African- American Adolescent Fathers Nearly half of minors living in the U.S are living in a home with heterosexual parents in their first marriage. In 1990, there were 1.2 million out-of-wedlock births out of 4 million total. These high rates of marital instability can have significant implications for the father-child relationship. Furstenberg and Harris (Furstenberg & Harris, 1992, p. 104) claim that African-American fathers, who have become fathers during adolescence, have shifted their focus from being the primary financial supporter to becoming a willing parent, more involved with their child’s growth and development (Furstenberg & Harris, 1992, p. 199). In this paper, I will propose a possible explanation to why young fathers may …show more content…
Biological father consists of the male genetic contributor to the creation of the baby. Legal father is a recognized by the law as the father of the child (i.e. step parent or adoptive parent). Willing parent are grandparents or relatives that nurture the orphans. In the early 1900s, social scientists have concentrated on families that lack the male’s biological kinship to the child as opposed to the universally accepted maternal kin (Furstenberg & Harris, 1992, p. 197). As a man raising his children, married or not, Grace Massey explains that they are, “expected to ‘prove’ their manhood through providing the primary economic support of their families and the lack of means to play this role puts ‘manhood’ for Black men at risk” (1991, p. …show more content…
(Smith, 1988, p. 270). High homicide rates, high suicide rates, few job options, high percentage of drop outs, and limited life plan continue to become more common within the adolescent male the belief that he must survive. In today’s generation, adolescent fathers may feel like if he plays an active role in the child’s life, then he will be an adult, but may also feel like he does not need to provide financial support to the mother. Because of an adolescent father’s fixated view of self, influenced by society, would only make sure he is in a “good” position. Social workers often put an emphasis on how the father grew up in a damaged household with little to no motivation to be an active father in the child’s life, whereas they should provide more assistance into helping him be a better person and the best father. With all of these challenges that adolescent fathers face, I begin to question, how much hope does society have for the African-American male and his
In the article on (www.theroot.com) says, “ In the United States, 31 percent of black children have both mother and father in home. 53 percent have only a mother present with 7 percent having a father present and 9 percent having neither parent present.”. Household composition pulls little weight and appears to come as a disadvantage for some service issues, such as a teenage program and incorporated
10a. In Mazza’s article, he discussed the effects of parenting program on urban African-American adolescent fathers. His first main point is that more researches on adolescent fathers are needed because most research focused on adolescent parents focused on the teenage mothers. Mazza (2002) argued that the societal and traditional value see fathers as primary caregivers who should provide financial support to the families; however, there are not enough researches on and social programs to support adolescent fathers (Mazza, 2002). The second main point of the article is that parenting program is inefficient, but counseling sessions is more effective to the help the adolescent fathers. Mazza (2005) believed that social workers were able to provide
This article climbs into the struggle of young black males. Many issues that are recurring such as early school dropout, delinquency, poverty, unemployment, incarceration, fatherless, and they don’t have much of a chance to lead a successful life. Most black males are set up to fail at this rate and all this leads to a need to develop interventions to save those lost lives of the young black communities.
The purpose of this article is to better understand the outlooks, levels of engagement, and obstacles of fathers in the United States. The authors noted that fathers who participated in this survey range between the age of 18 and older. This telephone survey consists of fathers themselves answering questions related to their own fatherhood roles. Further, this article presents the results of the hundreds of American men promoting behaviors, such as agreeing or disagreeing about being involve, cohabitating or married to the child or children mother. This child may be an adoptive or biological child. The dilemma that is exposed in this research argues that a young father compared to an older father, is relative different with the religion
About four in every ten children born in America in 2008 were born outside of marriage, and they are disproportionately minority and poor. “Only about 6 percent of college-educated mothers’ births are nonmarital versus 60 percent of those of high school dropouts” (5). Scholars responded to this by studying single-parent families.
The successful education process starts with the family in the home and community, and continues in school and throughout life. The extent to which Black parents become actively involved in the education of Black male children is the extent to which the destruction of potentially millions of young Black men will stop. When young Black men realize they have become expendable, are we ready for their reaction? The United States does not tolerate young Black men being unproductive or counter-productive to the goals of mainstream society. Black males are suspended, expelled and failed in schools at rates that are two to five times higher than students of other races and go to jail at rates five to ten times higher than people of other races ().Jackson, Phillip. “The Massive Failure of
The stereotype that African American fathers are not there for their children is a common misconception throughout America. The idea of absent African American fathers is fleeting because more people are beginning to shine light on the statistics of the real number of absent African American fathers. In fact, African American fathers are just as present as white fathers regardless of the relationship with the mother. 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 children. For children between the ages of 5-18, 67% of fathers talk with their children about their day daily. This manner of conversation is the foundation of a healthy relationship.
