Speaker: Vanessa Van Petten

Vanessa, I am the chair of the speakers Series at Summit View School in Los Angeles. Summit View is a school for kids with learning issues. Summit View is part of the Help group which also runs school for children who have autism, asperger, and other learning and behavioral issues. A friend of mine recently attended an evening at Marlborough School and shared with me the interesting evening you presented at the ninth grade dinner. I was hoping that you might be available to speak to our parents. Unlike Marlborough we do not have an endowment fund, we are a public, private school for kids with L.D So needless to say we do not have the same sort of budget. I hope you will contact me and let me know if you might be available early next year. I have forwarded your site to all of my kids! Thanks, Ellen

Absent Fathers

There is some confusion about what is considered an Absent Father in society today. This is due to the many confusing interpretations and explanations of the term “Absent Father”. The term “Absent Father,” is often defined by some armchair therapist or counselor who compares one mans occupation in society with another’s and concludes that one is an absent father. In addition to providing this faulty assessment, they tend to attach a negative stigma to the term “Absent Father”. In doing so, they infer that many hard working family men are neglectful to their children.

In response to this confusion and these bogus assessments, we find that many dedicated family men are instantly defending themselves when they hear the term “absent Father”. The truth of the matter is, many men do not fully understand the definition of the term “Absent Father”. However they do sense they are being morally attacked when they are accused of being one.

Dictionary for Dads realizes the term “Absent Father” is commonly used but rarely examined and explained properly in our society. These pages will define the term “absent father” accounting for all of the variables that come into play in a father’s life today. In addition, this page may provide insight into the role your own father played in your life.
Types Of Absent Fathers

Absent Fathers usually do not reside with their children or are away for long periods of time. This includes fathers who are divorced, separated, incarcerated, in the military, travel regularly for business and are absent in the home more than they are present.

Unfortunately, this commonly includes fathers who are experiencing a divorce. This is a very large number considering that the divorce rate is in excess of fifty percent of all marriages today. Some of these hardworking men are deprived of interacting with their children by a scorn wife and an inept judicial system.

We recognize that in being a parent, all men are not created equal. However, there are many divorced and separated fathers that, through no fault of their own are deprived of being a father to their children; many of which who were accused of being an “absent father”.

The good news is, regardless of divorce some fathers can still play a very active role in their children’s lives. The sad news is, some good men are still prohibited from being a part of their child’s life and this has severe consequences on the child’s cognitive and emotional development.

Dictionary for dads realizes that there are some situations when it is not in the child’s best interest to interact with their biological fathers. There are men who pose a greater danger to their children by trying to be an active parent when they are mentally deranged, addicted or engaging in high risk behaviors. These men know who they are and we encourage them to seek help so that they can one day become their child’s dad. Remember the title of “dad” is one that is earned; not provided through the birth of a child.
A Closer Look At Absent Fathers

Fathers live in a complex society which places many demands on them as they attempt to fulfill many roles. Most fathers view their primary role as a provider for their family. Dictionary for Dads believes that many corporations in our society capitalize on that historical aspect of the father’s role. In doing so, these companies demand fathers to be more loyal to them than their own families. Corporations demand fathers to work many extra hours and on weekends, to satisfy their inflated corporate expectations. They are well aware of the family and parenting responsibilities these fathers have, but instead of enabling employees to be good fathers and parents they demand more. In many instances, these businesses have no shame in letting a father know if they can not commit to the corporation one hundred and fifty percent, someone else is willing and waiting to do more to get the job they have.

There is the traveling father who is away on business more than he is home. This father sleeps alone in cold and empty motel rooms and barely has any intimacy with his wife. He never gets a home cooked meal. He lives his life out of a suitcase and never is able to enjoy the fruits of his labor or his children.

There are also the great Military fathers who are often called to fight in some foreign country to protect our freedom. These brave men put themselves in harms way not only for the benefit of their family but for our country. These men eat food rations and at the best in mess halls. They bunk in retched environments and get very little opportunity to communicate with their family. In all reality, men that are in prison often have more accessible ways of communicating with their families than do men of the Armed Services. Their sacrifice is great and they do it with a sense of dedication.

There are the men of the New York Fire Department, who reside three days a week in a fire house away from their family. They are deprived of attending many community and family events. They are not able to read bed time stories to their children three days a week. They do not enjoy the benefits of sleeping in a warm bed next to their wife every night. When they are home, they often are catching up on household projects that they seem to never be able to get done because they only live there part time. There sacrifice is great and although they are great men, I assure you their dedication to do this job comes from their dedication to their children and families.

There are many other occupations which include musicians, actors, sports figures, and even doctors that as a society we idolize and encourage our children to aspire to be. Do we tell them that these occupations require a deep dedication to the profession which demands them to sacrifice other things they love like family time? Do we tell them that they will be scrutinized by their family of pro-creation and society if they chose a profession that requires a lot of travel and time away from home?

