Father’s Day – The Castle Report

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Darrell Castle talks about Father’s Day, what it means, and why it is important to honor fathers.

Transcription / Notes:

FATHER’S DAY

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 19^th day of June in the year of our Lord 2026. I previously did a Report on Mother’s Day and what it means so today I will be talking about Father’s Day, what it means and why it is important to honor fathers.

Yes, we are two days away from Father’s Day which falls on the 21^st of June this year. It is dedicated as a Federal Holiday falling on the third Sunday of June each year. The holiday was started in Spokane, Washington in 1910 by a woman named Snora Smart Dodd who was inspired by a Mother’s Day sermon and she wanted to honor her father in the same way.

Her father was a Civil War veteran named William Jackson Smart who was the father of 6 children. His wife died in childbirth and he raised his 6 kids alone. His daughter thought that he had lived his life with honor so she persuaded local authorities to set aside a day to honor her father and all the others. In1972 President Nixon made it a federal occasion and now we celebrate it each year by honoring or remembering our fathers.

The National Retail Federation (NRF) tells us that the average gift per person given to each father in terms of dollars is $196.23. Interestingly for this year June 21^st is the summer solstice or the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere which means it is the day of maximum daylight. So, I guess we can spend more daytime at all those cookouts with our fathers.

In this Report I will endeavor to make recognition of fathers something you can easily see as vitally important. Social scientists tell us that data overwhelmingly confirms that children born to their married parents have much better outcomes than children born to single mothers. The data indicates that children born to married parents are “significantly more likely to be on track” at every life stage than children who are born to unmarried parents.

Children who are “on track” are those who achieve age-appropriate benchmarks for every stage in life. At the end of elementary school an on-track child has mastered basic math and reading skills, has behavioral competencies that predict later success, has a strong relationship with parents and is in good health. From elementary school to adulthood the child born to married parents is more likely to be on-track and significantly so than the child born to single or unmarried parents.

The report from which I am quoting said that even babies benefit greatly from married parents. A baby born to an unmarried mother is three times more likely to need Medicaid or other government assistance to pay for the delivery of the child and is twice as likely to have received late or no prenatal care. That child is twice as likely to be born prematurely and much more likely to be born at a low birth weight. That child is 14 times more likely to have been fathered by a man not identified on the birth certificate (29% versus 2%). This all serves to illustrate the importance of fathers involved in the upbringing and in the lives of their children but there’s a lot more.

The data also shows many other problems which present themselves when a father is not involved in the raising of a child. The study shows that the absence of a father leads to children who report feeling abandoned, struggling with their emotions, and experiencing self-loathing, increased behavioral problems, poor academic performance, much higher rates of delinquency, youth crime, promiscuity, teen pregnancy, drug and alcohol abuse, and homelessness.

If that were not all fatherless children are at greater risk of suffering physical, emotional, and sexual abuse and many times more likely to experience physical and emotional maltreatment with the risk of fatal abuse 100 times greater. The report from the Institute for Family Studies concludes that there is a growing list of disadvantages for children in households without fathers but the report concludes that current U.S. welfare policies tend to encourage fatherlessness. The current policies subsidize unmarried parenting by paying for prenatal care, delivery and postnatal care while allowing the men who fathered the children to escape accountability.

The authors of the article conclude that as a society, and especially our churches we have to start recognizing the value of fatherhood again. Our education system in general seems to be failing right now and the belief is that our moral standards have fallen first and a large part of that failing is how we view fathers. The poverty rate in the black and Hispanic communities lowers by 80% when the parents are married.

So, why wouldn’t fathers want to remain with the children they fathered. Why wouldn’t people want to get married and remain married if the statistics I just recited are true. That’s a good question but it seems that our society now sets up marriage to fail from the outset. There are many exceptions to that such as mine for example. I’m in the 49^th year of my marriage and many people ask me how I do it because they recognize that lifetime commitment is unusual enough to deserve explanation.

To continue the point of absent fathers and no marriage I reviewed a recent report done by The American Enterprise Institute in which the authors looked at the issue from a purely economic standpoint. The report was entitled; “Land of Opportunity: Advancing the American Dream.” From their report I learned that one of the chief things causing failure or at least lack of success is the gap between married and non-married Americans.

In the middle of the last century and I mean the 1900’s, one in 20 children were born out of wedlock. Now it’s two in five. America has the world’s highest rate of children living in single parent homes: 23% in the U.S. against 7% internationally. Forty percent of millennials from intact, two-parent families graduated from college and 77 % achieved middle class incomes or higher.

For those who didn’t grow up in intact families, only 17% graduated from college and 57% achieved middle class income. They are twice as likely to be incarcerated, even after other socioeconomic factors are considered. Quoting from the article for a moment.

“Research using tax-return data suggests that neighborhoods with high rates of single parenthood cultivate lower social mobility, including among kids who themselves are not raised by single parents.”

The conclusion from the research is that absence of fathers on their offspring has very long-term negative effects on the well-being of children.

This study concludes that among all races marriage protects against poverty. From a personal perspective I can say that for 46 years I counseled thousands of people in my law office and my conclusion has been that divorce especially for women and their children leads to a life of poverty. Married parents regardless of race and education suffer significantly less poverty than unmarried mothers.

Another interesting thing about these reports is that the phenomenon is not happening evenly but it seems to have a self-perpetuating pattern. For example, from 1970 to 2018 marital births dropped by 29 points overall but they dropped 47 points for the bottom education group and just 6 points for the top. From the early 1960’s to the late 2010’s marriage rates fell by roughly 46 percentage points for the least educated young women compared with 17 points for the most educated which leaves those least able to bear the cost of single parenthood the most likely to experience it.

Government, for whatever reason seems to be putting its thumb on the scale to tilt the outcome against marriage. The institution of marriage is obviously the most important factor in raising children and for income mobility, but that is not how the government views it apparently. For example, a couple with two kids, with each parent earning $30,000 receives around $5000 in earned income tax credits benefits if they remain unmarried. They lose all the benefits if they marry which is in effect a tax on marriage.

Medicaid, housing vouchers and SNAP benefits all phase out and punish couples who get married whereas they do not if the couples live together without marriage. It seems that careful research keeps finding the same conclusion regarding economic success and opportunities for children despite efforts to debunk it.

In conclusion, I would like to thank the occasion that is Father’s Day for the opportunity to be honored by my wife and our daughter. In addition, it gives me the opportunity to talk about something besides war and the opportunity to put into words something that I have observed over a very long legal career.

Speaking of families, I have a family obligation next week so there is no Castle Report next week.

Finally, folks, may God bless you and your families. If you can’t visit your father on Sunday, at least give him a call because he will be so glad you did.

At least that’s the way I see it,

Until next time folks,

This is Darrell Castle,

Thanks for listening.