They retreat to the dismal ghetto of the childless fathers. Millions of fathers find themselves reduced to visitors as the result of divorce. Government agencies now routinely define a family as a mother with children. Few courageous voices outside the fathers movement suggest that something other than money is missing. As a despised group, divorced and never-married fathers are easy targets of false stereotypes.
Popular publications allege that men are walking out on marriages in record numbers.
The public hears that men don't even bother to visit their children. Furthermore, many fathers still accept the advice, widely promulgated in the early seventies, that the best way for a father to show paternal love in a broken family is to leave the mother and children alone. Few men are super- human enough to feel dead as parents and still send money from beyond the grave. Because women are the favored group our Census Bureau takes their word to learn the child support payment records of the fathers. Senator Daniel Moynihan is an intelligent and honorable man who is sadly and dangerously misguided on the problem of unpaid child support.