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Issues Of Absentee Fathers Term Paper

¶ … Absentee Fathers Unfortunately, the scenario in which there are absentee fathers in a family has occurred far too frequently in contemporary society. This issue is more prevalent among certain social groups than among others. For instance, in communities in which there is poverty, substance abuse, high incidences of crime, and accordantly high rates of teenage pregnancy, there is a systematic destruction of the nuclear family. As such, the occurrence of absentee fathers is prevalent in these conditions, which do not infrequently affect African-Americans and other historic minority groups. There are several issues that absentee fathers create. Some of these include the fact that women have to take on the role that was traditionally assigned to men -- acting as the provider -- and become saddled with the responsibility of behaving as both the mother and a father. Additionally, children grow up with a lack of stable male presences in their life, which may cause a dearth of discipline and the need for these children to fulfill their desires for a father in unhealthy ways.

One of the most prevalent issues which has routinely been attributed to absentee fathers is the impact of gang membership in certain communities -- especially African-American and Latino ones. This fact is related to children, both male and female, growing up without their father in the house. As such, they might not necessarily get the sort of discipline that other children, who do have their fathers regularly in their lives, frequently encounter. When children do not have a male father influence in their lives, they typically seek such an influence from people other than their fathers. For many young men and women who grow up without their fathers and who come from broken homes, gangs appeal to them because of the sense of family that they provide Could. Gang leaders, therefore, take on the role...

For a child who cannot get that sort of strong male influence from his or her own family, getting it from a gang is oftentimes the next best thing to having a father.
The influence of absentee fathers is oftentimes detrimental to both the mother and the children in these sorts of broken families. In such instances, the women are left to take on the provider role. Despite the fact that women have been 'liberated' for several years and hold positions of power and authority within virtually all industries, there are still noxious ramifications of women in single parent households having to account for both monetarily and domestically providing for their children. Women from lower socio-economic statuses, for example, might need to take on multiple jobs to attempt to account for the former responsibility. No one can fault a woman for taking such action; indeed, it is oftentimes in her best interest to make as much money as she can to get her family the necessities that money affords. However, it is difficult to work the requisite number of hours (particularly at low wage professions) and perform all of the necessary domestic functions that are integral to the sustenance and well being of the family. In certain instances there may be a lack of discipline which the children become accustomed to since, due to the fact that their only parent is working all the time, they may have copious amounts of autonomy both during the day and at night. In such a situation, it is not uncommon for students' grades to decline, their nutrition and health to decline (due to exhausted mothers bringing home fast food or simply being too tired to cook), and for them to become involved in gangs or even the criminal justice system due to a pattern of delinquency (Hailey 39).

Additionally, absentee fathers can negatively impact broken homes in other…

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Works Cited

Haley, Alex. The Autobiography of Malcolm X New York: Ballantine Books. 1964. Print.

Kamalu, Ngozi Caleb., Coulson-Clark, Margery, Kamalu, Nkechi Margaret. "Racial Disparities in Sentencing: Implications for the Criminal Justice System and the African-American Community." African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies. 4 (1), 1-31. 2010. Web. http://wwwcf.umes.edu/assets/0/22/5112/877a100f-ae57-47e0-9604-ebe9ab9dba20.pdf
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