Roy Blunt: “There is no question that in our society in the last generation, too often fathers have been absent without leave. Too…”

“There is no question that in our society in the last generation, too often fathers have been absent without leave. Too often fathers have not been where they were supposed to be, have not been doing what they were supposed to be doing, and rightly and appropriately, because of that, so much of our effort has been to figure out what we could do to help mothers. Well, one thing we can do to help mothers is to try to help create an environment where fathers really function as fathers, where fathers do more than father a child, they actually play the role of fathers in this society. This bill is a significant step in that direction. This bill is a significant effort to try to make that happen. Education, job training, parenthood training are all skills that fathers need. We are changing lots of communities in America, beginning with welfare reform; and people in those many communities begin to see for the first time a community driven by work, not welfare. They also need an opportunity to see a community driven by two-parent families, not single moms struggling to get by.”