Back in 1992, near the end of my first term as governor, I visited a Head Start facility in LaPorte. A teacher was showing me around the school when a little girl no more than four or five years old came over, threw her arms around my waist and looked up at me with hopeful eyes.

“Will you be my daddy?” she asked.

I was speechless. Something important was clearly missing in her life—something other children had that she did not—and she knew it. All I could do was hug her and tell her that I would be her friend.

Later, I learned that she was living with her grandparents, because her father had been killed in a motorcycle accident and her mother had been in and out of institutions. We kept in touch, and I took her to the state fair one summer. But even during the time we spent together, I knew I was no substitute for her real father.

Today, as Hoosiers honor and spend time with our fathers, I am reminded that nearly a quarter of the children in our state live in homes where there is no father present. More than 17 million American children will go to bed tonight without a loving dad under their roof.

We cannot be proud of the fact that our nation leads the world in the percentage of fatherless homes. In our nation’s capital, half of our children live in homes without a father present.

There is an irrefutable body of evidence demonstrating that father absence is a major contributor to such troubling societal trends as increased teen pregnancy, teen violence, educational underperformance, and drug and alcohol abuse. Children who grow up without a dad are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime. They are more likely to drop out of school, more likely to commit suicide and more likely to become teenage parents.

Single mothers are heroes, and we should move mountains to honor them and lift them up. However, we also must take steps to help more of our fathers do their part, too.

During my time as governor, we held one of the first statewide gatherings in the country on the issue of fatherhood. More than a thousand people from across Indiana came. Our efforts have now touched the lives of 19,000 Hoosier men, helping them reconnect with their children and be the kind of loving, caring fathers that every boy or girl deserves.

One of my proudest achievements as governor was doubling child-support collections. We used “most wanted” posters to track down deadbeat parents and intercepted their tax refunds, lottery winnings and unemployment benefits. We also increased resources for educational assistance, job placement and substance abuse treatment for fathers who wanted to do right by their kids.

Since my election to the Senate, I have worked to bring national attention to this issue. This Congress, Senator Barack Obama and I introduced the Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act to provide economic and social support to help fathers and families. Our plan would fund programs that promote financial literacy, support domestic violence prevention efforts, remove some of the government penalties on married families, crack down on men avoiding child support payments, and ensure that support payments go to families instead of state bureaucracies.

Senator Obama has vowed to sign this legislation as president and champion other innovative measures to strengthen and support families.

No political victory I have ever achieved matches the joy I feel tucking my sons Nick and Beau in at night. Cameras and campaigns cannot match the daily feeling of accomplishment in helping them fulfill their God-given potential.

My Father’s Day wish is that more of our sons and daughters can know the love of a father and be given every chance to grow into mature, responsible and caring adults.

U.S. Senator Evan Bayh is a former two-term Indiana Governor and the proud father of twin 12-year-old sons, Beau and Nick.