I did a double-take when I saw this article on CNN.
The central premise of the piece is that African-American dads are more involved in and generally better fathers than their White counterparts.
The article was backed up by some interesting statistics, but only the statistics that supported this rather interesting claim.
They never take a day off.
CNN Father's Day message is to remind you that black dads are superior to all you non-black dads.
I have no desire to criticize any group today, unlike them. But see if you can spot the flaws in this study design. https://t.co/Ft1JkFKoLg pic.twitter.com/JBNQWB3irT
— Richard Hanania (@RichardHanania) June 18, 2023
The author of this article is a CNN Science reporter, so in a time long ago in a country that seems very far away today, one would have expected that the piece would be a deep dive into the evidence and explain the variables to which the piece referred.
But no, given that this piece was written by someone who appears to be a Millennial or close to one, it is an ideologically driven mess with a message that she gets across with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
The premise of the article is simple: Black dads are more engaged with their children than those of other races. They are more likely to play with, dress, and share a meal with their kids than dads of other races.
This is, of course, counter to the general sense that people have, and Madeline wants us to know just how wrong we are and how distorted and prejudiced our preconceptions can be.
As he was growing up, Jeremy Givens says the narrative he heard around Black fathers was different than the one he lived.
In movies, television and generalized conversation, they were portrayed as absent, not engaged and overall, not very good fathers, he said.
“In my own experiences — not just with my father but with my uncles and my colleagues and my grandfathers — it was something that was polar opposite, something that was wonderful, that was inspiring, that was nourishing,” Givens said.
Now a father himself, Givens is president and executive director of the Black American Dad Foundation, an organization aiming to counter biased perceptions of Black fathers with firsthand accounts.
Father’s Day this year falls a day before Juneteenth, which commemorates the end of slavery in the United States, and fathers and mental health experts told CNN they are sharing the importance of fatherhood and their experience with and as Black dads.
Fathers are important for helping their children see all they can be, said Dr. Jennifer Noble, a licensed psychologist based in Los Angeles.
Seeing both moms and dads changing a diaper, nurturing a child and engaging in play helps boys and girls relate to both of their parents, she said.
“Therefore, as a kid, I get to identify both versions of it, and figure out what fits best for me,” Noble said.
Mr. Givens’s foundation has what seems to me to be a terrific mission: changing how Black fathers are seen. What we admire reflects who we are, and giving people a positive view of Black fatherhood seems to me to be a great mission. What seems missing here is an appreciation for how troubled things are right now in the Black community.
More on that in a moment.
Seventy percent of Black fathers who live with their children were most likely to have bathed, dressed, changed or helped their child with the toilet every day, compared with their White (60%) or Hispanic (45%) counterparts, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2013 National Health Statistics Report.
Those Black fathers were also most likely to have eaten a meal with their children, the data showed.
Notice what they did there? “Black fathers who live with their children” is hardly the same thing as “Black fathers” in general.
In fact, Black fathers who live with their children is a pretty small group, all things considered, and in all likelihood characterized by being middle-class and wealthier fathers, and not representative of the entire class of Black fathers. A fair comparison in this context would not be by race but by class.
How big is the difference? Huge.
That statistic tells you why the general image of Black fathers is that they are, in general, less involved in their children’s lives. It’s pretty hard to say “Black fathers are more involved in their kids’ lives” when you exclude the 64% who aren’t involved much or at all.
This is “science” reporting.
This involvement is important for many reasons, one of which is that data shows that children with involved fathers are at lower risk for developing disruptive behavior and mental health difficulties, Turner said.
Uh, yeah. We know that. This is why the huge absentee father numbers are such an enormous problem in the Black community as a whole. Simply ignoring this fact is so bizarre–inverting this fact, as Ms. Holcolmb does is outright propaganda.
If data shows that Black fathers are often involved in the daily care of their children, why is that story not being told?
Often, movies, TV shows and news stories about Black fathers come from secondary sources — not by Black dads or those who have been raised by them, Givens said.
As a result, the father of a Black family can be portrayed as either absent or not a very good dad.
“Sometimes we miss some of the nuance and just think, ‘Oh, that’s every Black family everywhere,’” Noble said.
Given the history of racism in the United States, some Black fathers may face disproportionate incarceration rates or have difficulty in obtaining jobs to provide for their families, she added. But such hardships are only part of the story of Black fatherhood.
There is a reason why portrayals of many Black dads show them as absent. It is not due to racism, but rather is reflecting the fact that 64% of Black dads are missing from the home.
To give you an idea of how completely distorted the message here is, consider this: the hero of our story is, in fact, an absent dad himself:
“For boys, it really is helpful to have male figures model healthy coping and emotional expression,” he said. “While mothers can also play an important role, I think it lands differently when boys see how their father is able to confidently talk about emotions like sadness or anxiety.”
Yet doing so isn’t always easy. Givens recalls his own difficulty three years ago when he told his son, Cohen, that he was moving out of state and wouldn’t see him for a few weeks.
“This doesn’t change anything,” the single dad remembers saying to his son, then 5, who now lives in Arizona with his mom. “I want to make sure you know that I love you, and I will always love you and be with you.”
Givens can’t forget his son’s response. “It’s OK, Daddy. You just have to try,” he recalled the boy saying.
Now I have no idea how great a dad Givens is or is not, but what I do know is that he is not “having meals with his kids” because they live elsewhere with their mom.
That the story’s moral is so at variance from reality tells you everything you need to know about how “sciencey” this story truly is.
UPDATED WITH A LINK TO STATISTICS OF 2 PARENT HOUSEHOLDS
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