Column: "Irresponsible and selfish" men who "abandon" their children

Here's a column that makes me want to pull my hair out. The writer, Vincent Carroll, completely blames the breakdown of the family and the rise in the number of out-of-wedlock births on fathers. Fathers are simply "abandoning" their families because they're "selfish and irresponsible." Of course, the newspaper picked Father's Day to publish the article. Excerpt:

'Sooner or later, we always seem to give a pass to destructive behavior, so long as the victims are children and they aren't actually abused. If millions of men neglect or abandon their kids, it can't be because they're irresponsible or self-centered, or because they've embraced a large and growing sub-culture that no longer puts the welfare of children first.

No, it must be the economy that made them do it.

"When a father can't provide monetarily for his offspring, he often becomes estranged," Beth Latshaw, an assistant sociology professor at Appalachian State University, told The Associated Press in a recent article on "the changing role of parents as U.S. marriage rates and traditional family households fall to historic lows."

Welcome to Father's Day 2011, when "nearly half of American dads under 45 . . . say they have at least one child who was born out of wedlock."'