Its not just black children...I'm not black and I grew up fatherless.

It's proportionate to how many children of any colour or race grow up in fatherless homes, depends upon any number of factors. I never knew my father.

it is a cultural thing not a racial thing. there is an urban culture dominated by blacks in which promiscuity is glorified. (that same culture glorifies ignorance and crime too.) how many raps are about the love of your life versus pimpin' hos. no music does not make them act like that, it meirly indicates what the primary market values.

Because there parents have them out of wedlock, thus giving the father little incentive to stick around.

This isn't a black thing... nor is it a black or white thing.. Its a cultural development that happens more in the US than anywhere else in the world. Here in this country we in general have almost completely devalued the act of marriage. Sex used to be held as a sacred act between a husband and wife used to procreate and produce children to expand the family, but now sex has become a casual experience that is used to determin if a date was good or not. With such a lacking attitude towards the institution of marriage, the increase in homes with children that have no father has grown dramatically every year and will continue to do so. When you take into account the fact that more than half of all marriages fail in the first year, it only makes the fatherless home situation continue to grow and expand.

That's no different than white kids. It's just advertised more when they're black.

It appears to be an attitudnal situation with people today. This doesn't only apply to black people. It extends throughout society. It is a very complex situation which includes the fact that more and more children are being raised by single parents (their examples from their parents), inability of many young people to get and hold good jobs (for numerous reasons which I will not go into here), the fact that society doesn't feel as responsible for family as previous, lack of religious convictions (which support family), attitudes by many females that marriage isn't necessary, including constant father figures, to raise a child. Books can be and have been written on the Sociological and psychological reasons society is at this point. However, before we believe the blanket statement raised by this question we need to look at statistics and support the majority who are raising children in two parent families and take their successes and apply them to try to rectify any actual ills that may be caused by the situations.

Ask the fathers.

Why do so many white children grow up in prejudice homes? See how frustrating a sweeping generalization can be? Black children grow up in fatherless homes for the same reason every other kind of child in a fatherless home is growing up in one: Because they were sired by irresponsible people. Irresponsible people come in pretty much every color. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of children growing up in fatherless homes because there has been a dramatic increase in the number of young people having sex and getting pregnant. Young people that are irresponsible enough to have unprotected sex without contraceptives are most likely too irresponsible to raise a child at a young age, and round and round we go. Really quite simple once you think about it logically.

I'm black and I didn't grow up fatherless. As a matter of fact most of my family aunts and uncles on both sides are still together and raised their children together. Every race has deadbeat fathers. Alot of it has to do with teen pregnacy.

This has NOTHING to do with rap music, lack of religious convictions or that things were different back in the old days! People had sex for fun as far back as forever. They skipped out on obligations and their kids thousands of years ago (maybe you should read your bible again) People are people now and back then and 90% more or less (in America) claim to be religious. Teen pregnancy was rampant way back when too. It has more to do with the simple fact that there is a lot more people now and communication/video is so fast and intrusive!

i dont think its just black children race has nothing to do with fatherless children it depends on there actions and if the father died or not

this question was made for me to answer. I really don't know my father since he was locked up when I was oung. That's why I'n growing up without a father figure. I can't really tell you what others reasons are.

I am not black but i did get married young! My wife was 17 when we had our first child we now have 3 and still love each other very much! Any "man" who runs away from what he and the lady created is below worthless! fell free to -my points! That is what is destroying America! If you can't feed it don't breed it!

Unfortunately, more and more children of all races are growing up in fatherless homes. I suspect it's because of the change in societal "acceptance" of the whole "play house" arrangements these days. Too many people think that shacking up is an actual commitment. It's simply not and bringing children into this kind of unstable situation is almost a guarantee of a fatherless home.

umm wow!!! Its not just black fathers its white as well...its all over America, everybody has problems weather your black, white, spanish or whatever i think that if you just sit and agree to only thinking its just black people, as in black fathers then something is wrong with you i mean look at Obama he's a great dad and now he's running are country :D its not about what color you are its who you are. There are dead-beat dads everywhere you go....wow i can't believe a question like this has even come up i am truly upset about it and by alot of answers.... :(