Corporate demands on fathers are evident everywhere you go. Take a ride on a commuter train at nine o’clock any night or a walk in the park on a Sunday afternoon and look what the men are doing. In plain view you will witness fathers working on projects with their smart phones and laptops. You may witness a Father who is a union Ironworker at the swing set with his daughter. If you look closer, you will notice he is nursing his sore shoulders or knees and trying to manage the pain as his daughter encourages him to push her harder.

Many fathers fear if they do not perform and over extend themselves to their employer, they will lose their job. The fear is not the loss of the job, the fear these fathers face is the inability to feed, provide shelter and health care to their families and children. Most fathers want to be a part of their children’s life and do not want to be doing these company tasks at home; on family outings or vacations.

Fathers today have been forced to learn the task of being physically present at key events like baseball games but at the same time doing corporate responsibilities. This enables them to be physically present but emotionally and cognitively unavailable. Their feet are in the dug outs but their heads are in the conference rooms.

Fathers are constantly demanded to perform and multi-task due to corporate responsibilities and the high expectations put on them. Many times as a result they are categorized as being neglectful or absent fathers. This is the battle cry of many women in a custody battle in the judicial system.

Fathers instinctively feel, if they do not perform they risk losing their ability to provide for their children. Many resolve that it is a trade off that they must make in order to provide a good education, health care, safety, shelter and food for their family.

Traditionally the role of the father was defined as the “bread winner” or “provider” which is deeply rooted all the way back to the days of hunting and gathering. Fathers’ pride themselves on that role and many sacrifice the things they love to provide shelter, food and education to their children. Simply because they feel they have no other choice.
What Did You Learn From Your Parents
Many men when growing up chose an occupation which is prestigious in order to make their parents proud of them. These men become great earners and allow their parents to brag about them every chance they get. Many of these parents become dependent on their son’s achievements to feel a sense of pride and accomplishment in their own lives. These sons, are fully aware of this dynamic and are loyal in providing this pseudo pride and life satisfaction for their parents by becoming successful.

As a result, these loyal sons are commonly involved with an occupation that demands grueling hours and an overwhelming commitment. In addition, many of these occupations do not allow for a lot of personal time. These men commonly do not have pets because they are not home enough to care for them. They barely have time to stop by their parents home once a week to re-in force their sense of satisfaction and bragging rights.

Unless these sons are hermits, they will soon fall in love and have children of their own. This is where it gets interesting. Prior to marriage, these sons invested many years of dedication and commitment to their academics and careers; many for the mere sake of being loyal to their parents. They learned to serve their parents through academic accomplishments and career choices. Now their “pride and joy” is getting married.

Soon after the “Honeymoon stage” of his marriage he begins to experience difficulty with his marital relationship. This is because they do not share enough time together mostly due to his career. His wife realizes that she shares very little time or activities with her new husband. She thinks he is more interested in visiting his parents than going for a summer evening walk with her. She is confused and wants to make this situation change; she wants more from her new husband.

They decide to have a baby and create a family of their own. Secretly the wife believes this will make him as loyal or more loyal to her than to his parents. She believes a baby will provide them with common ground and plenty of shared activities together. There are high expectations put on this child before it is even conceived or born.

They have a baby son and he is beautiful and all seems well. Initially dad is more attentive to his wife and new son. However, he has not changed jobs and in the background is trying to hold everything together. He tells himself “when this new baby stage wears off I have to get back and catch up; I am so behind”. He experiences high levels of anxiety because he associates being successful with being a good son/man and does not want to betray his parents.

He returns to work his normal schedule of 12 hour days, six days a week. When he is home he is on the phone or computer trying to catch up on his projects. Remember prior to having the baby he worked twelve hours a day and was loyal to his parents by being an over achiever. He was praised for this behavior and his whole identity is wrapped up in his career. Even his new bride admits she initially was attracted to him based on his successful career.

After a year or two the wife is extremely disappointed, the expectations she put on having this child were not fulfilled. Her husband is working his usual 12 hour days and she is alone most of the time. They have very little time together due to his career and she is not satisfied with her life. She decides to file for a divorce and in the initial filing she claims he is an “absent father”.

The father gets served with divorce papers and is bewildered. His whole life has become very confusing because he does not realize his whole identity is wrapped up in his career and performing for his parents. This is what he was taught to do and it had worked well up until he got married. Furthermore, his parents are now getting older and the main topic of their conversations as they sit in their rocking chairs on their porch is “my prestigious son’s career”. They hide the fact that their son is getting divorced.
Good Provider Bad Father
Many of the aspects that make men good citizens and employees, conflict with the role of what is referred to as being a good father today. These conflicting demands make it seem like it is impossible for working fathers to satisfy their employer and their family at the same time.

Furthermore, when a crisis occurs with the kids in these families dad is commonly accused of being an absent father. It is often phrased like this “you should spend more time with the kids” ” i do everything around here” ” you should cut back on work” “cant you get another job where you can be home for dinner” Therefore, in spite of dads best effort they are still accused of not being enough of a father.

