Problem Statement
As a keen observer, I have come across some girls who are entirely independent and have no fear of anyone in the family, whereas others are quite shy and unable to speak in public. Upon a little investigation, I learned that some of them missed their fathers, while others were not afraid of their mothers because their fathers were not living with them; the common factor was fatherlessness. The term fatherlessness includes situations in which fathers are separated, divorced, imprisoned, away on business, serving in the military, or absent more often than they are present. These fathers do not interact with their children and play no decisive role in their development. Kristol (1994) found that daughters who live without their fathers usually have cognitive declines and poor academic achievement. Research also indicates that being brought up in a family where the father is absent has a negative impact on children. When a daughter’s relationship with her father is disrupted, she may not be able to view other relationships positively and may come to view all the men around her as being like her father.
Calvin (1993) states that many studies have demonstrated that a girl’s initial relationship with her dad affects the way she will view men in both her personal and professional life. He further added that girls who experience abandonment would probably encounter more vocational issues, such as burnout, low aspiration, and being easily threatened by male authority figures. Such girls may also create a fantasy image of their dad and spend years looking for a man to satisfy that fantasy through a close relationship. Calvin additionally discusses the idea that females who experience fatherlessness tend to be clingy toward their partners, almost to a suffocating degree, because they have a constant fear of being abandoned, similar to the way their fathers left them once.
Similarly, Christiani (2003) states that fatherless girls tend to have a restless attachment style in intimate relationships, which implies that they are less willing to leave a relationship regardless of any social or relational issues. She also found that fatherless women have the capacity to maintain long-term relationships, which might be negative compared with those of other women because abandonment sometimes evokes something positive within a person, as indicated by relational theory.
According to my observation, the father-daughter relationship is of significant importance in a variety of domains. Death, abandonment, and divorce are all forms of a father’s absence, but all three affect the development of daughters differently. A study has shown that the age at which a girl loses her father is significant, as it profoundly affects her perceptions of males, her academic performance, and the world around her (Blankenhorn, 1996).
Research Question
What are the effects of fatherlessness on girls?
Methodology
Sample
The sample of the present study consisted of fatherless girls. The sample comprised 14 females aged 20 years and above. Given below is the graphical representation of our sample.
The graphs showed that, out of 14 participants, 12 were Black, whereas two did not disclose their ethnicity. All of them were educated, as can be seen in the graph.
Data Collection Procedures
Data was collected using online survey software. The current study was descriptive, but because it focused on fatherless girls, the desired sample was not easy to locate. That is why the snowball sampling technique was used; this is a non-probability technique used to gather data from a rare population. So, in this study, using the snowball sampling technique, each female who completed the online survey form forwarded the link to someone she knew who was also fatherless. A questionnaire was designed to explore the effect of fatherlessness on girls.
To encourage the participation of females in the study, online survey software was used, and participants were approached through snowball sampling. At the beginning of the survey, the purpose of the study, the reason for contacting those participants, and the ways in which the collected data would be used by the researcher were explained (Walonick, 2004). This was done to address any questions that arose in the minds of participants. They were told that their participation in the study was voluntary and that they were allowed to leave the survey at any time. They were also told that their anonymity would be maintained and that the collected data would be used only for research purposes.
To determine the effect of fatherlessness on females, a questionnaire containing 56 questions was designed, seven of which related to the demographics of the sample, including age, ethnicity, education, marital status, and the presence of children. Some of them were funnel questions, such as ‘Are you a mother?’ then ‘if you have children, has your father loss affected you as a mother?’ The other items of the questionnaire included questions related to the effect of fatherlessness on social development, e.g., ‘If you had siblings, how did your father’s absence affect your relationship, if at all?’, emotional development, e.g., ‘Do you think you have anger issues?’, mental development, e.g., ‘Do you consider yourself aggressive or headstrong?‘ psychological development, e.g., ‘Do you think that you have a fear of commitment?’, and spiritual development, e.g., ‘Please select the positive things you have gained in your life, if any, despite your loss,’ ‘financial issues, e.g., ‘How was your family’s financial situation after your father was gone?’, and academic performance, e.g., ‘Do you believe that your father loss affected your decisions on your abilities regarding academic performance?’.’.
Coding
The use of Online Survey Software to collect data simplified the coding process significantly. The data was automatically coded upon downloading. The majority of the questions in the questionnaire were descriptive and contained a checklist. So the responses were obtained in descriptive as well as graphical form. Moreover, the collected responses were then transformed into an Excel sheet.
Data Analysis
The purpose of a quantitative study is to quantify the effect of fatherlessness on girls. In this study, the researcher has focused on investigating the effect of fatherlessness on girls (Appendix A). The analysis resulted in a set of frequencies on the checklist. The first level of analysis was to determine the frequency of each response, so the responses are given below. Findings of the present study indicated that 36% of the females experienced fatherlessness due to their father’s death, 14% due to parental divorce, 7% because their father abandoned the family, 14% because their father was emotionally unavailable, 14% because they had an addicted father, 7% because their father gave them up for adoption, and 7% responded that they had never met their father. When asked at what age they had experienced fatherlessness, 28% were below the age of 5, 57% were between 11 and 15 years of age, 7% were between 16 and 20 years of age, and 7% were over 30 years of age. So, the responses indicated that there were a variety of respondents who participated in our study and experienced fatherlessness at different ages.
