Scary article - but IMPORTANT

"AGGRESSIVE PLEADINGS FOR THE NON-CUSTODIAL FATHER"

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/local/11875415.htm

Posted on Sun, Jun. 12, 2005

COMMENTARY

Fathers can make all the difference

CHILDREN RAISED APART FROM DAD ARE PRONE TO PROBLEMS


By Merlene Davis

HERALD-LEADER COLUMIST

The statistics scare me.

Children from fatherless homes account for: the majority of youth
suicides, teenage pregnancies, homeless and runaway children, juveniles
in detention, children with behavioral disorders, high school dropouts
and adolescents who abuse drugs.

They are the same statistics that have been rolled out for years by
those trying to change a court system that gives a great deal of power
to the custodial parent (usually the mother), and a welfare system that
initially demanded fathers be absent before benefits would be paid.

Add to those barriers built-up frustration on the part of the
non-custodial father -- or his selfishness -- and you have a recipe for
father absenteeism.

The importance of a father's relationship with his children has been
minimized, and the people who suffer the most are the children.

And yet, no one seems to be making serious efforts to improve those
father-child relationships.
David Cozart, community involvement manager at LexLinc, knows that. He
knows society has a dim view of most absent fathers, and he knows that
view with some fathers is deserved.

But Cozart wants to change that.

"I didn't come to deal with these issues because of grown folks'
problems," Cozart said, "but because of problems it is causing
children."

Cozart, some community leaders and the Georgetown Street Neighborhood
Association are sponsoring the "Fatherhood Celebration" at Douglass
Park
from noon until 4 p.m. Saturday.

Festivities will begin at the YMCA, 381 West Loudon Avenue, with
registration at 11 a.m., followed by a symbolic walk to Douglass Park.

"Activities will be focused around children," Cozart said, "because
this
is really about children."

There will be a picnic, so people are encouraged to bring blankets.
There will also be marbles and jacks, as well as face painting,
basketball, box hockey, chess and checkers, door prizes and a resource
fair.

Those resources will center on support available for fathers who are
trying to be, or have stopped trying to be, in their children's lives.

The purpose is to gather data, Cozart said, to determine needs and then
to plan follow-up programs to satisfy those needs.

A third of all children are born out of wedlock, he said, and half of
all marriages end in divorce.

That means "two out of three children have a pretty good chance of
being
in a family without a father," Cozart said.

He hopes a variety of fathers will attend: the non-custodial parent who
has a child out of wedlock living in Bluegrass Aspendale; the father
who
lives in Hartland and is divorced but having a hard time with
visitation; or the father who lives in Masterson Station Park who has
remarried, started a new family, and is having difficulty fostering
good
relationships with children from his previous marriage.

While most fathers are doing what they should, many are not.

"It has to be something very strong, something very powerful or
something seriously wrong with an individual to turn their back on a
child," Cozart said.

As the mother of three, I don't understand how something like that
could
happen.

Unfortunately, history, the court and welfare systems have played a
role
in making absenteeism acceptable in the past, Cozart said.

"At one point, it became pretty normal in many situations for a father
to distribute his sperm and go on about his business," he said.

When men stepped aside, many women stepped up, he said, and reared the
family. Other women saw it could be done and "that's when normalization
began."

Plus, he said, some fathers are allowed to participate in their
children's lives only when they provide economically. When they can't,
fathers are either blocked from visitation or fade away on their own
with a negative sense of self-worth.

I understand that. I do. I was a single, custodial parent struggling to
keep me and my daughter no more than knee deep in troubled waters. I
had
to work and provide. Why shouldn't fathers? The children still have to
eat and survive.

Statistics show, Cozart said, that a lot of fathers are involved
prenatally and in the first few years of a child's life. Something
brings that to an end.

Cozart said one of those "somethings" could be the troubled
relationship
between the mother and father. He suggested poor interpersonal
relationship skills between parents, as well as power struggles and
custody battles, could be at fault.

"We need to identify those factors that have encouraged fathers to no
longer try" to see their children.

There has to be some liaison or agency or agent that gives
non-custodial
fathers the ability to weave through various barriers for the
betterment
of their children, Cozart said, adding he hopes that will begin with
the
celebration Saturday.

"The ordained order of family is father, mother and child," Cozart
said.
"A child deserves his mother and father."

Reach Merlene Davis at (859) 231-3218 or 1-800-950-6397, Ext. 3218, or
mdavis1@herald-leader.com.