Lets start with slavery. Slaves were frequently not allowed to marry. When they were allowed, it was not a legally binding or a sacremental marriage, but just "jumping the broom." The master was not in any way required to recognize that marriage. He might decide to breed the woman to someone else or to breed her himself. He might sell her away or sell her husband away or sell her children away. Often her husband might be on another plantation, and the other planter might not even allow her to see her husband. That worked well for the planters, but you can't have much of a marriage that way and it doesn't give them much chance to practice or pass down the skills that go into a successful marriage. They got a few generations after slavery to start building and practicing those skills unhindered, but in terrible poverty. It really wasn't much of a chance, as black men weren't paid enough to support their families and they were often forced into theft to prevent their kids from starving. Once they stole something, even if it were only a chicken, they could go to prison for a very long time. They could also be lynched at the drop of a hat, for crimes like "looking at a white woman the wrong way." So again, little chance to practice those skills before dad was gone. Then the welfare system was set up in such a way that it created fatherless homes. To a teenager, the amount of money you could get on welfare looked enormous. All you had to do was get pregnant and you got money. You also couldn't get welfare if you were married, so there was absolutely no incentive to get married. Once you had a baby, you found out that the enormous sum of money didn't go very far, unless you had another one. Somewhere around six kids you finally hit a level of money that you could live on. Three or four generations grew up under that system, and by that time there was no memory of anything else. I thoroughly believe that the welfare system was set up that way on purpose. It created a powerless black workforce that was used to and expected poverty. Lets not forget that it was set up under a Southern Democrat President. I'm going to attach a link to a Smithsonian article that I read years ago. My views are not the tone of this article, but reading it, I realized how very much LBJ was a man of the South and could talk their talk. I also realized what a master manipulater and compromiser he was. And I realized what he was up against. I don't doubt that the welfare system was knowingly set up to be the next slave/sharecropper system to provide that dependant workforce and was probably given as a compromise for some other piece of civil rights legislation. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/lbj.html?c=y&page=1 If I were black, I would definitely rebel against the powers that set up that system by trying to become as independant and successful as I could, to marry and build a successful, independent family and to show them I was as good as anyone and they couldn't keep me down.

Its not a black thing, white thing, red thing, or orange thing. Its a people thing, and if you still think thats the way it is, you have a lot to learn about life itself.

It's not a "black" thing but rather a socio-economic thing. You'll find it in black families in urban environments and in white families in trailer parks. It's very simple. There are 2 reasons -- 1. welfare fraud where the baby-daddy lives there illegally but without marriage so that the family can get benefits that they aren't entitled to and 2. the fact that this sort of relationship is so easy to break legally. All he or she has to do is walk out the door.

Is it a black thing or an American thing , no matter what the color . There is alot of blacks /whites in urban dwellings ,suburbs , even rural areas with fatherless home ,rich /poor all classes of life. For one thing society has became so that it jokes of one night stands where they come together like two ships in the night then go their seperate ways ,also if a father walks out they are not made to take responsibilty etc,,most of the time just let the system pay for the kid while they go make another one with another woman. And sometimes the mother is a real bitch ,in which the father can't stand to live with her.. I spent time in Serria Leone during the war ,,,when kids,adults were being killed ,limbs lopped off with rusty machetes ,, It would have been easier for the fathers to walk away from their families and survive on their own from the war. I didn't see any fathers deserting their children but actually becoming more protective of them ,,, and they are all black and most very ,very poor .

This happens in many races not just Blacks

It seems it has become a cultural thing.

Because black men eat root and leave very few of them are responsible for their actions they don't look after their own. If they were raised by a single mother they wouldn't know how to be a father would they. Until black men take responsibility for their own nothing will change. Watch everyone of them blame white people for all of their problems.

A lot of it has to do with collecting welfare. Getting free money each month for single mothers has become a full-time career, just as politics have become a full-time career for many elected officials. The more children in fatherless homes the more income the mother receives. The lack of concern by the law for finding the fathers actually encourages the practice. Of course, this doesn't focus solely on blacks or any other ethnic group. But when looking at the NAACP and other black advocacy groups that exclude anyone other than blacks, ethnicity plays a definite role in positioning its members favorably.