Where Have All the Fathers Gone?

Roland S. Martin's recent commentary on CNN.com (see link below) addresses the daunting task of reversing the trends of father absence in America's black community. However, the rest of American society—and indeed the West in general—has nothing to be complacent about in this respect. In fact, if the African American community were to succeed in establishing a stronger family ethic, it might find itself held up as a model for much of the rest of the world.  

In its 2005 European Health Report, the World Health Organization had this to say:

"Strengthening families and the communities in which they live is at the heart of child health and development. Family structure has changed noticeably in many societies over recent decades. Single-parent families, or families where one of the parents is not the birth parent, have increased. The divorce rate has escalated, as has the number of children born outside of marriage. Migration from the countryside to cities continues, often leaving behind the traditional support network of the extended family. . . .As a consequence of all these factors, the social system that used to buttress young families is no longer available to the same extent in many parts of the WHO European Region."

This is of concern for many factors related to child well-being, one of which is poverty. Oddly, it is the wealthier nations that have the highest concentrations of single parent families through divorce or teen pregnancy.  Poorer nations arrive at their single-parent statistics more often by the death of a parent than by divorce. But almost across the board, single-mother households have a higher risk of living below the poverty line than do single-father households or two-parent households. According to Marguerite G. Rosenthal's contribution to "The Feminization of Poverty: Only in America?" this is even true in Sweden, where social assistance takes the place of fathers in single-mother households. Although fewer Swedish single-parent families remain below poverty level than do their counterparts in other Western nations, single-mother families are still affected most.

But even as society begins to determine that fathers are important to family function and well-being, the fact remains that some families must function without them. In such cases, what's a mother to do?