Growing up without a father?

[CandyFIosss]

Just wondering if you grew up without a father what's your feelings on this as an adult looking back? Does anyone have any experience of growing up without a father figure in their life at all, and has it affected you as an adult? I’m just worried my children will end up with “issues” and I hear a lot of the time the mum is blamed for the father being absent, If you grew up without a father do you feel it has affected your life negatively?

I grew up without a father who left then came back then buggered off again before I could really get to know him.
I have vague pictures of him when we went on a day trip on a steam train and I was told this person was my father and a vague idea of him in the house and then he went and I have never seen him again. I looked him up last year and he is still alive and in a nursing home. Even found his birthdate and it is within days of mine. Don’t know why that shocked me more.

Never really missed what I never had. I would say as long as you have one good parent then that is all you need but I didn’t have that.

I looked him up last year and he is still alive and in a nursing home. Even found his birthdate and it is within days of mine. Don’t know why that shocked me more.

I understand that, my sons birthday is the day after my exes and it’s always disgusted me how he can ignore his child’s birthday that is the day after his own. It does seem worse somehow

It actually gave me a physical jolt when I saw the date and the realisation that he would have known when my birthday was and never ever acknowledged it.

I am in my 50s and have never really missed having a father. But the birthdate actually upset me.

I grew up without a father or any man in the family at all, no uncles, grandfather, brother
Looking back, we had mum all to ourselves and our home life was really relaxed and i cant imagine having to share her or have another adult around who may have been stricter etc
The downside was that i was very nervous of men when i was young, especially at work, i just didnt know how to interact and had to learn. But, I did, and I also learnt to be independent and self reliant, mum was rubbish at diy so i knew how to do essential jobs from being really young
I have been married years and my daughters idea of a ideal husband is a character from a box set she watched as a teenager, so just goes to show
To sum up, it did no harm, but I did use it for a bit of self pity when i was a troubled teenager

My experience of being fatherless yes it affected me I'm now in my 40's and it still does. My experiences in life yes it affected them too.
Does it affect my son? Not when he was younger but it does now. My heart breaks for him.

Not all children it's affects but some it does and OP it's not your fault.

Well, my father was around and I still have man issues because of him.

I think children brought up kindly and with love by their mum alone, can thrive much more than when there is a crap father in and out of the picture, being inconsistent and frequently letting the children down

I think so too. I had soooo much love and my home was very happy with just my mum. I wouldn't change it ever and it something happened that left me and my child alone, I'd bring her up just the same instead of with a deadbeat.
He'll be ok, just love him x

Sorry op, you have two sons. It should say they'll be ok, love them both x

None is better than a dysfunctional one whether he's at home or not.

I reckon if my Dad was present I would have had issues. I saw him for the last time a decade ago, where he prattled on and wanted to see pictures of my daughter, I smiled and nodded and knew that was probably going to be the last time I’d see him. DD’s Dad is absent by choice and has a ‘do over’ child which appears to have been a preference to raising an existing child.

I think you need to consider whether having their father around will enhance your kids life. Kids need good routines, kindness and caring. If their father isn’t a good person, they are better off without him. If he is fun, gets involved, they have regular times together etc. There is no reason to cut him out. They may grow resentful if they lose out on having him around.

Many parents make the mistake of thinking any dad is better than no dad, but don’t get bogged down in worrying about future issues. Parents make mistakes, and you can’t predict the future. We can only do what we feel is right at the time, and as your kids grow, they will understand that you made the decision with their best interests in mind.

Your love is what they need, and protection from anyone who could cause them harm.

It is hard on kids, and avoiding abandonment issues is important, but inconsistent behaviour and lack of birthday cards etc. can be more upsetting.

Growing up with one parent is tough. Reminders on Father’s Day, who gives you away at a wedding, growing up seeing a functional relationship etc. equally seeing a dysfunctional relationship won’t help either.

The fact that you are seriously considering what is best for them shows how much you care. They will be fine and you are enough. It’s sad when things don’t work out, but know that you can raise wonderful, well adjusted children as a single parent.

well if it's the case that we all learn about relationships from our parents, then it will affect your dc whatever you do.

I have had quite a lot of counselling as an adult, ostensibly to deal with how I am in relationships now, but actually my counsellor is of the view that it all stems from what I learned about relationships from my parents (and I had an absent father).

Like many on this thread, I didn't feel adversely affected by having an absent father (mine left when I was 2) but it seems I have unconsciously replayed my parents' relationship pattern over and over again.

I don't know how to avoid that by the way, but the best thing you can do is model really positive behaviour around relationships and boundaries. Children can feel abandoned by the absent father, and even just paying maintenance can make them feel less abandoned.

I also have sons (and daughters) and worry that my sons don't have male role models. But they are lovely human beings, so maybe that will be ok. I think from a pyschological perspective, it's girls that suffer more from their father not being around.

I think basically Philip Larkin was right.

I grew up without a Father (dead) and although I missed him I like to think I haven't turned out badly. I tended to date men who were a few years older than me that I'm sure psychologists would say was something to do with losing my father at a young age. The bit that actually messed me up was my Mum having a myriad of awful boyfriends, or if there was one who was kind to us she inevitably dumped him fairly quickly. I agree that it is better to have a totally absent father who supports financially than one who comes and goes.

I often quote Philip Larkin too, although if I really believed it all, I wouldn't have had a child.

My daughter's father has had zero contact virtually from birth, and she was planned. No maintenance and he last saw her briefly when she was six (she'll be 24 this year). He lives in another country with a wife and two children (I stayed in contact with his mother whom I've known since I was 21). However, DD seems pretty balanced - it's hard to tell. She has mentioned his absence with disdain, really - there are no positive male rule models in our family at all but plenty of very strong positive female ones!

I definitely had father issues - my own father, who died three years ago aged 93, was a German POW, very remote, who had never had any communication with his children and disowned me for being a single parent. I did go back into their house in later years. I think that probably affected me more that the absence affects DD but maybe I just reacted differently.

The only part that worries me is DD's attachment to me. She's also shown no sign of wanting or having a relationship, although makes friends of both sexes easily and has a good social circle. I sometimes think she views men with thinly veiled contempt, as though they are largely superfluous.

@BuggerBognor

I sometimes think she views men with thinly veiled contempt, as though they are largely superfluous.

Well she’s largely right about that! Sounds like she has great boundaries and will probably be a more resilient young woman as a result. Wish it hadn’t taken me so long to figure out!

@BuggerBognor 😊 thank you for that! Maybe you're right - like you per your earlier post, she's excelled at school and university and is capable and ambitious. I am pretty sure that she wouldn't put up with the rubbish in relationships that I have, so maybe the misery isn't deepening like a coastal shelf any further.

No he’s not a good father at all. He sees them once a year on average and doesn’t like seeing them because they remind him of me too much which he doesn’t like. He’s gone for almost 3 years without seeing them at one point. Stupidly I let him back to see them last year and he done the same and stopped seeing them after a few months. I’ve finally said enough is enough and I’m not going to allow the yearly visits anymore and I’m not going to continue to keep the door open every year, which is why I’ve been wondering will not having a father damage them but they didn’t have one around anyway, it sees it can go either way from reading the comments, I don’t have a huge massive family so that’s another thing, it’s just me, I have my mum and my own dad but we are not overly close.