As a voting constituent, I want to draw your attention to what I consider one of the most vital issues facing our nation.

Everywhere we look these days, fathers are under attack. Fathers all across America are labled "Deadbeat Dads".  If we believe reporters and politicians, fathers are guilty of abandoning their families and children in droves and then failing to support them.  However, when the issue is studied carefully and objectively, a far different picture emerges. 

The most recent work on the important role that fathers play in the well being of children is FATHER AND CHILD REUNION, by Warren Farrell, Ph.D. This book is must reading for every American that is concerned about the health and happiness of our children. It should be required reading for every reporter, politician and policy maker.

Dr. Farrell shows conclusively that children do better with single fathers than with single mothers. Both boys and girls are healthier and do better psychologically and academically, as well as socially. Even characteristics such as empathy are exhibited more by children brought up by single fathers. Single fathers experience less stress juggling children and work than do single mothers.

With the large number of marriages ending in divorce, the problem of what to do about the children becomes very important.  In most courts it is the mother who receives sole physical custody of the children.  Fathers are then stripped of their former parental responsibilities and awarded occasional periods of "visitation".   However,  Dr. Farrell conclusively documents that  the family structures most likely to be in the child's best interest are the following: (1) the intact family; (2) shared parent-time (joint physical custody); (3) primary father time; and,  (4) primary mother time.

While the intact family is the winner, Father and Child Reunion makes it clear why, if divorce cannot be prevented, children being primarily with their dads gives children more of both parents than when they are primarily with their mothers; reduces a mother's economic dependency on a man, and reduces men's ten times greater suicide rate after divorce. Does Dr. Farrell conclude, then, that men are better at fathering than women are at mothering? No. But he does conclude that we have been waging a "War Against Fathers" - and mothers and children are among the losers.

I therefore urge you and your staff to investigate this issue more closely.  Dr. Farrell's book would be an excellent place to start.  Another book that will open your eyes to the truth about divorced fathers is, DIVORCED DADS, SHATTERING THE MYTHS, by Dr. Sanford Braver.  Yet another valuable resource is the website of Alliance for Non-Custodial Parents Rights, http://ancpr.org.  All of these resources make one fact crystal clear:   Fathers are not short-changing their families and children, rather, it is the system that is driving otherwise good fathers into exile, and depriving millions of our nation's children of the loving father that they need and deserve.

Sincerely,