The Rise of the Single Dad More than 2.6 million households in America are headed by a single father

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http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/02/the-rise-of-the-single-dad/284016/

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Dustin Hoffman plays a father fighting for custody of his son in the 1979 film Kramer vs. Kramer. (AP File Photo)

When his son, Kyle, was four months old, Stefan Malliet woke up to his crying at three o’clock in the morning. Stefan tried to figure out what was wrong—Kyle wasn’t hungry, his diaper wasn’t dirty, but he still wouldn’t settle down and go to sleep. He just kept screaming. With no one else in the house to take Kyle off his hands, Stefan called a friend, crying: “I had no idea what was going on.”

When I asked Stefan how he decided to take on the responsibilities of a single dad, he said, “This is my child. I have to be here.”

Today, more men than ever are making the same choice. A Pew Research study published this statistic this summer: 8 percent of households with minor children are now headed by a single father, up from just one percent in 1960. This represents a nine-fold increase, from fewer than 300,000 households in 1960 to more than 2.6 million in 2011. In contrast, the number of single-mother households increased four-fold during that time period, from 1.9 million in 1960 to 8.6 million in 2011. These numbers speak to two trends in American family life today: a rising divorce rate over the past half-century, along with the increasing frequency of parents never marrying at all; and the growing societal acceptance of fathers as primary caregivers.

A century ago, this image of men left alone with children was horrifying enough to spur an anti-suffrage movement. So what happened? How did single fatherhood go from terrifying to increasingly normal?

According to the Pew study, we can attribute a large part of this to the U.S. judicial system, and its shifting standards for child custody cases. Until recently, U.S. courts would almost always rule “in the best interest of the child” (slang for “in favor of the mother”). But since the early 2000’s, many states have been adopting legislation that moves away from the “best interest” policy. Most new legislation provides for “joint parenting” or joint physical custody, policies that encourage both parents to spend equal time with the child (Oregon, Minnesota, Arizona, Iowa, and Maine have particularly strong joint parenting laws). But rather than prompting divorced parents to split their child’s time 50-50, these policies seem to have prompted a dramatic increase in the number of single fathers.

[Control-Z]

1. My single father household

was a nightmare. I hope these children fare better than I.

[Comrade Grumpy]

2. I don't dare say anything about this. n/t

[Gormy Cuss]

3. The cited Pew study has interesting data points.

For one, many more single fathers have cohabitating partners than single mothers. What this means, dunno. Just interesting.
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/07/02/the-rise-of-single-fathers/