It is our premise that corporations and organizations enables, promotes and even demands many men be absent fathers with their unrealistic expectations. Therefore, it should be recognized and addressed or it will continue to progress and our children will suffer even a greater loss. Families needs to become more of a priority for the sake of our children and our country’s future.
Consequences Of An Absent Father
Children with absent fathers have a fear of abandonment and believe that everyone will leave them. They feel ashamed and abnormal because they do not have an active father in their life like other children.

Regardless of the circumstances all children tend to be somewhat self- centered and many harbor a belief that their father left the home because of them. They usually do not want to blame their fathers for the abandonment because they want to be able to fantasize that their father is good and cool wherever he is. It is better than nothing for these fatherless children.

These children long for what is absent in their lives and look to fill that empty slot in their sole with something. As a result, this often manifest in unhealthy attitudes, behaviors and relationships. In addition, they tend to have abnormal relationships with their mothers. This is characterized by a sense that they must take care of their mothers because their Father is absent.

You can witness these abnormal maternal relationships in many single parent families where the child acts much older than his/her biological age. Regardless of the act they put on, these children lack confidence are ashamed, afraid, confused, and desperate and lack self direction. Being a child of an Absent also has gender specific consequences.

Girls tend to not feel secure about their femininity due to a lack of regular interaction and validation from their fathers. They have a warped definition about what men are like in general. These girls will be uncertain about the dynamics of a relationship and often will compare themselves to others. They will lack a basic understanding of what marriage is and will often seek men who will value them for unhealthy reasons. They rely on television and peer influence to get a sense of what a man is but often disguise there inquisitions due to shame.

Boys inherit and underline confusion of what it means to be a man. These children often lack self esteem. They harbor anger, confusion, fear, shame and rage which can manifest itself in many unhealthy behaviors. They often feel ill prepared for life and put on a show to hide their insecurities. They look for approval or recognition from other. Their desire for approval and recognition is sometimes at the expense of engaging in unhealthy and high risk behaviors.
Who is To Blame
First of all, we should all salute hard working fathers who sacrifice so much in order to provide for their families.

Our freedom as a country is dependent on our military fathers These men are away from home fighting for our freedom. We salute them and admire their courage and sacrifice for our country.

There are tens of thousands of fathers in the organized labor unions who are the last of the skilled craftsman of our country. Especially the construction workers, who risk their life every day in order to provide income and health benefits to their family and children.

Society seems to forget that our country’s infrastructure was built and is dependent on our great organized labor unions.These hard working fathers provide the skills our country relies on to build schools, housing, roads, water treatment plants, railroads, bridges and office buildings.

Many of these Fathers are arriving at work with physical ailments and in pain from the strenuous work that is demanded of them. However,these men learn to tolerate great pain in order to provide health care, food and safety for their children.

In the last year NYC has witnessed a great loss where many of theses union construction workers have lost their life in falls or crane malfunctions. Dictionary For Dads Salutes these hard working men. We suspect some of these malfunctions could have been avoided if corporations were as focused on the safety of these men as they are on their bottom line.

Dictionary For Dad’s salute the fathers of all Fire departments around the world who serve their communities by provide a sense of security and safety for many families and children. These Dads sacrifice quality time with their children in order to provide many families with a sense of safety which we should all dignify and salute.

Our society dictates severe role conflict and fathers need to be specialists in balancing their many roles. It is no surprise, that many Fathers struggle with this balance. However, this is not due to a lack of character or willpower there are financial, familial, academic,vocational and societal variables which play into this dilemma and it is a fact that corporations perpetuate the role of the absent father. There is no denying that, and corporations needs to be more responsible.

If we want to change this reality we need to identify the origin of the problem. The first step it to recognize that most corporations are never satisfied and care very little about your family or children. They only care when your family can be used to enslave you into being more and giving more than you should. As a result of many greedy corporations fathers are constantly being accused of being an absent father. Do not be scapegoat forfor your employer.

In the coming weeks we will discuss balancing these roles in various new pages so get on our mailing list.

This article was not written to justify the dead beat dads who willingly abandoned their children. In our view that behavior amounts to being a despicable coward.
A New Reality
The fathers of today, did not learn first hand how to manage these over demanding tasks, with fear of losing the ability to provide.
This is because many of their parents are from a different era where corporations were more responsible. It was once common for companies to sponsor family outings, provide blanket health care, pensions and a sense of security. This corporate responsibility is nowhere to be found today. Furthermore, in that era when they had to travel or work weekends they were appreciated for their dedication and sacrifice not criticized for being an “absent father”.
The Dictionary For Dads Operation Fund
Dictionary for Dads currently accepts no advertising. Our technical and operations budget are supported entirely by voluntary contributions from our readers. If you wish to support Dictionary For Dads please donate what ever you can.

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