One of the questions was a bit of a tangent. Someone asked Mark that with the crazy web of issues -- poverty, education, drugs, violence, etc. -- what did his think the most significant issue for us to address?
The answer surprised me. Actually, the fact that mark had a single issue he thought was most rudimentary surprised me more than the fact that that issue was fatherlessness.
I mentioned before in statistics of our neighborhood that 73% of houses with children here do not have a father living in the home.
Today I came across these general statistics about fatherlessness in Donald Miller's book To Own a Dragon (I haven't read it, just looked inside the back cover):
- 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes -- 5 times the average.
- 85% of all children who show behavior disorders come from fatherless homes -- 20 times the average.
- 80% of rapists with anger problems come from fatherless homes -- 14 times the average.
- 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes -- 9 times the average.
- 75% of all adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes -- 10 times the average.
- 70% of youths in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes -- 9 times the average.
- 85% of all youths in prison come from fatherless homes -- 20 times the average.
Lord Jesus, have mercy.
4 comments:
I can gratefully say for a fact, He does have mercy
Can you please explain the statistics to me?
I'm trying to grasp how far this reaches, but I can't get past the math. What is the average that each refers to? I'm confused.
@Joshua:
I'll use the first stat to demonstrate. 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes. The comparison to the average is just another way to state the percentage, I believe. If you pick at random a youth who has committed suicide, he/she is five times more likely to come from a fatherless home than not? Does that math work out?
@inos:
not sure that math works. Picking a youth at random who has committed suicide and having that youth being five times more likely to be from a fatherless home would be 83.33% which is 5 times the remaining 16.66% of youth suicides which are from homes with fathers.
63% is apparently 5 times some other average statistic, which in this case is numerically 12.6%. I think this means that if youth suicides were distributed evenly across different types of homes, then 12.6% should be from fatherless homes, but instead 63% are, 5 times more than should be.
This method doesn't really work for the next statistic though, because if you were distributing it evenly, then 12.6% should be the average for each one of these and then 85% would only be 6.7 times the average, not 20.
I'm lost too.
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