Boys Without Dads: When Dads Abandon Homes

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Summary: The No Role Model Dilemma
Review: Before the Americans settled here, there is quite an extensive history of English bastardy from the practices of warlords building their armies by producing bastard children, loyal only to them, but not a part of their family as we know it today. Although leaving a family does not subject children to this same outcome, the dynamics of "children alone" may be much the same when they are left. The same might be considered true of children of divorce, or in cases where Dads are gone constantly, and especially in cases where unwed mothers have children so that a child does not, and cannot, know who his or her father is. Such children have no role model at all and are forced to take by observation and interaction what they can learn in order to fill that intellectual and psychological void. The emotional void is likely never filled for there is simply no way of doing so. When they become men, such loners are especially dependent upon the emotional attachments they make with their mothers, usually, if that is possible, and certainly with the spouses who become their wives, requiring often an unreasonable level of trust and loyalty because of the substitution requirement of having had no Dad, and even sometimes, no Mother who was reliable or caring. These neglected and forgotten children are not well represented in our culture since there are so few of them, and people often do not think about the fact of their existence, how they exist, and/or what encouragement and motivations they require to thrive. Very, very few books, if any, are written on how to deal with bastard children, particularly bastard males who have the most extraordinary uphill battle of children without fathers (or parents) since they must invent themselves as they go along. There are huge gaps between what we surmise is the nature of family, and what are the actual practicalities of what exist in the human marketplace, over the wide world. One might suggest they exhibit characteristics of refugee children, and that might begin to characterize the nature of the dilemma of having no role models by which society expects children to learn about life, love, community, and the world, as well as how to work. Some do extremely well by virtue of the fact that they haven't preconceived notions, provided they have someone who cares about them, but there is absolutely no certainty that they will have this kind of relationship. It is something society should give considerable thought to, regardless of gender, and regardless of our minimal efforts to typecast society as we tend to do. What attitudes does a fatherless child bring to the task of parenting, being a spouse, or even being an employee with no role model?