Now, Good Fathers Are Indispensable

For those who think social attitudes can’t change dramatically and quickly, consider the debate over fathers.

Only a few years ago, articles were appearing suggesting that fathers had become “superfluous,” easily replaced by a woman with a check.

Vice President Dan Quayle was hooted by many for criticizing Murphy Brown’s decision to have a baby on her own (on the “Murphy Brown” television show).

But now, we have a bipartisan consensus on fathers.

Listen to President Clinton: “The biggest social problem in our society may be the growing absence of fathers from their homes because it contributes to so many other social problems.”

Political strategist James Carville puts it more snappily in summing up current political priorities: “No. 1 is the paycheck, stupid. No. 2 is: Daddies matter, big time.”

And now comes a book, “Life Without Father” by Rutgers University sociologist David Popenoe, that explains why the presence of the biological father is more important than ever.

“I know of few other bodies of evidence (in social science),” Popenoe writes, “that lean so much in one direction as does the evidence about family structure.”

Proof positive:

That evidence shows fathers are of key importance for sons in terms of teaching them to control aggressive tendencies and for daughters in terms of their ability to sustain successful marriages, the author says.

For all children, the involvement of fathers in child-rearing improves academic achievement and psychological health.

It also enhances the status of women.

Popenoe is very serious about this last point. The more the men of a nation help raise its children, he posits, the more women there will be in its legislative bodies - and the fewer women there will be in its shelters for abused spouses.

Recent studies have reinforced these findings, he says. One of the most fascinating indicates that having an “involved father” is far and away the most important factor in enabling children to feel “sympathy and compassion for others.”

But Popenoe offers some caveats. He constantly reminds readers that he is talking about overall outcomes that may not fit each situation.

For example, while evidence is piling up that stepfathers, on average, create more child-rearing problems than they solve, a stepfather, in any given case, might be preferable to the biological father.

Similarly, while divorce generally is bad - having a dead father usually is better than having a divorced dad - there are situations when divorce is called for.

Inexplicably irrefutable?

Popenoe also acknowledges that no one is certain how good fathers bring about these positive effects, although he feels safe in saying that it results from the obvious fact that men and women are fundamentally different.

They even hold children differently, studies have shown. Mothers cuddle babies to their breasts; fathers hold them out at arm’s length and toss them in the air.

These distinctions between emphasizing security and offering freedom become even more pronounced as children grow older. Male and female parenting styles are strikingly different and complementary, the author writes, and both are “of enormous importance to the child’s overall development.”

In a recent interview at his Princeton, N.J., home, Popenoe, 62, explained that he has come to these views by a somewhat circuitous route. His father, Paul Popenoe, was one of the founders of family therapy in the United States and originated the “Can This Marriage Be Saved?” feature in the Ladies Home Journal.

But the son set off on another path, getting a doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in urban development and later writing a book on the differences between Swedish and American suburbs.

Gradually, though, he came to realize that it wasn’t the physical structures that were damaging children in Sweden and the United States; it was the decay of the families inside.

And his ultimate conclusion was pretty much what Carville said: Daddies matter. Big time.

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