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This article is from Today's
Native Father, issue #101, January/February, 1999. Related articles from
this issue: |
When Father Isn't
There It makes a BIG difference in the life of a growing child by David Hertzler |
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Choose the best answer.) _____1-2 ____3-5 _____6-12 _____13-18 In 1973 a graduate student named Ken Louden based his doctoral dissertation on a study of father absence. He chose as his subjects a group of young, bright college students, all of the same race and socioeconomic background. Louden tested all these students for field dependency. People who are field dependent lack the inner resources to make good decisions on their own. They take most of their cues from their environment. When their environment changes, these people become unstable. The students were divided into three groups. The first group had experienced father absence for at least three years before age 6, the second group in years 6-12 and the third group in their teen years. The fourth group had never experienced father absence. It was no surprise that the group with no father absence did best on the tests. The group who had experienced father absence as teens scored significantly lower. Those whose father was missing in early childhood scored lower still. By far the lowest scores came from the group whose father was missing during years 6-12. Louden’s findings confirmed a study done earlier on United States Peace Corps volunteers. Formed during the Kennedy era, the Peace Corps chose the best and brightest young people, the cream of the crop, and sent them abroad as ambassadors of good will. A surprising number failed to finish their first term. Researchers wondered why. They checked all kinds of variables: lack of mother nurture, birth order and the like. The only statistically significant variable they could find was father absence. Of these promising young adults who did not finish their term, many had experienced father absence during their growing up years. Louden doesn’t know for sure why father absence during the middle years has such a big impact on a growing child. Neither do we. What we do know is that during these years most normal children will experience for the first time: stronger awareness of gender roles and urge to model the same sex parent; readiness to move outside of the nuclear family and relate to peers and other adult authority figures by learning social skills such as compromising and following rules; spiritual awareness of inner sinfulness and need for a Saviour; self worth shaped by learning tools and skills and pleasure of work completion; a stronger desire to do something useful and significant for the adult world. A father is uniquely equipped by God to give his child guidance, authority and teaching how to cope with society. It is about age six that the child begins to need more of this type of fathering. This stage of the child’s development is gold mine of opportunity for the father. Missing these opportunities adds up to a big loss for both father and child. |
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