The Role Of Father Absence On Children 's Lives

In contrast to the life-course adversity and personality trait models, evolutionary models suggest that early onset of father absence places daughters at special risk for early sexual activity and adolescent pregnancy. Specifically, evolutionary psychologists have hypothesized that the developmental pathways underlying variation in daughters’ reproductive strategies are “especially sensitive to the father’s role in the family and the mothers’ sexual attitudes and behavior in early childhood” (Draper & Harpending). Consistent others work on the other effects of early father absence on personality development in teenage daughters. Including the evolutionary model suggests that teenage girls detect and internally remember the information about

The number of children who are forced to grow up without a father increases readily as the years pass. In fact, “Father absence is over twice as common as it was a generation ago, with no relief on the horizon” (Davidson). In order to understand the probable outcomes of fatherless children, one must first understand the meaning of father absence. According to article titled “Father absence and gendered traits in sons and daughters,” father absence can be described as “non-residence of a child’s biological father for some or all of their childhood.” Due to the fact that men leave their children, psychological complications evolve. Absence produces negative aspects of a child's life. The toll taken by a child of father absence remains throughout life. An unstable father figure results in psychological troubles such as: lower IQs, higher rates of mental illness, acts of violence, and little self-control (Davidson). Furthermore, fatherless children struggle with the likelihood of teen pregnancy and divorce, high dropout rates, rate of sexual maturation, and more. In most cases, girls become victims of the stated troubles of father absence, but regardless of gender, all children desire unconditional love from a father figure.

“Breaking the cycle of [absent] fathers” is about a man named Sheldon Smith from Chicago that started a program for fathers, and it gives them the skills to be “positive role models and responsible parents.” This article was from CNN News and was published on April 27, 2016.

The authors write that “recent research shows that social-emotional skills play an important role in adult outcomes” such as educational attainment, family formation, and labor market success, so the effect of father absence on mental health and social skills has implications even beyond children's personal happiness. The loss of physical contact with the father may reduce within-home intellectual contact between father and child. The father may have unique knowledge not otherwise available within their home. The stress associated with a father's leaving the home may inhibit a child's intellectual

The degree to which fathers are or are not involved in the lives of their children, as well as the quality of that involvement, is a significant factor in predicting many things about a child’s future life. A review of the literature will show cognitive, emotional, social, and physical advantages to children who are reared with engaged fathers; whether or not those fathers live in the home with their children. There is also significant research that correlates negative behaviors and developmental outcomes in children with father absence.

Working in education, specifically in the disciplinary area, I have had many meetings with single mothers about behavior issues related to their child. This does not mean that meetings with single fathers never occur, but not as frequently as with single mothers. Now of course there have been several published works that have identified negative behavioral characteristics to be associated with being raised with an absentee father. Those effects include engaging in drug abuse, experiencing educational, emotional, and behavioral problems, becoming victims of child abuse, and engaging in criminal behavior. This data implies that these unfortunate social problems are associated with the absence of a father from a child’s life. However, “differences in children’s well-being remain contentious because research on parenting has developed contrasting theoretical accounts of the effects that fathers may have on children’s development (Debell, 2008 p. 428). As a result, I began to wonder about the children who are in fact being raised by their father and if the same risk factors related to behavior exist.

Throughout generations, you expect kids to grow up to have everything they want but not everything they need. For instance, kids of all ages who have both their parents, tend to focus on the things they want, like cars, toys, phones, and other electronics that seem more valuable. Meanwhile, other kids with single mothers try to forget the one thing that is missing in their lives, which is growing up by their father’s side. What is the meaning of a father’s absence you may ask? According to researchers, the term indicates that a child has lived for part or all their childhood in the house without their biological father. Many teenage girls or women in their early 20s fall in love with a guy they date who

Growing up without a father or strong male role model in the United States is extremely difficult. Fatherless children are disadvantaged in American society and face a greater struggle to become successful in their personal, educational, and professional lives. The decline of fatherhood in one of the most unexpected and extraordinary trends of our time. Its dimensions can be captured in a single statistic: In just three decades, between 1960 and 1990, the percentage of children living apart from their

