Source: National Fatherhood InitiativeKenya N Rahmaan
The National Fatherhood Initiative, or NFI, recently published the State-Level Data on Father Absence. Father absence reverses the more popular term ‘fatherless,’ which society has commonly blamed for the social ills plaguing America since 1965. The importance of fathers not living in the home and helping to raise their children has been the subject of controversy since former President Lyndon B Johnson or LBJ declared the War on Poverty. The idea behind the decades-old embroilment stems from the nuclear family structure being the only surefire way to raise law-abiding, non-sexually active, heterosexual, homogenized children into adulthood. At least, based on the black and white photos shared millions of times on social media of a white mom and two and a half white children behind the white picket fence waving at white dad off to work in their suburban home, nuclear families are what New America is missing.
According to the U.S. Censure Bureau (2022), 15.4 million children, 1 in 4, live without a biological, step, or adoptive father in the home. That number is quite alarming when taken at face value, but when digging just below the surface, the truth is not complicated to uncover. Simply stating that a father is absent from the home does not make a father absent or a deserter from a child’s life. Too often in today’s society, fathers are not considered in any decision-making when they and their children’s mothers are not married.
Refusing to include fathers in important decisions concerning their children occurs whether the parents have legally established paternity. Antonia Garcia, Rafael Parez-Figueroa, and David Cozart from Interdisciplinary Research Leaders (IRL) studied fathers trying to maintain relationships with their children in more disadvantaged conditions. Not only was it determined that fathers felt ignored, but the trio also found that often, society undervalues the role of fathers as loving caretakers and reduces their contributions to meeting their children’s financial needs (Garcia et al.). The government reducing fathers to how much money instead of how much time they can provide for their children is a leading contributor to the alleged fatherless crises.
For instance, the frontrunner headlining the father-absent NFI flyer is Ole Miss. According to NFI, Mississippi has the highest percentage of children living in father-absent homes at 36.2%. The Magnolia State is no stranger to leading the nation when it applies to our most vulnerable children. Although Mississippi has consistently ranked among the highest regarding children living in poverty, officials have only recently decided to pay a small amount of child support collected to low-income families receiving welfare. After nearly thirty years post-welfare reform, officials have agreed to pay or pass through the first $100 each month for current Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF recipients, but former recipients don’t receive any support.
Child support distribution, or lack thereof, for low-income children, is essential to the averred fatherless epidemic. Why? The lack of income in single-mother homes is one of the most repeated and supported arguments used when people like failed California gubernatorial presidential candidate Larry Elder bellyache about the fake fatherless crisis ruining America. Several sources have shown that it is not so hard to prove income disparity in single versus two-parent homes. And yet, Colorado is the only jurisdiction that has decided to pay all child support to the most vulnerable families. And no one ever finds their way to include that fathers contribute more than court-ordered child support with extracurricular activity costs, expenses incurred during stays at their homes, and travel expenses during pick-ups and drop-offs. https://www.https://www.thechildsupporthustle.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/two-housholds-child-support.jpg.com/dear-black-face-of-white-supremacy-larry-elder/
There is one caveat to House Bill 1100, which ensures child support is passed through to TANF recipients if the General Assembly does not appropriate an amount of money that is at least 90% of the total county share of collections passed through to the custodial party after the full federal share is paid (National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), 2023). Financially, the government could and must end the mandated child support cooperation. Many times, parents are co-parenting even when they are not cohabitating. Additionally, incarcerated fathers- a disproportionate number of whom are Black and brown-face displaced, have heavy fines and employment barriers once released that create additional challenges for them to reunite with their families and communities (Garcia et al.). Whether incarcerated or not, Black fathers have always faced less than favorable odds when dealing with child support and gaining access to their children.
