Fatherless Myths in Our Culture: A Prelude to UTM's July 18th Lunch & Learn
"The Myth that Most Black Fathers are Absent from their Children's Lives"
When we talk about fatherlessness, we typically think of someone without a father, either because he has died or because he does not live with his children. In politics and the media, the term "fatherlessness" is often equated to children born out of wedlock and raised by a single mother without the biological father present in the home. For instance, Congressman Burgess Owens and PragerU media personality Larry Elder, in numerous speeches, articles, and educational videos, falsely conflate black children born out of wedlock and living without their biological father to father abandonment.1 These assumptions perpetuate one of the most persistent myths about fatherlessness, which is incessantly repeated in mainstream and social media throughout the culture and political landscape. However, it fails to capture the full scope of fatherlessness. It does not align with the increasing body of research on black fatherhood and absent fathers and the perspectives of ministries working to support family structures and address fatherlessness in children's lives.
What About Present Non-Residential Fathers?
But let's not kid ourselves, either. Several generations have come and gone since the societal shift away from the traditional practices of abstaining from sexual relationships and having children until after marriage, along with actually staying married! This shift resulted in several social challenges in every segment of society, including forming blended step-families, complex living situations in single mother-headed households, and increased non-residential fathers. The outcome resulted in the decline of marriage, with a sharper decrease among African Americans.
Therefore, many of my former male students, who grew up without a father, now face the difficulties of parenting in less-than-ideal circumstances as non-residential fathers. Despite the challenges, they work daily to ensure their children do not experience the same fatherless upbringing. Even though they do not live with their children, they make extraordinary efforts to maintain a consistent, loving presence in their lives.
Consider Davien Fizer, the discipleship director of Urban Transformation Ministries (UTM). When the biological mother of two of Davien's daughters intentionally relocated to Atlanta to limit his contact with the girls, Davien fought hard through the courts for maximum parenting time, which included summers, periodic holidays, and school breaks in Grand Rapids. While his daughters reside in Georgia, Davien and his girls have a two-hour FaceTime session daily. During this time, he helps them with their homework, provides encouragement and wisdom when they are going through tough times, and is always present in their lives. Despite living several states away from his daughters, Davien has developed a strong and close relationship with them that equals and, at times, even surpasses most fathers I know. Even though his daughters have faced emotional challenges due to the strain and enmity between their birth parents, the consistent presence of their father Davien has helped them avoid additional negative experiences in their childhood. As a result, they have grown to be resilient and emotionally secure, with a deep faith in God, demonstrating the positive outcomes of their father and stepmother's involvement.
What does the Data Say?
Davien's example, along with many other men mentored through UTM, reflects the comprehensive data compiled about Black fatherhood, including resident and non-resident. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Center for Health Statistics published data in 2013 (pdf):
"Black fathers (70 percent) were most likely to have bathed, dressed, diapered, or helped their children use the toilet every day compared with white (60 percent) and Hispanic (45 percent) fathers."
"A higher percentage of black fathers aged 15–44 (27 percent) took their children to or from activities every day compared with white fathers (20 percent)."
"Among Hispanic fathers who did not live with their children, 63 percent did not talk with their children at all in the last 4 weeks about things that had happened during the children's day, compared with 29 percent of white fathers and 21 percent of black fathers."
"A larger percentage of black fathers (41 percent) had helped their coresidential children with homework every day in the last 4 weeks compared with Hispanic (29 percent) or white (28 percent) fathers."
"Larger percentages of Hispanic (82 percent) and white (70 percent) fathers had not helped their noncoresidential children with homework at all in the last 4 weeks compared with black fathers (56 percent)."
Why the Black Fatherless Myth?
So, if black fathers are the most involved in their children's lives, why is the black fatherless myth so prevalent in our culture? I cannot give a research-based answer. However, let me give you one answer based on anecdotal experience. Almost a decade ago, I struck up a friendship with a Christian businessman whom I met through Davien. Despite his initial enthusiasm for our gospel ministry with fatherless youth and young adults at UTM, our friendship was put to the test and tragically fell apart due to his differing opinions on race, criminal justice, and fatherlessness. He took issue with any discussions we had about systemic racial injustices within the criminal justice system or the racial profiling experiences of Davien and UTM students. What's more, he accused us of perpetuating the black victim card, displaying a bigoted, hateful attitude towards whites, and undermining racial unity in our country. Despite his apparent support for "taking up the cause of the fatherless," he was unwilling to engage in meaningful conversations about these pressing societal issues unless we absolutely agreed with him.