A father is a significant figure whose presence is essential in one’s life. Both girls and boys find it difficult to spend their lives without their fathers. In our study, 14% of the females reported that they thought about their father on a daily basis and 14% on a weekly basis, and this was a major way in which their lives were being affected. Almost 85% of them received counseling/therapy/life coaching to accept this great loss, and 63% of them reported that they have found peace and accepted what has happened. Some of them also had a ‘stand-in’ father figure in their lives. 21% reported a stepfather, 21% reported an uncle, 7% reported a mother and 7% reported that their mother was that ‘stand-in’ person.
Females also suffer from psychological issues that hinder their performance in daily life. Even among mothers, losing a father by any means has a significant influence, as 50% responded that this loss had negatively affected them.
Forty-two percent experienced a fear of being abandoned, 33% had a fear of commitment, and 16% were victims of violence. Some of them have experienced relationship and commitment issues because of a fear of commitment: 43% reported that they still have a fear of commitment, and 29% reported that they tested a man by leaving him to see whether he would come back, as Figure 4 indicates.
Thus, 7% of them got married three times, whereas 15% of them were married more than three times.
Fatherlessness has a significant impact on the mental health of girls, as 71% of them struggled with alcohol and 29% had eating issues. When asked about the family’s financial situation after the father was gone, 21.43% said that they were financially stable, 35.71% were somewhat economically stable, 14.29% had to work at a young age, 7.14% reported that their mothers had to work multiple jobs, and 21.43% were living in poverty.
The academic performance of 57% of the girls was also affected by fatherlessness.
The experience of fatherlessness can be so distressing that it becomes difficult to adjust to life. At that time, social and family support serves an important function. In our study, the females received support from their significant others, as the majority of the girls received support from their mothers (15%), siblings (15%), and friends (15%). Moreover, another type of support received was from grandparents (8%), stepfather (8%), teachers (8%), other family members (8%), therapists, some special ones (8%), and additional support. Moreover, losing a father figure sometimes changes relationships with the mother and siblings from what they were before. In our sample, 21% reported that they got close to their mother after losing their father, 14% reported that their relationship had changed dramatically, 14% reported their relationship had changed in some way, but 14% also reported that they were further apart after the loss. 23% of the females also reported that they have a close relationship with their mothers at present, whereas 23% reported that their relationship is sometimes close and sometimes not close. In the case of siblings, 29% reported that their siblings’ relationship had changed a lot now as they see things from a different perspective, 14% said that they became closer after the loss, but 14% said that their relationship became estranged, while 7% reported that they started understanding each other’s struggles. Almost 36% of them reported that they would have accomplished more if they were not fatherless, as the figure indicates.
The loss of a significant figure like the father is a great loss, but coping is a part of life. Some people go for problem-focused coping, and some go for emotion-focused coping. In our sample, the girls reported using positive coping strategies for stress and loss: 46% used music as their main coping mechanism, 23% used self-help or inspirational reading, 15% used physical fitness, and 15% used writing. The loss of a father can sometimes contribute to positive changes. In the present study, several positive outcomes, such as a survivor’s spirit, a meaningful life, resilience, forgiveness, peace, self-confidence, the ability to be a strong friend, being a family friend, a strong bond with the mother, creative abilities, and fulfillment through giving back, were reported by 14%, 14%, 7%, 7%, 7%, 7%, 7%, 7%, 7%, 7%, and 7% of participants, respectively. 63% of them also reported that they are now confident.
It is quite difficult to live without a father even when one knows that he is gone, and his absence can cause sadness on several occasions. Thirty percent of participants reported that they missed their father on Father’s Day, 20% on their wedding day, 20% during their children’s life events, 10% on their father’s birthday, 10% during childbirth, and 10% when they were hospitalized.
36% of participants reported that their father’s loss was the biggest loss of their life, whereas 55% reported that it had changed their life in some way. 54% reported that their emotional life had suffered a lot, 15% reported that their mental life had suffered, 15% also faced financial issues, and 8% reported psychological issues.
43% of the girls reported that they did not consider their father a ‘good man’, and all of them felt no guilt about this thought or admission. Seventy-three percent were of the view that their mother did not make good choices regarding relationships with men.
Conclusion
In conclusion, conducting survey research provided me with the opportunity to understand the importance of quantitative study. I have learned many things related to data collection, administering questionnaires, and compiling results. Rather than using a checklist, a mental and psychological health questionnaire, along with other standardized questionnaires with high alpha reliability, could be used to obtain a clearer picture. I have learned a lot about planning research and how to prepare certain tools for measuring the phenomenon. During research, I also came to know that the response rate is quite low and data collection is a hectic process. Although I was conducting an online survey, many respondents were not willing to participate. The length of the questionnaire also affected the responses as it consisted of 58 items and some items were sensitive. So this study has also helped me learn that a researcher must be sufficiently vigilant because certain topics are quite emotional. Moreover, the sample was quite small, and because its characteristics imposed some limitations, it is recommended that a larger sample be used in future research.
References
Blankenhorn, D. (1996). The first man in every girl’s life. Headway, 8(9), 10.
Calvin, T. (1993). Your heart belonged to Daddy…and then he “abandoned” you! Cosmopolitan, 214, 161-163.
Christiani, M. (2003). Adolescent females’ strategic behavior within romantic relationships. Politics and the Life Sciences, 22(1), 36-42.
Kristol, I. (1994). Life without father. The Wall Street Journal Europe, 224(88), A18.
Walonick, D. S. (2004). Survival statistics: Designing and using questionnaires. Bloomington, MN: StatPac.
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