A Kid's Eye View!

The next five posts I, a ten year old kid named Clay, will tell you why a dad is important from a kid’s point of view. "Dads are important because they provide leadership to the family, they provide stability to the family environment and they teach character skills to their children." Stay tuned for the next post that will have a few more details on my opinion!

Could It Be Worse

As Director of a Fatherhood Program, I often have the time and requirement to sift through a lot of data on fatherhood. I recently acquired a copy of National Fatherhood Initiative's "Father Facts 6th edition". I have a  previous edition and it is a wealth of knowledge for anyone in the social assitance resource arena. As I read through some of the most current data, I noticed that there was a slight decrease in the percentage of children living in "father absent homes". In 2010, 20,324 children were absent a father figure. This was down from 20,516 in 2005. Although a .5 percent decrease in 5 years is a very small amount, it must be a very relative amount in the eyes of the 292 children affected! It shows a positive move toward father involvement. The true test will be having another drop in 2015. History demonstrates that there is a rise and fall every five years on this area. We'll have to see what happens!