Dispelling the Myths About Black Fathers

[Rose Siding]

From Aaron Paxton Arnold's article titled "Dispelling the myths about black fathers":

If we look at some statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), we learn that:

* Children under the age 5: Black Fathers prepared and/or ate meals more with their children vs their white and Hispanic counterparts

* Children 5-18: Black Fathers took children to and from activities daily more compared to their white and Hispanic counterparts

* Children 5-18: Black Fathers also helped their kids with homework more than their white and Hispanic counterparts
.....

It sounds naive and far-fetched but one thing is for sure: if we don't show and share positive stories about black fathers, then the ugliness of institutional racism will prevail.

America and the world knows for too long the struggles plaguing African-Americans. Black men are associated with drugs, prison incarceration and gun violence. It's time for America to learn about the other side of African American men -- and it starts with telling and celebrating the amazing stories of all the great black fathers in our communities.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/20/opinions/arnold-black-fathers/index.html

"...It Starts With Telling and Celebrating the Amazing Stories of All the Great Black Fathers"

What he said.

[BronxBoy]

1. Kick n/t

[malaise]

2. Excellent post

should have 500 recs by now

[Rose Siding]

4. Thanks. I sure as hell hadn't heard about this study

And the author's frame, along with his recommendation to share really got to me.

[H2O Man]

3. Recommended.

Thank you.

[qwlauren35]

5. I remember

how involved my dad was in my life. He was retired when I was in my teens and he used to show up at my soccer games. It always gave me a special thrill. As a child, he taught me how to throw a ball overhand, took me blackberry picking, helped me with my pet frog. As a toddler, he played checkers with me and let me win, I think. Or else I was just good at checkers.

Our family ate all of our meals together around 6pm after my dad got home from work. When we were little, we would run down the stairs and jump in his arms as he came in the front door.

After my mom and dad split up, when I was 12, I would visit my dad on average twice a week on my way home from school. We would eat dinner together and play cards. Then he would stand with me at the bus-stop and I would sing songs that I was learning in music class. I lived with him for about two weeks when I was a teen and mad at my mom about something, but he wasn't really "good with teenaged girls" and I went home.

As a young adult, living 300 miles from home, my dad used to drive up from Maryland to Mass. to visit me. He would stay for about a week, and we would just hang out in the evenings after I came home from work.

It didn't occur to me that this was special. I belonged to a black social group for kids and there were lots of involved dads coming to the events.

When my dad was dying from cancer, I had him come live with me in North Carolina. I figured it was the least I could do.

[Rose Siding]

6. Those are great memories

Thanks for writing them out to share.

I'm an old white woman and I was blessed with a good dad too.

[Romulox]

7. There is a strength of character, love, integrity in strong Black fathers and families

that I have never personally experienced in my own family.

"...It Starts With Telling and Celebrating the Amazing Stories of All the Great Black Fathers"

[Quayblue]

8. this needed to be seen, thank you. nt

[Igel]

9. These numbers are for fathers living with their kids.

That's an important point because different "communities" have different marriage, divorce, and single-parent family rates.

Also it's based on self-reports in the 4 weeks the sample was taken.

There are also differences in jobs, divorce rates, education, cohabitation rates, so it's hard to get a decent picture without looking at more context, and this report doesn't. It's a snapshot. And then the popular press picks details from that snapshot to spin.

Take that first bullet point and put in the error bars: the fact concerning daddy + small child has a 78% vs 74% difference, we're proudly told. The combined error over over 10%, so there's an excellent chance that the numbers could easily be reversed on a repeated measurement. There's that much uncertainty. Now, stop and think: In a 22-page report dripping with statistics, this is one of the few facts that merited citing as a point of pride.

You take away the assumptions and the methodology, the context, and the numbers mean exactly what the writer needs them to mean. Constraints are good in research and keep numbers from being misused.

