It’s a sad truth, but there are roughly 24 million children in the U.S. who do not live with their biological fathers. In many of these cases, there may not even be any contact. For these children, to grow up without their father not only takes away from the important bonding experience kids have with their parents, but in many cases it also means one less positive male adult role model in the child’s life.
This is why Tony Dungy, the former coach for the Colts, is urging both presidential hopefuls — President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney — to make fatherhood a part of the final stretch of their campaigns. This would really bring the issue of fatherhood to a national level and start conversations on what can be done to have fathers being more a part of their children’s lives.
As part of this, Dungy has been encouraging citizens to sign a petition that calls for the candidates to make the issues surrounding fatherhood an important area of their campaign. Going by the fact that the petition has close to 3,000 signatures already, this is certainly an area that is of concern to many voting adults.
Of course in some cases there may be legitimate reasons why fathers are not a part of their child’s life, like if the man doesn’t even know he is a father. However, there are also sadly many situations where a father is kept from their child by a spiteful mom or hurtful ex-in-laws. In those cases, it’s important for fathers to keep in mind that they have the right to parent just as much as the mother of the child.
Source: theGrio, “Tony Dungy asks Obama and Romney to talk about fatherhood,” Ugonna Okpalaokoa, Oct. 18, 2012
- Our firm handles cases involving fathers’ rights. To learn more please visit our St. Louis fathers’ rights page.
