Girls are also important

Do Girls Need Fathers?

• Girls who are close to their fathers exhibit less anxiety and withdrawn behaviors.

• Daughters who perceive that their fathers care a lot about them, and who feel connected to their fathers, have significantly fewer suicide attempts and fewer instances of body dissatisfaction, depression, low self-esteem, substance use and unhealthy weight.

• Girls with involved fathers are twice as likely to stay in school.

• Girls with fathers who are involved in their lives have higher quantitative and verbal skills and higher intellectual functioning.

• Girls whose parents divorce or separate before they turn twenty-one tend to have shorter life spans by four years.

• Girls with good fathers are less likely to flaunt themselves to seek male attention.

• Girls with involved fathers wait longer to become sexually active and have lower rates of teen pregnancy.

• Seventy-six percent of teen girls said fathers influenced their decisions on whether they should become sexually active.

• A daughter from a middle-class family has a five-fold lower risk of out-of-wedlock pregnancy if her father lives at home.

• Girls who lived with their mothers and fathers have significantly fewer growth and developmental delays, and fewer learning disorders, emotional disabilities and behavior problems.

• Girls who live apart from their fathers have significantly less ability to control impulses and delay gratification, and have a weaker sense of right and wrong.