Despite the fact that current research cannot prove the cause, there are three “converging lines of evidence” that a father’s absence does place a daughter at special risk for early sexual activity and teen pregnancy (Ellis et al., n.d.). In both of the U.S and New Zealand samples, there was a “dose-response relationship between timing of onset of father absence and early sexual outcomes”. The results showed that at an early age without a father, girls had the highest rates of both early sexual activity and teen pregnancy, along with late absentee father girls, and lastly those with a present father in their life. The predicting rates of teen pregnancy were seven to eight times higher among those whose father left them at an early age, however

The importance of the presence of a father in a child’s life, especially in their first few months, has thusly been proven to have monumental impacts on the child later in life. By sparking a pattern of having a father be around his newborn and becoming accustomed to helping his wife is said to lead to the child believing in less of the single-story, stigmatized gender roles of women being the “homemaker” and men being the worker. Interestingly, many individuals, especially males, do not seem to be perturbed by this incongruity and likely are plagued with a sense of false consciousness, in that they do not believe that with this current legislation that they are oppressed, but in actuality, preventing a father from being present during the early months of his child’s life is

In divorce many courts will award custody to mothers, with 44% of trial or evaluation cases going to the mother. Paternal custody is less common with 11% of cases that went to to trial or evaluation going to the father, 40% of these cases end in joint custody (How is Custody Decided? Divorce Peers). When the custody is given to the mother, the children may not see their fathers as much, and it has been proven that “ a father’s frequent and positive involvement with his child from infancy on, is directly related to the child’s well-being and physical, cognitive, and social development (Papalia; Olds; Feldman 2008). Living with single mothers is also linked with poverty, “ children living with single mothers are nearly 5 times more likely to be poor than children living with married couples- 42 percent compared with 9 percent (Papalia; Olds; Feldman 2008). Although if children are close to nonresident fathers and fathers are authoritative parents they are more likely to do better in school and less likely to behave badly (Papalia; Olds; Feldman 2008). The cooperative parenting strategy or the consultation of mother and nonresident father led to more contact between father and child and in turn better father child relationships (Papalia; Olds; Feldman

Dailey,( 2009). Studied challenges and conformation from mother and father and their effect on adolescents. Personality of an adolescent is significantly affected by confirmation from father. And self esteem is significantly affected by challenges from mother. Though there is a father confirmation affect on self esteem but it is at earlier stages of adolescence. Greater significance is observed mother challenges at later stages of adolescence. Father influence on adolescent is more at earlier stage of adolescence. As the age increase importance of mother challenges increase . This suggestion made as to why the father‘s confirmation is more influential during the earlier stage of adolescence is the idea that fathers are

According to the Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support, a report released by U.S. Census Bureau, claimed that out of 12.2 million single parent families in 2012, more than 80% were single mother parents. For a long time, there are many children that have grown up in a single-parent home. Kids who are raised by one parent seems almost impossible to them but have become more common in today’s society. Regardless of the situation, children who grow up in a household with one biological parent instead of two biological parents are often more susceptible to risks that can be harmful and hard on the child when having to acknowledge them. Single parents are detrimental to a child’s life, because they are at a higher risks of

They also wanted to see how the children reacted to their fathers parenting them, instead of their mother. The study found that non-residential fathers were less controlling and less supportive than fathers that have joint custody with the mother and married fathers. “We conclude that, even after a divorce, fathers have the capacity to enhance children’s self-esteem and we suggest that future research should investigate this capacity,” (Bastaits, Ponnet, Mortelmans 1).

Understanding the correlation between growing up without parents and the emotional developmental delays that can occur because of it. Research suggests that male adolescents experience different peer adjustment and masculine self-image when compared to their father-present counterparts (Beaty). “This is not to suggest that, maternal absence from the family does not exist (and can presumably exert a profound influence on children’s development), paternal absence is a much more frequent occurrence.” (Beaty). Although, the mother-child relationship, typically affects the development of the younger child considerably, more so than the father-child relationship, subsequent studies found, that once the child reaches puberty, the father-child relationship plays a significant role in their ability to adjust properly into adulthood (Utting). Granted, the novel and its storyline are a work of fiction, yet the real-world effects of growing up without a father are not, and indeed can be detrimental to a child’s emotional well-being.