The Erosion of Fatherhood in America: A Call to Restore the Family
- Minister Tiffani Davis
- Dec 8, 2025
- 8 min read
Updated: Dec 10, 2025
Mitch collapsed, but two men stood on each side of him to keep him from falling. Mitch was a young father of four who had just learned the home he was standing in was theirs. For weeks, Mitch had walked 45 minutes to work each day, trying to provide for his family. His soon to be wife, children, and mother in-law spent their days searching for a safe place to be because the emergency shelter where they slept at night closed every morning. In the instant Mitch realized his family finally had a place to call home, the burden he’d been carrying broke open. Relief flooded in. Hope returned. And a father who had fought so hard to be strong finally let himself breathe.
This was the moment Kingdom Family Ministry witnessed when we helped the Gipson family find permanent housing. Mitch’s reaction revealed the crushing weight men feel when they can’t protect and provide for their families, along with the invisible barriers that make their struggle even heavier.
The Gipsons became homeless after a series of unfortunate events that could happen to any family. But when Kingdom Family Ministry began working to help them find emergency shelter, we discovered a disturbing reality: because the Gipson family was headed by a father, resources were severely limited. Montgomery County, Texas has only one emergency shelter, and it has just four family rooms. When we reached out to neighboring Harris County, we found that while more emergency shelters exist there, many restrict admission to women with children or single persons only. Families with fathers need not apply.
In 2024, approximately 259,000 people experienced homelessness as part of families with children, a staggering 39% increase from the previous year (Glassman, 2024). This represents approximately 150,000 children who were homeless on a single night in January 2024 (National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2025). Why aren't communities doing more with such overwhelming numbers of families in crisis, particularly those with fathers present?
Decades of policy decisions and cultural messaging that have systematically devalued fathers and their role in the family reveals the answer. Mitch's collapse wasn't just about relief from immediate crisis; it was the physical manifestation of a father whose society had told him, through policy and practice, that his presence didn’t matter and was too often treated as an obstacle rather than a partner in his children’s lives.
Decades of transformation has drastically changed the role of fathers in American society. A mixture of government policy, cultural narratives, and spiritual warfare have undermined the foundation of family stability. Social programs created devastating unintended consequences, particularly for minority communities, and the media’s narrative about fathers was one that devalued his role.
The Welfare System's Attack on Family Structure
The modern welfare system was established through the Social Security Act of 1935 and expanded in the 1960s with the War on Poverty. It contained provisions that weakened the American family at its core. The Aid to Families with Dependent Children program, known as (AFDC) was designed to provide temporary assistance to families in crisis. However in practice, though, its rules often discouraged marriage and made it harder for fathers to be present in the home.
These policies barred fathers from households receiving benefits. Under the “man-in-the-house” rule, social workers would inspect homes, and if a father or male partner was found living there, the family’s benefits were cut off. The policies ended up encouraging family breakdown, leaving fathers with a choice to either stay and watch their families struggle, or leave so the family could receive government assistance.
Fathers were treated as obstacles rather than providers and protectors. A program that was supposed to offer temporary support turned into a multi-generational trap. This was the beginning of husbands and fathers being replaced with government checks.
The Disproportionate Impact on Minority Communities
These policies impacted minority communities especially hard. African American families were already facing institutional barriers in jobs, housing, and education. They were caught in a system that offered short-term financial help but undermined long-term family stability. In 1960, before welfare programs expanded, about 25% of African American children were born to unmarried mothers (Moynihan Report, 1960). The Brookings research found that by 1990 the rate of births to unmarried mothers had risen to 64 percent for black infants (National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2025).
The relationship between welfare expansion and family breakdown in these communities is not difficult to see. Welfare policies have had devastating real-world consequences. Many children grew up without fathers not because their fathers didn’t want to be there, but because survival often depended on their absence.
This micro-level impact spilled into entire neighborhoods. The strong male presence and leadership that was once common in neighborhoods was eroding. Young boys grew up without male role models which lead to cycles of poverty, incarceration, and continued family breakdown that we still see today.
Media's Normalization of Fatherlessness
Government policy was not alone in dismantling the family structurally, popular media worked to change the view about whether fathers were even necessary. A cultural turning point was seen with the 1988 hit series, Murphy Brown, featuring Candice Bergen. Bergen played the role of a successful television journalist who chose single motherhood. The show presented fatherlessness not as problematic but as a valid lifestyle choice and a form of empowerment.
Vice President Dan Quayle criticized the show in 1992 for "mocking the importance of fathers," and he was widely ridiculed by the media for it. This moment in modern history highlighted that fathers had become expendable in America. While the media had already been giving subtle hints about its expendable view of fathers, Murphy Brown, was a noteworthy beginning. Television shows, films, and eventually social media increasingly portrayed single motherhood as acceptable and admirable, while fathers were often depicted as unnecessary.
The media narrative worked hand in hand with welfare policy to reshape cultural expectations. Government mandates made fatherlessness a practical choice for struggling families, while the media portrayed it as socially acceptable for everyone else.
