Where are the fathers on Father’s Day?

Father’s Day is this weekend,  and unlike Mother’s Day, it doesn’t get much attention.

The merchandisers will try to sell you ties, power tools and barbeque grills, but it doesn’t compare in any sense of the word with Mother’s Day.

There’s something special about a mother, particularly when she’s holding a new baby.   As a child grows up, he or she becomes attached to the mother, but that is not always the case with the father.

There’s an estimated 70 million fathers in the United States, but something like 55 percent of all children born in this country are not born to married couples.   A large proportion of those births are to mothers who have no father of their baby in sight.

And, while a large number of those missing fathers are born to women of color, white fathers also abandon their children at an enormous rate as well.   That has been going on now for more than 30 years, bringing up the idea advanced by many feminists that a father is not needed for the raising of a child.

As a father, step-father and grandfather, I feel loved and appreciated by my children and grandchildren all year long.   I don’t need additional appreciation on Father’s Day – – although I do enjoy it.

But, I feel sorry for those children with no fathers and I feel sorry for all of those fathers who have conceived a child and then walked away.

There has to be a special kind of guilt for such men.