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Fathers Day — celebrated this Sunday — is rapidly becoming the most meaningless holiday of the year. Or, for too many kids, the saddest.

U.S. government statistics tell us that over a third of all American children are not living in two-parent homes: forty per cent of children are born out of wedlock and between 33-50 per cent of children of divorce lose complete contact with one parent within three years. Usually it’s the father.

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Not every separated father wants to stay connected. But for those who do, the relationship’s failure to thrive is often directly linked to draconian time constraints imposed on the father’s “access” (dreadful word for one’s own children) by mother-biased family courts. One researcher in the field estimates that “U.S. family courts create a fatherless child every single minute of every single day.”

Fatherlessness is a greater predictor than poverty for negative outcomes in children. It is the common denominator for adolescent murderers (72 per cent), imprisoned rapists (60 per cent), and juveniles sentenced to state institutions (70 per cent). Other amply researched negative outcomes strongly linked with fatherlessness are poor scholastic achievement, low self-esteem and gang association.