Absent Fathers and Child Development

Paper Summary:

Mother, father, and child define the ideal family structure. However, circumstance seems to overrule idealism in an imperfect world. What we have remaining is family structures that are forced to adapt to situations such as death, divorce, and incarceration. These alternative family structures affect the development of children involved. The most common alternative structure is that in which the father is absent. This paper views the effects of paternal absence in children's lives, in cognitive and emotional development, and in continuing adult life.

From the Paper:

"Family structure, ideally with biological mother and father, is of great importance in a child's development, especially during the child's first two years of life called a sensitive period by Burton (1972). Alternative family structures occur most often because of paternal absence, although maternal absence does exist. Divorce or separation, death, addictions, incarceration, and career demands frequently cause a child to grow without the presence of a father. A father may also leave as he feels the son a rival for his wife's attention (Jacobsohn, 1976). Regardless of circumstance, roughly two million children a year are withheld an ongoing biological and social relationship with their father. It has been consistently shown that higher cognitive skills, greater emotional stability and maturity, greater academic achievements and more security in their gender role comes to those children with the biological father in residence as opposed to those raised with no father (see Adams, Milner, & Schrepf, 1984; Bereczkei & Csanaky, 1996; Biller & Solomon, 1986; Hanson, McLanahan, & Thomson, 1996; Stevenson & Black, 1988)."

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