7 of the Worst Stereotypes About Black Fathers

The conventional wisdom about absent Black fathers has turned the idea of Black fatherhood into an anomaly, an oxymoron, in the eyes of many. But the statistics don't back up this notion of the negligent, irresponsible Black father. Black Fathers Aren't Involved in Their Children's Lives According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, African-American fathers spend more time in their children's day-to-day lives than dads from other racial groups. The Pew Research Center has found similar evidence that Black dads don't differ from white dads in any significant way, and that there isn't the expected disparity found in so many other reports. Although Black fathers are more likely to live in separate households, 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. The Increasing Number of Single-Parent Homes Is Exclusively a Black Problem The increase in the number of single-parent homes has been depicted as exclusively a Black problem. But the overall number of single-parent American households has tripled since 1960. While the number of Black single-parent households was at 67 percent in 2013, the number for whites that year was 25 percent, while for Hispanics it was 42 percent. In addition, the number of Black, single-father households is also on the rise. The Number of Children Being Born Outside of Marriage Is a Statement on Morality in the Black Community According to a 2010 study, 72 percent of Black children are born to unwed mothers, a sharp contrast to the 24 percent detailed in the 1965 Moynihan Report. Some have taken this number as a statement about Black immorality. But as pointed out by Ta-Nehisi Coates in The Atlantic, while the number of unmarried Black women has substantially grown, the actual birthrate (measured by births per 1,000) for Black women is at the lowest point that it's ever documented. "So while a larger number of Black women are choosing not to marry, many of those women are also choosing not to bring kids into the world," he wrote. "Whereas at one point married Black women were having more kids than married white women, they are now having less ... The idea that, somehow, the Black community has fallen into a morass of cultural pathology is convenient nostalgia. There is nothing 'immoral' or 'pathological' about deciding not to marry." Men Who Grew Up Without Fathers Won't Make Good Fathers There's no disputing the effect fatherlessness has on children's lives. Children in father-absent homes are almost four times more likely to be poor, and being raised without a father raises the risk of teen pregnancy, marrying with less than a high school degree and forming a marriage where both partners have less than a high school degree. However, men who didn't grow up with their fathers are not incapable of being good fathers themselves — an assumption disproportionately assigned to Black men, who are more likely to be raised by single mothers. Strong evidence of this is contained in the statistics that African-American fathers spend more time in their children's day-to-day lives than dads from other racial groups. Black Fathers Are an Anomaly Sometimes the myth of missing Black fathers is so strong that many people react to them like they are as rare as a unicorn. But spend time in any Black community across the U.S., visiting a youth football practice or a girls soccer practice, and you will see Black fathers in abundance. Black Fathers Don't Care About Providing Financial Support for Their Children There's a huge difference between not having the means to financially support your children and having no interest in doing so. Black men are significantly affected by the educational and employment disparities between Blacks and whites, resulting in far fewer of them having the opportunity to provide significant financial support than white men. But according to a 2013 Pew survey, Blacks are far more likely than whites to see earning a living as a top responsibility of dads and moms. Fully half (51 percent) of Blacks say providing income is “extremely important” for fathers compared with 40 percent of whites. Black Fathers Are Devoid of Parenting Skills Researchers have found that it is the quality of the father's relationship with the child's mother that dictates so many aspects of his interaction with the child. Because too many relationships in the Black community between never-married parents can be tense and troubled, a picture begins to emerge of Black men who don't have much interaction with their children and don't know how to parent them. But these pictures often mask the deep love the fathers have for their children and the tender ways they have with them. With job opportunities limited, it often becomes difficult for fathers to meet their child support obligations — making it more likely for him to drift away from the mother and child, deepening her resentment of him and thus harming his parental relationship and parental bonds. But in many cases, becoming a father awakens a commitment in young Black men to become responsible and productive for their children, thus pushing them to turn their lives around.

Black Fathers Aren’t Involved in Their Children’s Lives

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