Sue Lani Madsen: Generational emotional wealth requires fathers

If you knew there was a way to cut child abuse and neglect by half, would you be interested? How about reducing the risk of infant mortality? Or increasing anyone’s lifelong chance of avoiding poverty? There’s one key ingredient that contributes to those successes.

Fathers.

Not just fathers who drift into parenthood when their hormones kick in and reproductive biology produces a life. Any mammal can do that.

Society needs fathers who understand the responsibilities and demands as well as the joys of fatherhood. Fathers who commit to their children even if they haven’t committed in marriage to the mother of their children, although being raised by married biological parents is an even better predictor of success for kids.

It was a single father, a widower named William Smart, who raised and was the inspiration for his daughter Sonora Smart Dodd. She successfully lobbied in 1910 to create a day recognizing the value of fathers to their children.

The Spokane Fatherhood Initiative, part of a loosely affiliated national fatherhood movement, teaches evidence-based how-to classes to men seeking to build up their parenting skills. Many of the men they serve are not custodial parents, but they are ready to accept the call of duty. Their programs are so effective that SpoFI, as it is known to its supporters, was selected to receive one of four competitive state grants awarded to reduce child abuse and neglect.

The grant from the Department of Children Youth and Families will provide $45,000 per year for three years to support an expansion of SpoFI’s 24-7 Dad classes, to be scheduled at the Northeast Community Center in the Hillyard Neighborhood of Spokane.

“We don’t typically think of funding fatherhood programs as part of tackling child abuse and neglect,” said Ron Hauenstein, SpoFI president. “The state has adopted five protective factors, and if they’re strengthened it’s proven that child abuse goes down. Our curriculum strengthens all five.”

The five protective factors listed in the grant application are: (1) Knows his strengths and weaknesses (self-awareness); (2) Cares for himself; (3) Knows how to father; (4) Knows how to parent; and (5) Builds healthy relationships with family and community.

Hauenstein cited Ken Canfield of the National Center for Fathering (www.father.com) as the authoritative source on statistics backing up the importance of active and involved fathers in heading off poor outcomes for children. Canfield serves on the advisory board for SpoFI, and according to Hauenstein, “is the guru in this field.” “He’s interviewed 10,000 dads and boiled the research down to seven secrets of highly successful fathers. We teach the seven secrets based on his research as part of the 24-7 Dad curriculum.”

Absent fathers are correlated to a four times greater risk of a child living in poverty, two times greater risk of childhood obesity, and a higher likelihood of drug and alcohol abuse. Committed fatherhood matters.

Hauenstein sees a general instability in the culture as creating a fear of commitment. A culture supporting parents is essential to building the kind of generational emotional wealth described in “The Two-Parent Privilege” by Melissa S. Kearney. “Over and over, in study after study, empirical studies bear out the following reality: children thrive in strong stable families . … A strong stable family life is the foundation upon which children bring their surest footing in this difficult world.”

Fathers are essential to providing that sure footing. SpoFi offers training and mentoring programs for dads starting at every level of skill and experience, from an incarcerated father preparing to reintegrate into his child’s life to an experienced father seeking the enrichment and insight to do it better.

According to the summary of a study for the Fatherhood Research and Practice Network published in a SpoFI newsletter, good parenting has an economic value as well. A $900 investment in responsible fatherhood training has a potential benefit of $177,000 per father as dads become better men. Men who choose to lean into their call to duty to their children consequently do better economically and educationally.

We need more than a single day to celebrate fatherhood and family, we should be celebrating good parenting for a whole a month. Maybe even organize a parade in Spokane to commemorate the birthplace of Father’s Day.

Most of the men served by SpoFI are there because they lacked a dad to show them the ropes, and they want to break that chain of generational dysfunction. Even or especially for fathers who do not live with the mothers of their children, being involved as parents is essential. Absence isn’t simply correlated with negative outcomes, it can cause them. It’s the kids who suffer the sins of the fathers.

(Dedicating this column in honor of Father’s Day to my father, Conrad Wicht, who leaned into his fatherhood role and did so much so well.)

Contact Sue Lani Madsen at rulingpen@gmail.com.