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This Father’s Day, I’m reminded of the many sacrifices my dad made to give me the chance at a life better than his. I’m also reminded of the smaller moments he and I shared as a father and son.

I’ll never forget when I was a boy and the doctor told me I had to wear leg braces to correct knee problems. I often refused to put them on. But every day when I refused, the phone would ring and – to my great surprise – on the other end would be Don Shula, head coach of the Miami Dolphins. “If you want to play for me one day,” he’d say, “you’d better put on those braces.”

It didn’t occur to me until years later that, unlike Coach Shula, the man on the phone had a Cuban accent and sounded suspiciously like my dad.

Funny as that is, it also touches me. It reminds me that my father was more than merely present in my life, he was active, caring and encouraged me to dream. He truly believed that, with love and support, his children would achieve the things he never could.

Now that I’m a father, I think back on his example and strive to live up to it.

Like most parents in America today, I struggle against the tide of obligations – the competing schedules and collisions of responsibilities – that constantly pushes me away from family life. Yet no matter how late at night or early in the morning my flights between Florida and Washington have to be, I make it a priority to be a regular and present force in my kids’ lives.

I do this not only because I enjoy the time I spend with them, but because every indicator available today shows that the presence of a father is vital to a child’s well-being and future success.

Studies show that an active father increases the likelihood of a child developing lifelong positive emotional habits, connecting constructively with peers, maintaining good physical health, and avoiding drugs, violence, and delinquent behavior. Their likelihood of graduating from college increases by 98 percent.

And the list of positive effects goes on and on, touching nearly every aspect of a child’s life. Yet despite all of this, fatherhood is on the decline in America today. 50 years ago, the percentage of children born to unwed mothers was 7 percent. Today it is 40 percent. One in three children now lives apart from their father.

The result is that millions of heroic single mothers are left to face the struggles of parenthood alone. They would stop at nothing to give their children the opportunities to achieve a better life. But the reality is that these children will face enormous challenges.

To confront this, we must empower these single mothers to improve their circumstances, and we must enable their children to earn an education and overcome the difficulties they face. But just as importantly, we must empower fathers to mend the fissures of modern family life.

First and foremost, we need leaders to acknowledge the impact the breakdown of families has on our children and society.

Second, we need policies that encourage marriage. Our tax code roundly penalizes marriage by hitting married couples with taxes that two otherwise identical singles would be spared from. We need to end this with pro-family tax reforms.

Beyond marriage, we need policies that empower fathers to provide for their children. The reforms that I proposed in January to our federal anti-poverty programs would provide a wage enhancement credit to incentivize work and make these fathers more capable of providing.

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