Black fathers need marriage, too
Conn Carroll
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Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Jenice Armstrong had an amazing father, and for Father’s Day, she devoted her column to celebrating his memory.
“My dad stood 6 feet, 6 inches tall, and had a loud, booming voice, which must have come in handy during his career as a physical education teacher and basketball and football coach,” Armstrong wrote. “Some of his former players went to college on athletic scholarships and even ended up playing professionally. Hundreds showed up at his funeral in 2010 to talk about the influence he had on their lives.”
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Armstrong wants people to know that there are many great black fathers like her father. “There are lots of men who are doing the same thing, quietly supporting their families, raising their children, paying bills, and caring for elderly parents,” she wrote. “They defy every stereotype about uninvolved black dads. But we don’t hear about them.”
Armstrong is right that there are lots of black men out there who are great fathers, but then, she starts going off the rails.
“Since roughly 70% of Black babies are born out of wedlock, too many people assume the stereotype of the absentee Black father,” Armstrong correctly noted. But then she added, “Just because the parents aren’t married doesn’t necessarily follow that the man is an absentee father. Just look at the data. According to a 2013 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, African American fathers often are more hands-on with their children — bathing, changing diapers — than men from other racial groups.”
And it is true: The 2013 CDC study she cited does show that black fathers who live with their children perform some tasks more often than their white and Hispanic counterparts. For example, according to the CDC, black residential fathers were more likely to have fed their children under age 5 in the last four weeks than white residential fathers (78% to 74%).
But that was only among fathers who lived with their children. The numbers were starkly different for fathers who did not live with their children. Where 78% of black fathers who lived with their children fed them in the last four weeks, just 13% of black fathers who did not live with their children said the same thing. Similarly, while 70% of residential black fathers said they bathed their child under 5 at least once in the past four weeks, just 13% of nonresidential black fathers said the same thing.
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The sad reality is that when fathers do not live with their children, they are much less likely to be involved in their children’s lives. And when any child is born to unmarried parents, it is highly likely that the child’s parents will spend significant amounts of time not living together. Even when unmarried parents live together, they are far more likely to split up before the child’s fifth birthday than married parents are.
There are plenty of great black fathers out there. But they do not have magic superpowers. They are just like other fathers. They are at their best when they are married to the mother of their children. We just need to find ways to help more black men get and stay married.