wfn.org | Fathers make important difference in children's lives

["NewsDesk" <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

June 4, 2003  News media contact: Kathy Gilbert7(615)742-54707Nashville,
Tenn.	10-71BP{312}

NOTE: Photographs are available with this report.

A UMNS Feature
By Kathy L. Gilbert*

Children living without fathers are more likely to be suspended from school,
drop out, be treated for an emotional or behavioral problem, commit suicide
as adolescents and experience child abuse or neglect, according to the
National Fatherhood Initiative.

In 1960, less than 8 million children were living in families in which the
father was absent. Today the number of children living in fatherless homes
exceeds 24 million, which translates into one out of three U.S. children. 

Millie Carter, coordinator for the South Carolina Annual (regional)
Conference's Fostering Families program, believes deeply that every child
should grow up with a loving father.

"I had a super dad when I grew up," Carter says. "He wasn't a perfect man,
but as far as being a daddy, he was the best daddy in the world for me. I
can't imagine a child not having that."

Carter has been working with the South Carolina Department of Social Services
and the annual conference to make the Fatherhood Initiative possible.

The initiative meets every other week at St. Matthew United Methodist Church
in Camden, S.C. Among other topics, men talk about communication, anger
management and expressing their feelings to their partners and their
children.

Carter recalls hearing one father say after a meeting that he learned how to
tell his son he loved him. "It never occurred to him before because his
father never said that to him," she says.

The Rev. James P. Smith, founder and director of Fatherhood Initiative, says
supporting and equipping dads is a rewarding challenge.

Smith says an equipped father is one who has committed to learn the skills
necessary to be a positive role model to his child or children. The
conference is working to expand the program to Lee County, one of the poorest
counties in the conference. For more information, contact Carter at South
Carolina Conference, the United Methodist Church, 4908 Colonial Drive,
Columbia, S.C. 29203-6070; phone: (803) 786-9486. Or visit
www.umcsc.org/outreach/fosterfam/fosterfam.htm online.

Carter uses Malachi 4:6 (RSV) as her inspiration. The verse says a prophet
will come, "And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the
hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the land with a
curse."
# # #
*Gilbert is a United Methodist News Service news writer. Her story originally
appeared in the May-June issue of Interpreter magazine, published by United
Methodist Communications.

 
 

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United Methodist News Service
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