Whenever I shared with him the evidence-based research that I sort through as part of my job on issues of fatherlessness, criminal justice reform (because over-criminalization and incarceration also contribute to fatherlessness), or poverty that didn't quite square with his particular stripe of social conservatism, he claimed I was brain-washed by progressive social scientists that had an agenda to destroy America. When it became apparent that he wasn't willing to reciprocate empathetic listening, Davien and I cut ties with him. Neither of us had the emotional capital to continue the friendship.
I realize my anecdote is an extreme example. Still, our former friend had made absent black fatherlessness the cause of every societal problem in the black community. Black-on-black crime? Absent black fathers. Poverty disparity between the races? Absent black fathers. Killings of African Americans by law enforcement? Absent black fathers. To him, black fatherlessness is the all-encompassing diagnosis of every racial inequality that still persists in America. The steady diet of PragerU educational videos and other populist, indoctrinating, alternative facts media sites had convinced him that (1)every racial disparity could be traced back to bad behavior and culture in the black community (fatherlessness), (2)every racial grievance and allegation of discrimination was actually a result of a culture of a victimization mentality he believed blacks held and (3)any suggestion that the racial residue from a century of Jim Crow laws still negatively affect blacks or that racist systems can still be found in America was seeking to guilt whites for past racial injustices committed against black folks. He had racialized fatherlessness based on falsehoods, myths, and misinterpretation of data, leading to stereotypes.
However, he wasn't the only Christian deceived. A large wave of Christian discernment blogs, podcasts, and populist social media sites emerged out of nowhere and swept the country, parroting the same falsehoods, myths, and stereotypes about absent black fatherhood in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder, BLM protests, and rioting. But now black fatherlessness was contrasted with "Wokeness" and Critical Race Theory in culture war debates. Sadly, the myth became a culture war weapon to wield against the rising tide of progressive identity politics.
How Should Christians Respond?
We at UTM have long considered and prayed about addressing myths like this. Teaching our volunteers, partner churches, and the wider church community through workshops, consulting, Lunch & Learns, mission trips, and college classes has always been a crucial part of what UTM does. This is why I recently began teaching an introductory workshop on critical thinking before delving into topics such as Fatherless Ministry, Biblical Social Justice, Poverty Ministry, Race Relations, and Worldview. Equipping Christians with essential critical thinking tools, such as identifying logical, statistical, and historical fallacies and teaching basic Christian ethics, has become a necessary focus for UTM due to the overwhelming influence of political, cultural, and social media influencers: influencers that are almost impossible to avoid in today's society.
However, on the most basic level, it is wise to heed the advice of Josh Levs, journalist and author of All In: How Our Work-First Culture Fails Dads, Families, and Businesses—And How We Can Fix It Together. "In general, myths about the society we live in hurt everyone. You can't solve a problem without accurately diagnosing it. Since many people believe the myth that most black fathers are absent, they're quick to use it as a way to ignore other problems, including racism. It's much easier to say that absent fathers are the main problem than it is to look at the myriad systemic forces that need to be addressed in tackling racism."2
"Hot Take: U.S. Representative Burgess Owens Discusses the Problem of Fatherless Black Families." YouTube. October 22, 2021. Video.
"Https://www.Prageru.Com/Video/Black-fathers-matter." PragerU. October 22, 2021. Video, https://www.prageru.com/video/black-fathers-matter.
“The Myth of Black Father Absence.” 2020. The Epoch Times. October 31, 2020. https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/the-myth-of-black-father-absence-3556192?utm_medium=GoogleAds&utm_source=PerfmaxM&utm_campaign=PM_max_25c1_Janet_LA_0726&gclid=Cj0KCQjwkdO0BhDxARIsANkNcrefzx2LJPpfg6wLn_F_mAhSs-cyu6KqoMn_F4HXaTexoC6YWnS4_aEaAnPAEALw_wcB.