Bill Cosby speaks to legislature’s Task Force on Fatherlessness

“I believe the reason I’m here is to get these fine servants of the public to feel and understand the pain that goes with the sadness when one is abandoned.”

In 2006, more than a fifth of Connecticut households with children under 18 were headed by a single mother.

Yale Child Psychologist Kyle Pruitt says the state has already laid some groundwork to improve those statistics. There are child support debt forgiveness programs and parenting education for prison inmates. What’s needed now, Pruitt says, is a cultural shift within state agencies to change the focus from children’s mothers to a sustained concentration on both parents’ involvement.