Once again, Mississippi officials have failed children by ignoring guidelines meant to protect fathers when they are incarcerated by not charging them child support. As part of former President Obama’s 2015 budget, the president introduced a revision to change a longstanding rule concerning incarceration being considered ‘voluntary’ unemployment. After the GOP blocked the proposal, President Obama issued an executive order that modified how states were to treat imprisoned noncustodial parents. The Office of Child Support Enforcement or OCSE (2016) explained that the final rule provides that state guidelines under 45 CFR 302.56 (c)(3) may not treat incarceration as “voluntary unemployment” in establishing or modifying child support orders.
Although the federal government issued new provisions to every jurisdiction in 2016, Mississippi updated its statute, honoring the update on July 1, 2023. Over eight years after the new guidelines, Governor Tate Reeves signed Senate Bill 2082, which prohibits a court from considering incarceration as intentional or voluntary unemployment or underemployment when establishing or modifying a child-support order (Mississippi Legislature, 2023). The problem with the delayed passing of the bill is that the state has charged an undetermined number of fathers’ child support after the federal government ordered charges to be stopped after 180 days. When states refuse to acknowledge and execute laws that help fathers return to society and back to their children, it undermines the argument that fathers are purposely abandoning their children. https://youtube.com/live/nDL91CqjF5s
Of course, it is easy to argue that fathers should not commit crimes to find themselves in prison in the first place. The counterargument circles back to the disproportionate rate at which Black men are incarcerated compared to their counterparts. Even though Black Americans make up 13% of the general U.S. population, 37% of Black people are in prison or jail; innocent Black people are 19 times more likely to be convicted of drug crimes than innocent whites, and in 2022 Black people were 9.10 times more likely than white people to be issued a summons (Prison Policy Initiative, 2023) Sadly, most of those targeted, detained, arrested, and imprisoned are fathers.
When organizations like the Fathers’ Rights Movement share information pushing the absent father narrative, not only do they target Black fathers, but they knowingly or unknowingly (the jury is still deliberating) fail to acknowledge the incarcerated fathers. According to Fatherhood.gov (2008), among the 800,000 parents in federal and state prisons, 92% were fathers. Because of the Bradley Amendment, which prohibits retroactive debt forgiveness, most fathers are already indebted to either the state, the other parent, or both, and they enter prison thousands of dollars in debt. And before the 2016 Obama executive order, they would leave even deeper debt. Yet, the government and individuals consider child support payments more important than fathers in the current environment.
As we enter 2024, we must be mindful of the hundreds of thousands of parents and, more importantly, millions of children who suffer at the hands of outrageous and outdated child support guidelines have been suffering. The love of money and power has overtaken the judicial and social services programs and advocates who may have started fighting for justice, who are now fighting for clicks and CashApps. Politicians are expected to beg for donations as part of their campaigns. Sadly, people don’t expect their adversaries to play the same pay-for-play games, which almost always leads to zero results.
References:
Child support pass-through and disregard policies for public assistance recipients. (n.d.). Legislative News, Studies and Analysis | National Conference of State Legislatures. https://www.ncsl.org/human-services/child-support-pass-through-and-disregard-policies-for-public-assistance-recipients
Commentary, G. (2023, June 15). The complex, misunderstood problem of absent fathers. Itemlive. https://itemlive.com/2023/06/15/the-complex-misunderstood-problem-of-absent-fathers/
Fatherhood.gov. (n.d.). Incarcerated and reentering fathers. https://www.fatherhood.gov/for-programs/incarcerated-and-reentering-fathers
Mississippi Legislature 2023. (2023). SB2082 (As sent to governor) – 2023 regular session. https://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/documents/2023/html/SB/2001-2099/SB2082SG.htm
National Fatherhood Initiative®, a 501c3 Non-Profit. (n.d.). Father absence statistics. https://www.fatherhood.org/father-absence-statistic
Office of Child Support Enforcement. (2016). Modification for incarcerated parents. Retrieved December 31, 2023, from https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ocse/fem_final_rule_incarceration.pdf
Prison Policy Initiative. (2023, December 21). Race and ethnicity. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/research/race_and_ethnicity/
Census Bureau. (2022, February 3). Census Bureau releases new report on living arrangements of children. Census.gov. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/living-arrangements-of-chldren.html
