Nearly 25,000,000 children are growing up in America without fathers - making America the world's leader in fatherless families. In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, over one-third of families have no father living at home - one of the highest rates in the country.

Politicians give lip service to the idea that father absence is the "single biggest social problem in our society," but there seems to be little understanding of the problem. Most fathers do not walk away from their children. They are driven away.

The combined force of well-meaning but misguided laws, judicial traditions, and government policies drive many loving fathers out of their children's lives.

For instance, the former head of the Brooklyn Family Courts said, "You have never seen a bigger pain in the ass than the father who wants to get involved...This type of involved father is pathological."

Given such attitudes, it is not surprising that the courts award physical custody of children to their fathers in only about 9% of cases. Shared physical custody is even more unusual. Instead, fathers receive "visitation." Fathers become "visitors" in the lives of their children. Most fathers come away from family court knowing they are second-class citizens.

The Supreme Court of the United States recently re-affirmed the 75 year-old principle that "the interest of parents in the care, custody, and control of their children...is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by this court." Yet, family courts routinely curtail the parenting rights of loving and fit fathers, stripping them of all but a few days per month with their children.

Children are the innocent victims of the outdated laws and judicial attitudes that make them strangers to their fathers. Research studies show that they pine for their lost fathers, and that children without fathers actively involved in their lives have much higher rates of depression, suicide, violence, gang involvement, criminal behavior, educational failure, drug and alcohol abuse and teenage pregnancy.

We must do better for America's children. We must create a society in which there is a father for every child.