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Family Law and Policy Speech Transcription:

The Impact of Fatherlessness

Courtney Ashton

July 10, 2019

Brigham Young University – Idaho

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Family Law and Policy Speech Transcription:

The Impact of Fatherlessness

Imagine a family comprising one mother, one daughter, and six sons. The mother starts

her day, walks to work, and along with completing a variety of other mundane and monotonous

tasks, somehow how manages to make it to her bed in the evening only to sleep then wake up the

next day to yet another day which looks as if it were a dark never-ending corridor of poverty,

resentment, anger, and pain. Her six sons all struggle with some form of addiction, whether it be

drugs such as crack cocaine, methamphetamine, and alcohol, or emotional obsession such as

debilitating perfectionism. Her daughter sees the goodness in her family and loves them all

dearly despite the deficits. I mean, why wouldn’t she? This is all she has ever known in her short

life. Each day she wakes up, makes her own breakfast and lunch, and puts on an outfit she has

usually worn nearly every single day the previous week. As she walks to school, she sees teenage

boys and girls smoking cigarettes and using illegal drugs. The boys stare at her as she walks by,

as if they were thinking about something. She did not have quite the understanding to know why,

but she did know how it made her feel: uncomfortable, scared, and fearful. At school, she had a

beautiful and eloquent teacher who took a particular interest in her academic success. This young

girl was loved and cared for by this teacher throughout her elementary school years spent in a

school surrounded by tall fences, barbed wire, and security officers. However, nothing, not even

her kind and gracious teacher, could stop the insecurity and abuse she experienced upon

returning to her, “home.” I say home like this, because it did not feel like much of one to her. In

this “home,” she slept in and sat in after school each day, she was physically abused by one of

her older brothers; molested by her uncle; and, emotionally, verbally, and physically abused and

neglected by her own mother whom she loved so dearly. Later on in her life, she would
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eventually return to this place she called “home,” only to cry herself to sleep every night from

the trauma she experienced from being raped, mutilated, and left for dead on the side of the road.

The television was the coping mechanism she used to drown out the thoughts that so flooded her

mind day in and day out. She could not fall asleep without it on, and when she would wake up

with night terrors, the television was her comfort.

Something I have not told you yet, but a fact which you have probably eluded to in your

own mind, is how she and her family were abandoned. Her mother, abandoned by her husband.

And, she and her six older brothers, abandoned by their father. He left before she could even

remember. When I have spoken with her, she can recall a few times where she met him when he

returned, “to come home.” However, these brief moments in time were always short and

followed by recurring abandonment. The implications and forthcoming results of her father’s

absence stirred within her feelings of insecurity, inadequacy, hopelessness, loneliness, and

rejection.

Did you know? According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2015), approximately 24% of children under

the age of 18-years-old lived in “father-absent” homes in 2014. Relating back to her story, research has

also shown a positive correlation between involvement of fathers and the likelihood of young

women experiencing sexual abuse. In a cross-sectional analysis of data retrieved from a

longitudinal survey of 1,087 females, 18 years of age and younger; their primary caregivers; and

head of households, Amy C. Butler (2013) found the absence of one or both parents in a young

woman’s life to play a role in whether or not a she would experience sexual assault before turning 18-years-

old. It is not an overgeneralization to state that a father’s absence impacts women and children.

Shared Justice (2019) reports that, “There are numerous nonprofit groups and organizations

dedicated to the service of children in fatherless and other single parent homes. Big Brothers

Big Sisters of America has been working to match enthusiastic mentors — big sisters and
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brothers — with children across the country who are in need of a caring adult to guide them

on a path to success.” This individually-focused organization is necessary, but it is merely

addressing the symptoms of fatherlessness, rather than the cause of fatherlessness itself. The

question that follows is: how can we continue to improve current organizations, as well as

create new ones, to prevent fatherlessness before it occurs. The solution is to help create

homes where children have both a father and a mother. Providing free and enticing

educational opportunities at a community level to engage families in wholesome

recreational activities while involving a parent education component is one of many ways

we can do our part to combat this issue affecting many members of society today. So I ask,

please help people like the young woman I described, who also happens to be my mother. I

have seen the incredibly large impact her childhood has made on her overall health and

well-being. From holding her as she cried on the floor when something triggered her, to

being able to see the thoughtful intentions she had to raise my sister and I in a loving ho me,

I have seen personally witnessed the detrimental effects. Please keep her, and all the other

women like her, in mind when deciding on how to best support households with a father and

mother. Thank you.

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References

U.S. Census Bureau. (2015). Living arrangements of children under 18 years; marital status of

parents, by age, sex, race, and hispanic origin; and selected characteristics of the child for

all children. Retrieved from www.census.gov/data/tables/2015/demo/families/cps-

2015.html

Butler, A. C. (2013). Child sexual assault: Risk factors for girls. Child Abuse and Neglect, 37(9),

643-652. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2013.06.009.

Shared Justice. (2019). From fatherlessness to flourishing. Retrieved from

http://www.sharedjustice.org/domestic-justice/