Now that the Mother’s Day-Father’s Day season is over, I’m wondering if you agree with my observation that, overall, there’s a much bigger deal made of Mother’s Day than Father’s Day. Do we just appreciate mothers more? Or do we think dads don’t need the recognition?  They do. They really do.

We ought to thank our fathers, and all fathers and mothers raising children together all over America. It’s bad for the culture that having a father in the home is getting rarer, much rarer. A recent report, gleaned in part from U.S. Census data, describes “dramatic changes in childbearing” backed up by the shocking statistic that 48 percent of first births are by unwed mothers. And when researchers took the focus to lower-middle class households, they found that 58 percent of first births are to women who are not married.

Kay Hymowitz of the Manhattan Institute is one of the authors of the report, which highlights a disturbing trend it calls “The Great Crossover.”  She says that, increasingly, for young people, there is this separation between marriage and children.

The ability to control fertility is certainly one factor in this. Another is, women are better educated — they’re getting more degrees than men.       College-educated women and men marry one another at high rates, mostly before having kids.

Among low-income Americans it’s much different.    Derek Thompson analyzed this study in The Atlantic. He writes, “Marriage has declined among men whose wages have declined the most.” Low income women, he says, “see declining gains from hitching themselves to the men around them.”

Certainly, the web of available government benefits bolsters that line of thinking.

A whopping 25 percent of mothers are single and the sole providers for their children. Single-mother breadwinners are at a severe disadvantage. And so are their kids.

In his book Correct, Not Politically Correct, Dr. Frank Turek writes that, “Children from fatherless homes are:

Seven times more likely to live in poverty

Six times more likely to commit suicide

More than twice as likely to commit crime

More than twice as likely to become pregnant out of wedlock

Worse off academically and socially

Worse off physically and emotionally when they reach adulthood.”

Conversely, children raised in two-parent households are more likely to go to college, to be employed, and to earn a high wage.

The ‘Crossover’ report states, “Culturally, young adults increasingly have come to see marriage as a ‘capstone’ rather than a ‘cornerstone.’ — that is something they do after they have all their ducks in a row, rather than a foundation for launching into adulthood and parenthood.”  Many are drifting into parenthood while they’re waiting until the couple can afford the ring and the wedding. Sometimes it never happens.

In terms of public policy, we ignore these findings at our peril. Politicians who state fathers are important should be held accountable to act accordingly.