fathers at an alarming rate. In some areas they have been found to be more attentive than other fathers. There are lots of problems in black communities but fathers being absent parents isn't one of them. I'd be happy to talk about other black family topics in here, but understand they are a totally different topic to the myth we have all been exposed to and most believed to be currently true. Black men are not absent fathers at an alarming rate. They are engaged in their kids lives equally or more in almost every way examined in comparison to whites and latinos in similar situations.

Now, let's talk about the other topic you're mentioning. The right column is comparing how involved black fathers are with their kids compared to white and latino. it's not making any statement about what percentage of black fathers don't live with their kids compared to white or latino.

EDIT: This is some food for thought regarding parents living separately:

"
Lastly it strikes me that there can be inherent problems at looking at an internal proportional number, when the external proportion may be at an far larger differential. To wit: there are almost five times as many White people in America as they are Black. So if you were to take the single-parent percentages for each and multiply them against the numbers of actual children involved what you would see is this:

Hispanic Children in Single-Parent Households: 28.6% x 16.3 Million = 4.66 Million

Black Children in Single-Parent Households: 54.7% x 11.2 Million = 6.12 Million.

White Children in Single-Parent Households: 27.3% x 74.1 Million = 18.0 Million.

So even with an almost twice as high internal percentage of single-parent households, the external percentage is that there are still only one third a many black children living in that situation as there are white, and when you add this greater quantity of white "at risk" youth to the CDC data it seems that the quality of some of that white parenting may not be quite a strong.

But we don't really hear much about the single-parenting crisis of absent White Fathers, now do we? And we don't see our jails filled to the brim with the failed results of these millions of white single-parent households even with a 3:1 gap in actual numbers, instead we see it filled far more frequently, with black men who afterward can't really be good, attentive Fathers anymore, now can they? Perhaps that is the source for the internal percentage differential in the first place."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/10/1383179/-The-absent-black-father-myth-debunked-by-CDC

This snippet of an article makes a good point. So if whites have 3:1 more single parent households, but aren't being locked up more than blacks as a percentage to their population, and if black fathers aren't absent more than other races/ethnicities, then there must be something else going on regarding problems amongst blacks. Maybe racism, poor education systems, and the poverty cycle from one generation to the next, just to name a few

 

I 100% disagree with this. Rioting in other cultures does not undermine my point. It would simply prove that bad parenting is not a localized issue.

As far as drawing a parallel between the Boston Tea Party and the Baltimore riots I would say you need to bone up on your early American history. They are not equivalent, morally or otherwise. The Tea Partiers did not "riot", nor did they loot the shops of the city, nor rampage doing random acts of violence. They specifically targeted the tea shipments of a British Tea company. They didn't attack British authorities and they didn't destroy British horses (equivalent of police cars).

I would also disagree with your characterization of riots and revolutions being identical.

It's always an interesting topic for debate whether what the Tea Partiers did is a morally acceptable act of defiance toward government oppression, but that debate is a completely different one than evaluating the morality and the CAUSE of the rioting and looting of the Baltimore incident.

 

And here I 100% disagree with you as well. Rioting for a cause is not the product of bad parenting. They are the product of ignored frustrations of masses.

Riots and revolutions are exactly the same thing in concept. People taking out there frustrations about a topic they hold dearly. The Boston Tea Party is exactly the same as the Baltimore riots in it's concept. People frustrated about the status quo and that frustration eventually erupts into action. How is a planned attack to illegally destroy property (Boston Tea Party) any more noble than destroying property in an emotional outburst (Baltimore Riots)? The answer is that it isn't more noble, it's just romanticized through history because it lead to the American Revolution.

It's a revolution if you support it, it's a riot if you don't, and I'm not even a supporter of riots.... I just acknowledge this is what happens if you ignore built up anger and frustration in any community for too long. Look at human history. MLK and Gahandi. those are the only two people I know of that have lead mostly peaceful revolutions. The rest of history is filled with revolutions that look a lot like riots depending on what side you're on.

 

I'm agree with Punk.

The right column is throwing me off. Is it overall, this study or what? I'm assuming for this study. If so, yeah, I agree with what they're saying and was never in doubt when you throw in all the factors (education, income, location, etc etc).

Take 100 people living in poverty and I'll doubt you'll find many differences (education, pay, substance abuse, absent fathers and / or mothers, as grandparents are increasingly the head of households these days)).


Note: tried posting this yesterday and for some reason, I'm inept at hitting "post reply"

 

I don't think it's misleading. Being an absentee father is very different from talking about familial cohesiveness. We've all been told for as long as I can remember that black men just aren't in there kids lives, and this just proves that that is not true.

Having married parents in the same home is very important IMO and should be addressed, but saying black men weren't I there kids lives is a terrible lie that has continued to be perpetuated. It's an important distinction because fathers that choose not to be in their kids lives for selfish reasons are scum IMO.

 

I've been told (and the stats overwhelming support this) that most black children grow up in single parent households. I've never heard that black men aren't in their kids lives.... or not any more than any other race (again, all things being equal such as education, income, location, etc, etc, etc).

 

You haven't noticed the term absentee father or something like that used when discussing black fathers?

 

^^^ yes, but I've always associated it with children in single parent households / children born out of wedlock. Not that the father's weren't visiting, spending time, coaching their teams, leading Boy Scouts, helping with homework, etc etc.