Despite being among Hollywood’s top box office draws, one of the most memorable scenes in Will Smith’s acting career was from his time on the hit television sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
In the episode “Papa’s Got a Brand New Excuse,” Will’s biological father, Lou, comes to see him 14 years after walking out of his life. Phillip Banks, Will’s uncle and legal guardian, is skeptical of Lou’s sudden reappearance. Uncle Phil reluctantly comes to support Lou’s efforts to reconcile with Will, but that goodwill is quickly exhausted after Lou postpones the cross-country trip he’d planned with his son.
The scene ends with Will Smith giving an iconic monologue about all the things he learned to do in the past—and would accomplish in the future—without his father, punctuated by the actor’s unforgettable cry, “How come he don’t want me, man?”
That episode is over 30 years old, yet all these years later it still evokes powerful emotions from viewers, some of whom saw their own life story reflected on the screen. But underneath the masterclass in acting was a deeper message.
It is clear that Will missed his father and was hurt by his absence. What is easier to miss, however, is that the void created by Lou’s abandonment was too large for even Uncle Phil’s massive frame — and wealth — to fill.
Will’s dad was a truck driver. Uncle Phil was a successful lawyer who eventually became a judge. The former left his son with little but disappointments and broken promises. The latter gave Will a lifestyle his father could never have afforded.
Yet, for all Phillip and his wife Vivian offered Will — the mansion, elite private school, nice clothes — nothing could satisfy the teen’s longing for a father.
The reason why is simple: children desire a father’s presence more than his presents.
Children who grow up with a father in the home earn better grades, are more likely to attend college, and are less likely to live in poverty or go to prison. Conversely, father absence is associated with higher rates of poverty, teen pregnancy, juvenile delinquency, and substance abuse. Fathers also help answer deeper questions of purpose and belonging that every child has at some point, such as “who am I?” and “whose am I?”
Unfortunately, 15 million American children live without a father in the home. That figure, which is slightly more than 20% of all children under 18, is the highest rate in the world.
The family statistics for black children are even more sobering. Nearly 70% of black children are born to unmarried parents, and 44% grow up in a single-mother household. For all the attention progressives normally give to racial disparities in social outcomes, they are noticeably silent when it comes to such vast differences in family formation.
My new book, The Vanishing Black Family, challenges African American leaders to marshal their political, cultural, and financial capital to launch a new movement to increase the number of children growing up in loving homes with married parents.
The book begins with a scene from a 1986 CBS documentary on the collapse of the married, two-parent family structure in Newark, New Jersey. The host, Bill Moyers, asks a group of young black mothers whether any of them were married. No one raised a hand. Later, one mom expresses a view that — decades later — has been accepted in far too many neighborhoods, “Male figures are not substantially important in the family.” This way of thinking has quietly become an accepted norm that not only drives family formation patterns but also policy decisions.
In January 2022, Washington, D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser announced the launch of Strong Families, Strong Futures, a $1.5 million pilot program that provided financial assistance to new and expecting low-income mothers. According to Mayor Bowser, “This program is about supporting new and expectant moms with cash so that they can have the autonomy and flexibility to make the best choices for them and their baby.” There was not a single reference to fathers in her announcement.
Given the geographic and demographic focus of the program, it was no surprise that the moms in the pilot were black. Similar programs for moms and babies exist in Atlanta and Philadelphia. They all rest on the flawed idea that when it comes to low-income black families, it takes two for nature but only one for nurture.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Children of every race and socioeconomic background need both parents, and they are most likely to have daily access to them when their parents are married.
Any attempt to ensure more children have the type of paternal connection that improves their chances of thriving in life will require an all-hands-on-deck effort from black pastors, elected officials, HBCU presidents, business leaders, civil rights organizations, entertainers, political pundits, and media outlets.
This movement will need to include everything from “marriage bootcamps” for cohabiting couples with children to “success sequence” awareness campaigns that give teens the three-step plan for escaping poverty: finish high school, get a job, and get married before having children. These may seem like small steps, but they all support the goal of restoring a culture of marriage in communities where one has not existed for decades.
Father’s Day is a perfect time to acknowledge the dads who give their kids the home life they need to thrive. It also provides a good opportunity to push current — and future — fathers to think about how their relationship decisions will impact their children.
Marriage and fatherhood go hand in hand. It is hard for a man who lives apart from his child and feels little commitment to the child’s mother to be as present and involved a dad as his child needs him to be.
Dads matter, and the safety and security children feel from their love and consistent presence is worth more than anything money can buy.
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Delano Squires is the director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Human Flourishing at The Heritage Foundation and author of The Vanishing Black Family: How Welfare and Feminism Made Marriage Optional and Children Vulnerable (out June 16, 2026 from Penguin Random House/Sentinel).
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