President Obama marked Father's Day 2008 and 2007 by calling attention to the importance of fathers and the damage caused by their absence. He also placed the blame for fatherlessness squarely on men, saying father absence is caused by fathers who have "abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men."

Obama is correct that involved fathers--even divorced or separated ones with little income--provide their children with substantial benefits. A recent Boston College study of low-income minority families found that when nonresident fathers are involved in their adolescent children's lives, the incidence of substance abuse, violence, crime, and truancy decreases markedly. Lead author professor Rebekah Levine Coley, says the study found involved nonresident fathers to be "an important protective factor for adolescents."

Dr. Perry Crouch, a gang intervention specialist in South-Central Los Angeles, negotiates peace treaties between warring gangs. When asked recently how many of the gang members he deals with have fathers in their lives, he replied "About half of one percent."

Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox has examined hundreds of pre-sentencing reports detailing the family histories of convicted criminals, and found one common denominator--"Uniformly, there was a parent, usually the father, missing from the home."

Approximately 750,000 teenagers become pregnant each year, and 3 in 10 teenage girls become pregnant at least once before age 20. MSNBC health and science writer Linda Carroll, describing a new Coley/Boston College study on teen pregnancy, explains:

"When it comes to preventing risky teen sex, there may be no better deterrent than a doting dad. Teenagers whose fathers are more involved in their lives are less likely to engage in risky sexual activities such as unprotected intercourse, according to a new study...While an involved mother can also help stave off a teen's sexual activity, dads have twice the influence."

Fathers and educational performance are also strongly linked. In Growing Up With a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps, sociologists Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur analyzed data from five different studies. They concluded that boys and girls of single parent families are more than twice as likely to drop out of high school as their peers with two parents. They're also less likely to go to college if they do finish high school, and more likely to be both out of school and out of work.

Obama is correct that kids need their fathers. However, he makes a serious and harmful error in placing all blame for family breakdown on men. Family courts, child welfare agencies and mothers themselves often erect barriers to father involvement that even the most devoted fathers sometimes can't overcome.

For example, Professors Kathryn Edin of Harvard and Timothy Nelson of the University of Pennsylvania recently conducted a study of low-income, unmarried fathers and found that most strive to be good parents, and are often thwarted by the children's mothers' interference.