According to the U. S. Census Bureau, in the year 2000, "Twenty-seven percent of children lived in a single-parent family group, and 5 percent lived in a household with neither parent present."

(Source: Terry Lugaila and Julia Overturf "Children and the Households They Live In: 2000," Census 2000 Special Reports, U.S. Census Bureau, CENSR-14, February 2004; http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/censr-14.pdf .)

"Lord, the pain is too much to bear! I can't take this anymore; I have to get out. I tried to get his attention once before with the anorexia but he did not care then, so why would he care if I was alive or dead. Well, at least the pain will be gone. My heart hurts, there is no one to care, no one to love me. He left without a word, without a tear. He did not call on my birthday. He even misspelled my name on the first Christmas present he ever sent, and there was only one of those. His checks are supposed to buy his love, yet he never even sends them! He probably does not even remember my name, I know he does not know my hair color, eye color, whether or not I am tall or short, fat or skinny. God, I just pray I don't look or act anything like him.

...Fathers supply many needs for their children, and their presence as well as their support is needed in the home. Not only is it important for a father to be in the home but also to be an active part in his children's life. You see, I can tell you from experience that when the father is not present and active in the home, the child suffers. The story above is not made up; it is true. You see that girl's name is Amanda, that girl is me...." 

(Source: Amanda Lynn Geesey [11th grade], "The Importance of a Father in the Home," The Center for Parent/Youth Understanding, Spring, 2004; http://www.cpyu.org/pageview.asp?pageid=21857 .)

The police spend a good deal of time with adolescents who do not live with both of their biological parents. The distinctive criminality of teens from broken homes stands out clearly in a criminological study recently sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHHD), one based on data collected from a nationally representative sample of more than 20,000 adolescents in grades 7 through 12. 

Much as the researchers anticipated, the data clearly identify family structure as a predictor of teen criminality: "Adolescents in single-father families report the highest levels of delinquency," report the NICHHD analysts, "followed by those in father-stepmother and single-mother families. Delinquency levels are lowest among adolescents residing with two biological, married parents." The linkage between family structure and teen delinquency persists in a statistical model that takes into account the characteristics of the children (age, ethnicity, gender) and of the parents (education, income, immigrant status). In this model, the researchers still limn "significantly higher delinquency" in single-parent and stepparent families than in two-biological-parent married families (p < .001 for mother-only and father-only families; p < .01 for mother-stepfather and father-stepmother families). Besides confirming the importance of family structure as a predictor of teen crime, this analysis surprised the researchers by showing that "family income is not significantly associated with delinquency."

The relationship between family structure and teen lawlessness appears somewhat more complex in a statistical model that adds "family processes" (parental involvement, parental supervision, parental monitoring, and parental closeness) to the background variables previously taken into account. In this model, family structure effects decline to "statistical non-significance." But since the researchers find that "levels of parental involvement, supervision, monitoring, and closeness are higher, on average, in two-biological-married-parent families than in single-parent families," critics might judge a statistical model as highly artificial - almost irrelevant - when it compares intact families with the relatively rare single-parent and step-families with equally high-quality "family processes."

In any case, when the researchers look not just at overall levels of delinquency but at "serious property" and "violent" crimes, family-structure effects re-emerge in the most sophisticated statistical model.  The researchers acknowledge that even in their statistical model that controls for family-process variables (as well as socioeconomic variables), "the more serious property offenses" are committed significantly more often by adolescents in single-mother families than by peers in intact families (p < .01). Looking at the same statistical model, the researchers further concede that "for violent offenses, adolescents in single-mother, single-father, and mother-stepfather families are more delinquent than their counterparts in two-biological-parent-married families." 

Anyone familiar with American academic life knows that politically correct thinkers view adverse outcomes linked to differences in "family processes" as far more palatable than those linked to differences in family structure. So it is perhaps no surprise that the researchers gloss their most politically incorrect findings rather obliquely, commenting that the "indirect and direct controls" measured in their "family process variables" are but "weak mitigators" of the family-structure effects on teen involvement in serious-property and violent crimes. In other words, "differences in petty delinquency across family forms are more readily explained by family processes than are differences in more serious delinquency."

Even the most statistically complex sociological model cannot hide the continuing importance of the intact family as a check on teen criminality.   

(Source: Stephen Demuth and Susan L. Brown, "Family Structure, Family Processes, and Adolescent Delinquency: The Significance of Parental Absence Versus Parental Gender," Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 41[2004]: 58-81.)