How do we fix this?

There are other variables that could be looked at. For example, earnings disparity where a parent either earns far less money (resulting in financial insecurity) or is forced to work far more hours to compensate (kids have less time with at least one parent). Or we could look at the reasons for single-parenthood such as divorce, being widowed, abandonment, custodial issues concerning abuse, incarceration, etc.

Does paternal influence matter for the well-being of children? It may not matter much more than maternal influence. Children raised by same-gender couples tend to have the same well-being outcomes as those raised by opposite-gender parents.

As for mass shooters, that’s a pretty exceptional class of people. Yes, it’s remarkable how many there are, but I’ve read in excess of 80% of single-parent homes in the US are single-mother producing a figure somewhere around 9-10 million homes. Even if all 27 of those recent mass shooters were from single-mother homes, that would account for 0.0003% of single-mother homes or less. We’d probably want a more complete picture before jumping to any conclusions.

Let’s ban abortion! That’ll fix it!

Not what I said at all.

a) bullshit

b) my response, albeit vague, makes it pretty clear I am not talking about maintaining the status quo. 

Unseen wrote:

But the fact remains that boys from single-father homes are quite a bit less likely to end up as career criminals, drug addicts, or mass murderers than boys from single-mother homes.

Can you point us to the best study that you know of to support this claim? It might also help me assess possible “fixes”. E.g., what percentage of fatherless homes are fatherless because the father was violent and present when the boy was younger? How many fatherless homes became fatherless because the mother chose to live without the father’s violence? Or perhaps there are other negative male influences that the mother brings home?

It makes some sense of course that some boys in some fatherless homes would be more likely to act out, not having a positive male role model at home to identify themselves with. The fact that males are more violent by nature is a bigger question in my mind that begs a solution. Just finding/selecting the best male role models to begin with could be the biggest cultural challenge? Maybe AI could be made to help fill positive gender roles?

Unseen wrote:

However, this study seems to discount income differentials.

That’s also been my take for years, as young school shooters have been mostly white and middle class, with one or two parents often clueless that there’s a problem lurking. My impression, sans sociological studies. But if fatherless families correlate with higher risk kids, there could also be a link to black/latino/other minority violence, e.g. gang violence which I’ll bet causes even more deaths than school shootings, but doesn’t get the headlines.

So I ran a search: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo=2015&q=fatherless+family+school+gang+shootings&btnG=

Not having time to look deeper into this, one study kept popping up at the top of the page in other searches too. We peons don’t have free access to the study, but here’s a quote from the Abstract:

This chapter examines the role of the family so thoroughly because of an interesting relationship that appears to exist between mass shootings and each shooter’s family situation. That is, if one examines CNN’s list the 27 deadliest shootings in modern American history, from 1949 to present, 26 were committed by a male from a fatherless- or dysfunctional- home.

I dunno their definition of “dysfunctional”. And it’s important to note that this search is “selective”, i.e. the search terms are biased toward finding studies with the word “fatherless” in them, so other causes may not be getting addressed here. (But I’d definitely start with that first study if I could, and your citing.)