Abstract
With the word “our” in their title, Ronald Mincy, Monique Jethwani, and Serena Klempin urge us to take collective responsibility for the nearly six million men they define as economically vulnerable, nonresident fathers. Their book, a comprehensive synthesis and review of literature combined with analyses and profiles of fathers from the authors’ qualitative interview study (n= 39), provides a compelling description of their challenges and experiences along with convincing arguments about how current child support and enforcement policies mostly hurt, but occasionally help them accomplish what they want to do and society wants them to do: financially support their children. The central argument and contribution of this book is that our punitive child support enforcement system is doing harm to mostly well-intentioned but economically struggling nonresident fathers who are unable to consistently pay their child support orders, in large part due to structural economic forces beyond their control.
The authors begin by arguing that the plight of these fathers is an important policy issue that deserves more attention, especially since the Great Recession has increased their number and deepened their employment problems. Although some commentators insist on portraying nonresident fathers as irresponsible “deadbeat dads,” the research cited in the book indicates this image is quite far from the truth. The profiles of men included in the book, supported by other research cited, portray men who deeply value their relationships with their children and are actively involved in their lives, but who experience significant stress and hardship around financial provision.
Several factors have led us to this point, discussed by the authors in chapters on employment, the child support system, how fathers make sense of their situations, and barriers to becoming the fathers they wish to be. The welfare reform legislation of the mid-1990s made paying child support automatic and inescapable, codifying in policy the longstanding cultural imperative of breadwinning as the essential activity and obligation of fatherhood. It also gave states the tools to punish men who did not fulfill their obligations, which they do with varying intensity. Zeal for enforcing breadwinning on the part of the state, however, was not matched by economic and social conditions that allowed all fathers to be economically successful. Over the past two decades, the ability to fulfill the provider role has diminished for men with lower levels of education.
Education has become increasingly important for securing relatively stable jobs with good earnings in the service sector as industrial and trade jobs have declined, increasingly consigning those without college degrees to low-wage and/or precarious work. At the same time, family instability has become more common, with a high divorce rate and a rising nonmarital birth rate, increasing thenumbers of men who experience part of their family life as non-resident fathers. Compounding this are social patterns correlating lower levels of education and income with increasing family instability and multiple-partner fertility, meaning that non-resident fatherhood is more likely among the same men who are likely to experience economic insecurity and difficulties in the labor market.
Implementing formal child support orders as a matter of course and punishing fathers who do not comply is supposed to protect children from the well-documented decline in living standards that typically occurs when a family breaks up. The authors argue that the problem, however, is that the system does not distinguish between fathers who won’t pay and those who can’t. Mincy, Jethwani, and Klempin make a strong case that the majority of non-resident, economically vulnerable fathers are in the latter category due to their inability to secure regular, adequately paid work. When states impose punitive sanctions in response, it can exacerbate the problem by making it harder for fathers to find work (by suspending a driver’s license, for example) and pushing fathers into the underground economy. Current policies also make it difficult for employed fathers in low-wage jobs to pursue further education that could help them better their labor market prospects. In addition, for some men financial difficulties may exacerbate other barriers to positive relationships and frequent contact with their children, such as mothers’ gatekeeping and their own substance abuse.
Although it is possible for fathers to modify their child support orders as circumstances change, the process is often difficult and slow, or fathers are unaware of it. Showing how the child support system itself can become another barrier toward fathers’ greater economic self-sufficiency and therefore their ability to financially support their children is one of the strengths of the book, complemented by the authors’ findings about how fathers make sense of the child support system and how it impacts their relationships with their children. The book concludes with a surprisingly hopeful chapter that overviews evidence-based changes to current policies that would help alleviate some of the difficulties these fathers face.
Overall, the book provides an extremely thorough and comprehensive overview of the circumstances of economically vulnerable non-resident fathers and the impact of current policies on their lives and their relationships with their children. The mingling of the authors’ qualitative findings with their discussion and synthesis of other research is effective, although I found the placement of the fathers’ profiles confusing. One of the authors’ stated goals for the book is for readers to recognize that nonresident, economically vulnerable fathers are a group much larger and more widely dispersed than the poor, inner-city, mostly non-white fathers featured in other studies on non-residentfathers. This is an important point, but I also think this focus understates the extent to which the experience of economically vulnerable non-resident fatherhood is part of the growing gap in family experiences between better and more poorly educated Americans.
In their final chapter, the authors describe the child support enforcement system as an out of control train rushing down the tracks, with the engineer passed out on the floor. If this sounds like an overstatement, consider the recent case of Walter Scott in Charleston, South Carolina, who was shot and killed by police during a routine traffic stop. According to the New York Times (Robles and Dewan 2015), Scott had previously gone to jail for unpaid child support and, consequently, lost his job. Two years ago, another warrant for his arrest was issued for additional child support debt. His brother reports that he likely ran from police during the stop because he feared additional jail time and losing another job. While Scott’s story ended in great tragedy, it could have come right from the pages of Mincy, Jethwani, and Klempin’s book. Failing Our Fathers clearly conveys the importance and urgency of taking action on this issue, along with some potential solutions, if only we can find the will to act.