The Core Knowledge Blog

Over the weekend, I was reading Juan Williams interesting essay in the Wall Street Journal on the sorry state of fatherhood (HT: Joanne Jacobs) in America. Williams point was as familiar as it is depressing: an enormous number of children simply do not know their fathers in any meaningful way. “The nation’s out-of-wedlock birth rate is 38%,” Williams writes. “Among white children, 28% are now born to a single mother; among Hispanic children it is 50% and reaches a chilling, disorienting peak of 71% for black children.”

The numbers reflect what I saw teaching in the South Bronx, where fewer than a dozen of my students in five years lived with both biological parents. They were, not surprisingly, some of my best, most diligent students. Then, this passage got my attention:

A study of black families 10 years ago, when the out-of-wedlock birthrate was not as high as today, found that single moms reported only 20% of the “baby’s daddy” spent time with the child or took a “lot” of interest in the baby. That is quite a contrast to the married black mothers who told researchers that 88% of married black men, or men living with the mother, regularly spent time with the child and took responsibility for the child’s well-being.

There’s a name for someone who spends time with his child and takes responsibility. The name is “father.” It’s sure as hell not “baby daddy.” Read the rest of this entry »