Read the whole thing. It's only 22 pages long. The tables are the meat, the text is the gravy. The errors are in () in the tables and only discussed in general terms in the text, so if you just look at the accompanying text you'll miss them like the writer did: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr071.pdf

More importantly, note that this is a narrowly-focused report. All these other factors are important, often more important, and pattern in specific ways. A lot of meal face-time with dad can be because there's no mom around taking the kid to extracurricular activities or the kid's not involved in extracurricular activities, and those matter. Or perhaps the dad is employed 30 hours a week and has evenings off. This also matters. This report just looks at involvement, not the rest of the crap that is correlated with or even drives face time.

Note this: High-SES white fathers tend to have lower face-time with kids during meals, etc., than low-SES white fathers. This report just gives the weighted average for those two completely different "communities." Those high-SES kids are fare more likely to be in a two-parent family with higher income and education, more involved in school and more likely to go to college and avoid problems with the law. If they screw up, they're put back on track. The low-SES kids tend to be from families with lower income and education, often one parent families. They're less likely to go to college, more likely to get arrested, and if they screw up there's a good chance they'll not recover.

Daddy time predicts the reverse. But within each set of circumstances, more daddy time means better outcome. More daddy time within each set of circumstances usually also means more commitment, dedication and emotional attachment to the kid. The snapshot doesn't capture this.

Notice also that since the '80s it's increasingly possible to drop the word "white" out of these two paragraphs in many cities and towns as high-SES families look more and more alike statistically and low-SES families look more and more alike statistically.

All things being equal, more father involvement --> better outcome for the kids. But first you have to make sure you're comparing otherwise equal things.


This report has popped up at DU a time or two already. Each time the OP has the same skew.

[LanternWaste]

11. What precisely is the "skew" you allege?

"Each time the OP has the same skew...."

What precisely is the "skew" you allege?

[Rose Siding]

12. That doesn't diminish the value of the report.

Nearly all surveys and polls are from "self-reports" providing a snap-shot in time. Should respondents be hooked up to lie detectors or something?

No one was claiming anything about ultimate success of the child either, though the author addresses some some of what may be causal impediments in the article. Read the whole thing. It isn't very long.

This issue at hand is dispelling stereotypes so I don't care if this report has "popped up" before.

[Uncle Joe]

10. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Rose Siding.

[bravenak]

13. My husband spends ALOT of time with the kids. He likes it.nt

[lumberjack_jeff]

14. There are a bunch of structural reasons that those bullet points are remarkable

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/1/15/a-dead-broke-notdeadbeatabaltimorerethinkswelfarepolicy.html

With just Darnell's earnings, they say, they didn't have enough to get by. The couple had deferred living together until they could afford a bigger place, and with the baby on the way, they were squeezed even further. Now Charlotte and Darnell's marriage — what they most prided themselves on — became, in a sense, a liability.

When Charlotte applied for additional benefits from Maryland's Department of Human Resources (DHR), the state agency that administers TANF and other welfare programs, she lied about being married so that Darnell's income would not be considered in her application. At the same time, she had to register Darnell as the father of her new baby with a second DHR agency, the Child Support Enforcement Administration, in order to qualify for additional cash assistance.

In many states, including Maryland, the parent seeking assistance — typically the mother — must identify the other parent to the child-support agency so it can begin to collect payments owed to the state. (Darnell, for example, owed about $400 each month.) This is intended to offset the costs of food stamps and other aid the state pays out. Missed payments accrue in arrears. The state can collect that money by garnishing wages, intercepting tax refunds, suspending drivers’ or professional licenses and other measures. (A 2012 Maryland law, however, now stops child-support debt from accumulating when parents in arrears are in prison.)

Thus, a potential conflict was introduced into Charlotte and Darnell's relationship: the benefits she gained as a result of his vulnerability to the state.

"I always thought that was crazy," Darnell says. "We shouldn't have to say we were separated to get help. If anything, they should have helped us stay together. They are saying they want the father involved but won't help you if the father is involved. That is backwards."

When I lost my job when and my youngest was little, it made sense for me to stay home with him. I could either be a good provider (as I was to his older brothers) or a good father, but not both.

[Quayblue]

15. this is real life

And it's fuckin sad. My husband and I have been through a similar situation (with the economy downturn) and I know other couples who've been through the same.

We should never have to choose between quality time with our children and being able to provide.

[Liberal_in_LA]

16. kick