The Spiritual Dimension: Warfare Against God's Design
What may seem like just a cultural phenomena should be obvious for most people, Christians should understand it for what it really is. The attack on fatherhood and family represents more than policy failure or cultural change, it reflects spiritual warfare against God's created order. Sadly, many Christians have found themselves assimilating to the same worldly mindset that devalues fathers and the traditional family structure.
However, scripture consistently presents the family as the fundamental building block of society and the primary means through which faith is transmitted across generations.
God established the family with specific roles and purposes. In Ephesians 5:22-33, marriage is described as reflecting the relationship between Christ and the Church. Fathers are called to lead their families spiritually, to teach their children the ways of the Lord, and to model God’s sacrificial love. When fathers are removed from the family, children lose not just a parent but a crucial spiritual guide.
The enemy's strategy has always been to destroy or pervert what God has created. If Satan can fracture, weaken, and restructure the family, he disrupts the primary means of discipleship and spiritual formation. Research shows the impact on children when fathers are absent:
Children with absent fathers are twice as likely to suffer from low self-esteem and struggle with identity development (Camner McKay & Cowles, 2025).
Children without fathers are more likely to engage in risky behaviors including substance abuse, impulsive decisions, and early sexual activity (Camner McKay & Cowles, 2025).
Children with absent fathers face significantly greater risk of growing up in poverty (National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2025).
The breakdown of the family creates spiritual vulnerability that affects entire generations (Joshua 24:15 and Deuteronomy 6:6-7).
Malachi 4:6 speaks of turning "the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers”. Failure to do so brings devastation. We are witnessing that devastation in our communities today with broken homes, struggling children, and a society that no longer used Biblical principals as its moral and spiritual compass.
The Biblical Mandate for Strong Families
Scripture shows how communities thrive when they place the family at the center of God's plan. The family is where children are supposed to first learn about God's character, where they discover their identity in Christ, and where they are equipped to fulfill their calling in the world.
Psalm 127:3 declares that children are a heritage from the Lord, a reward. Deuteronomy 6:6-7 commands parents to teach God's commandments diligently to their children with them talking about them throughout the day. In Proverbs we learn the role of both fathers and mothers in raising children in wisdom and righteousness. Deviating from God’s plan is a slippery slope into darkness that erodes not just the family, but society as a whole.
The husband-wife relationship forms the foundation of this family structure. A strong, Christ-centered marriage creates stability, models covenant faithfulness, and provides the secure environment children need to thrive. When that foundation is solid, families can withstand external pressures and raise children who carry faith forward.
Kingdom Family Ministry: Restoring What Was Lost
This is why Kingdom Family Ministry exists. We recognize that the assault on families has been strategic and comprehensive: economic, cultural, and spiritual. Our mission focuses on strengthening marriages as the core of the family.
We believe that rebuilding strong families begins with supporting husbands and wives in their covenant relationship. When marriages are healthy and centered on Christ, they become strongholds against the forces seeking to tear families apart. We offer free marital and premarital counseling using a network of trained counselors to help couples build marriages that honor God and create stable homes for children.
Our mission is not just to prevent divorce, but to restore the joy and love in marriages. Why would children want to grow up and get married when a miserable marriage had been modeled for them most of their lives? Miserable marriages seem to be an epidemic even in the church that has such high rates of divorce and prideful leaders who refuse to get help for their marriage so they hide their pain in front of the congregation but their children remain living witnesses and often silent victims of it. Reform in marriages and fatherhood begins with the church.
We refuse to accept the narrative that fathers are optional or that government programs can replace the family. We stand on the truth that God's design for the family, with a husband and wife committed to each other and to raising children in the faith, is the only way.
Moving Forward: Reclaiming Fatherhood and Family
The devaluing of fathers in America was not accidental. It resulted from specific policy choices, cultural campaigns undergirded by the enemy. The path forward is natural and spiritual.
We need policies that strengthen rather than penalize marriage and fatherhood. Narratives in the media must change that honor role of fathers and recognize they are irreplaceable. Most importantly, we must understand family in biblical truth rather than secular ideologies.
Because things first start in the spirit then manifest in the natural, the fight for families is mostly a spiritual one. The fight starts on our knees with prayer, obedience to God's Word, and intentionally investing in marriages and families within our churches and communities.
The road to restoration is possible. We must reclaim the truth that fathers matter and families matter. While cultural norms change, God doesn’t and His design for fathers and families is perfect and unchanging. When we build on that foundation, we create legacies of faith that will impact generations to come.
To help Kingdom Family Ministry strengthen and support more families, please donate today.
Read more about the Gipson family's experience being homeless and watch the moments Kingdom Family Ministry surprised them with a home HERE.
References:
Camner McKay, S., & Cowles, A. (2025). Who is homeless in the United States? A 2025
update. Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
Glassman, B. (2024, February 27). Nearly 327,000 in U.S. lived in emergency and transitional
shelters. U.S. Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2024/02/living-
Moynihan, D. P. (1965). The Negro family: The case for national action. U.S. Department of
National Low Income Housing Coalition. (2025, January 13). HUD releases 2024 Annual
Homeless Assessment Report. https://nlihc.org/resource/hud-releases-2024-annual-
homeless-assessment-report
The Holy Bible: King James Version. (Original work published 1611).
This really hit home. Thank you so much for your ministry and your passion!! May God bless your work over and over again!!