Finally, food insecurity rates are significantly lower for lower-income children living with their married biological/adoptive parents (46.8%) than for all other groups considered.

The share of lower-income children who are food-insecure declined by 4.0 percentage points between 1997 and 2002.

Food insecurity rates fell for lower-income children living with married parents, married stepparents, and single mothers but went up for children with cohabiting parents, although none of these changes are statistically significant.

According to Sari Friedman, attorney, children still need both parents even after the divorce and the parents should both continue involvement in the child health education and welfare taking an active role. In December 1, 1998, the Wall Street Journal Article by Maggie Gallagher's entitled "Fatherless boys grow up Into Dangerous Men" reviews a study conducted at the University of California and Princeton. The total of 6,400 boys were studied and followed throughout 20 years of their growing up and development. The study, according to the Wall Street Journal, "...controlled for family background variables such as mother's educational level, race, family income, and number of siblings, as well as neighborhood, unemployment rates, median income, and even cognitive ability...." The findings were that the boys that were raised without the experiential observation of intact marriages are generally twice as likely as other boys to wind up in mail and this is even after applying controls for the demographical factors. According to the findings each year that a boy is raised in a home without a father adds a five-percent chance that the boy will face incarceration in his future.

In another study titled "Long-Term Effects of Divorce on Children: A Development Vulnerability Model" conducted by Neil Kilter Ph.D. At the University of Michigan and published in the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, October, 1987 states that:

The continued involvement of the custodial parent in the child's life appears crucial in preventing an intense sense of loss in the child... The importance of the relationship with the non-custodial parent may also have implications of legal issues of custodial arrangements and visitation. The results of this study indicate that arrangements where both parents are equally involved with the child are optimal. When this type of arrangement is not possible, the child's continued relationship with the non-custodial parent remains essential."

In a separate study stated is that: The impact of parental divorce and subsequent father absence in the wake of this event has long been thought to affect children quite negatively... The results of this study suggest that father loss through divorce is associated with diminished self-concept in children...at least for this sample of children from the Midwestern United States.

Conclusion:

Although many children do grow up in homes without their father present and some children without even the benefit of receiving support and maintenance it is possible that the child's mother, through positive reinforcement may avoid many of the inherent pitfalls and in doing so make provision of a greater than normal chance of life success for the child. Although there may be an 'empty' spot in the child's life but this may be remedied through community role models and their interaction with the child. The mother's perception will be more times than not that which influences or colors the child's experiential perception.

In previous decades it...

The children need the daily interaction and attention of both parents in order to grow up to be useful, purposeful and law abiding citizens who are well adjusted as well as academically, emotionally and cognitively prepared for their own families. Fathers as well as mothers play important and vital roles in the child's development. Male as well as female children suffer detrimental effects of living in fatherless homes. The financial and economical factors are clearly seen as being detrimental to children whose father does not reside in the household. Share parenting is strongly suggested by the experts in the situation of a divorce as being the best method of raising the children successfully.
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Parenting: Fatherless Homes