Due to problems arising out of bitter divorces, custody, and support battles fathers are ostracize out of their children’s life. Fathers are often looked at as the bad person when things go wrong and being the blame. Fathers are just as responsible for the child being born as the mother. Over the years fathers continue to fight for equal rights, mothers are looked at as the victims and often make false statements about the fathers to suit their own selfish needs. Accusations of sexual and child abuse by mothers of the noncustodial fathers are often found to be untrue.
Black fathers in the United States are more prone to becoming more absent from their children's lives. A key factor to the absence of these fathers is because of mass incarceration due to police brutality, drugs, felonies, and murders. Many of these black men commit the crimes knowingly, therefore knowing that it could lead them to jail or prison. These men are deliberately committing the crimes that have become part of their lifestyle because they are determined to live a life of wealth and luxury. Even though there are opportunities for these men to work legally to earn their money they still chose to do it the illegal way. Guns and drug charges are the two main factors in causing these men to be absent from their children's lives. The lives
A father’s role in a child’s life is extremely important when it comes to a child’s development. With so much emphasis placed on young black boys needing their fathers during crucial developmental ages, the rate of our young black girls growing up without fathers is staggering and overlooked. What is an absent father? The definition is quite simple; an absent father can be defined as a father who is not present in the life of their child whether it is physically, emotionally, or both. Although the absence of a father is detrimental in any child’s life, the absence of such in a young black girl’s life is even more crucial. The absent father in a black girl’s life leads to, in some cases, promiscuity and teenage pregnancy, poverty, and
Parents play an important part in the advancement of children. When a parent is incapacitated, it disrupts the bonding and attachment stage of development. This interruption could lead the adolescent children to develop challenges later in life. In African American families, fathers play an important role in the development of their children. Conferring to Threfal, Seay, and Kohl (2013), as cited in (Black and Dubowits 1999, Coley 2001, Jackson, Jeong-Kyum, and Franke 2009), when African American men are involved in their child's/children life, their children experience gains in development, academic achievement and decreased behavioral problems. However, when the father is incapacitated, children may experience an increase in behavioral problems, low cognitive functioning, and low achievement in
With a missing male role model (father figure), the oldest child of a set of multiples tends to take on the other parents responsibities making the younger siblings look at them as a parental figure. This could mean doing simple chores like keeping the house clean, all the way to helping out financially. This phenomenon is called parentification. Parentification is all too common in African American families today. The missing father figure is seen as one of the main reasons for African Americans disciplinary problems, psychological health, and lowered academic success. Without the knowledge of how to behave in certain situations, the mental/emotional strain, and the already low academic achievement, many black students feel that college is unnecessary and causes them to bring up the question, “How will my family survive without me?”
Often times the young African American mothers end up being young African American single mothers. The father’s involvement impacts many aspects of young African American mothers’ parenting. In a study by Cynthia O Lashley, Sydney L Hans, and Linda G Henson “Young African American mothers’ changing perceptions of their infants during the transition into parenthood”, Lashley et al. included research from McElroy & Moore stating “although most African American teenage mothers are not married to their children’s fathers, there is great variability in the patterns of involvement young men have with their families”. According to Gee and Rhodes, Fathers are usually more involved close after birth, however involvement decreases as the child gets older (Lashley 482). Because the young parents are not married and the pregnancies are often unplanned there is a lot of strain on their couple relationship and the relationship could diminish due to the stress of parenthood, making it easier for the father to be non-present in the child’s
Fatherless homes in the black community is at 57.6% (NCF, 2017). One of many issues of a fatherless home is children have less structure and lack of discipline; i.e. Chicago. The children suffer the most. I believe children need both parents in the household to be complete (“not all”). I believe if women have father’s in their lives (a positive male figure at minimum) it could help their decision in choosing the right mate will help this issue.
The role of the father, a male figure in a child’s life is a very crucial role that has been diminishing over the years. An absent father can be defined in two ways; the father is physically not present, or the father is physically present, but emotionally present. To an adolescent, a father is an idolized figure, someone they look up to (Feud, 1921), thus when such a figure is an absent one, it can and will negatively affect a child’s development. Many of the problems we face in society today, such as crime and delinquency, poor academic achievement, divorce, drug use, early pregnancy and sexual activity can be attributed to fathers being absent during adolescent development (Popenoe, 1996; Whitehead, 1993). The percentage of