Failing Our Fathers: Confronting the Crisis of Economically Vulnerable Nonresident Fathers

Maligned as "deadbeat dads" or sexually and financially irresponsible inner-city fathers and overlooked in discussions of poverty and family policy, economically vulnerable nonresident fathers are a greatly misunderstood population.

Failing Our Fathers summarizes the most recent quantitative and qualitative research, and undertakes new analyses to fill in important gaps, to produce a comprehensive picture of who these fathers are, what types of relationships they have with their families and children, and the challenges they face meeting what their loved ones and taxpayers expect from them. The great majority of these men see their children on a regular basis, despite the financial, legal, and extra-legal barriers they face. Besides requiring fathers to support their children, we must enable them to do so by supplementing their earnings and supporting their co-parenting, in ways that parallel how we require and enable vulnerable single mothers to support their children. The book lays out specific reforms required to achieve this goal as well as tips for those resources for economically vulnerable nonresident fathers.