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Do Boys Need Fathers?

• The National Center for Children in Poverty reports that fatherless boys are twice as likely to drop out of school or go to jail, and nearly four times as likely to need treatment for emotional and behavioral problems.

• Dr. William Pollock, Harvard psychologist and author of Real Boys, says divorce is difficult for children of both sexes, but is devastating for boys. He says the basic problem is the lack of discipline and supervision in the father’s absence, and his unavailability to teach what it means to be a man. Pollock also believes fathers are crucial in helping boys to manage their emotions.

• Don Elium, author of Raising a Son, says that with troubled boys, the common theme is distant, uninvolved fathers.

• Prisons are populated primarily by men who were abandoned or rejected by their fathers. Bill Glass, a dedicated evangelist who counseled almost every weekend for 25 years with men who were incarcerated, says that among the thousands of prisoners he had met, not one of them genuinely loved his dad. Ninety-five percent of those on death row hated their fathers.