Clinton's call represents one more thrust in a movement with growing national momentum: the push for fatherhood. The Million Man March, the National Fatherhood Initiative, books, conferences, think tanks, and football stadiums full of Promise Keepers all aim to improve men's participation in their children's lives.

"There certainly has been an increased recognition that we are faced with a crisis of fatherlessness in the U.S.," says David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values in New York City and author of Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem. Blankenhorn also co-founded the National Fatherhood Initiative, an advocacy group based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. "At the broadest level, we're trying to change our culture," says group director Wade Horn.

The group's best estimate is that nearly 40 percent of American children currently don't live with their biological fathers. The consequences of these absences can be severe. Seventy percent of juveniles in state reform institutions grew up with one or neither parent. Forty-three percent of adult inmates grew up in single-parent homes, mostly without dads. Thirty percent of children living with never-married mothers and 22 percent with divorced mothers repeat a grade, compared with 12 percent of those living with both biological parents.

The National Fatherhood Initiative aims to tackle the issue through several channels in addition to the public service messages it already produces. Using religious and civic groups already in place, the initiative hopes to instill them with its message of paternal participation. The group also thinks laws should be changed to slow the rate of divorce, welfare reform should encourage fathers' participation, and schools should adopt father-specific curricula in family-life courses. Companies need to become "father-friendly," giving fathers time off through paternity leave, flex-time, and telecommuting options.

The problem of absent fathers will not turn around overnight. "There's a tendency for expectations to be too simplistic," says Michael Lamb, head of social and emotional development at the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development in Bethesda, Maryland. Even so, Lamb views efforts toward more engaged fathers as "positive developments."

Blankenhorn acknowledges that change will come slowly, but notes the swift rate at which the debate has shifted. A seminal point arrived in May 1992, when then-Vice President Dan Quayle made his famous "Murphy Brown" speech, criticizing the television character for her decision to have a child out of wedlock. The speech drew ire from people who saw it as an attack on the valiant efforts of single mothers rather than as a criticism of uninvolved fathers. Yet a mere three years later, advocates for single mothers are saying that fathers should help care for their children. "Consciousness-raising has been achieved," says Blankenhorn.

Few suggest that parental styles return to the "good old days." "It's a mistake to say we need to go back to some earlier version of fatherhood," says Wade Horn. "Thirty years ago, fathers were around, but the roles they played were restricted and contributed to the trend toward absent fathers."

The phenomenon has its positive flip side. Horn sees fatherlessness as a broader trend, but he also notes a "minor trend toward more responsible fatherhood." These are the men who go through Lamaze classes, read books to their kids, and even stay home while Mom takes on the role of breadwinner.

Although many absent fathers will never become superdads, there are lots of things businesses, governments, and communities can do to help men become more active parents, says David Popenoe, sociology professor at Rutgers University and author of the forthcoming Life without Father. Although he dislikes Sweden's welfare model, he praises its policy that permits new fathers to take up to 15-month job leaves. "Most workplaces [in the U.S.] don't have a clue kids are there who have to be taken care of," he says.

The negative signals men pick up from employers, ex-wives, teachers, and others may help fuel their lax parenting. But in New Expectations: Community Strategies for Responsible Fatherhood, James Levine and Edward Pitt of The Fatherhood Project at New York City's Families and Work Institute cite examples of programs that have substantially increased fathers' involvement. The best strategy, they say, is simply to assume that fathers will be involved with their children.

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