Paternal abandonment: an absence that leaves marks for life

Many children They are growing up in the world without the presence of a father. Dropout rates remain very high, especially in Latin American countries. For some, this is due to social problems such as unemployment and poverty. For others, the most important factor is culture: in some environments, father abandonment comes to be seen as relatively normal.

There appears to be a strong relationship between unplanned pregnancies, especially in adolescents and the abandonment of the father. This, added to sexist patterns of behavior, means that many men do not evaluate the fact of abandoning a child as negative.

While it is true that a human being can grow and evolve without having a committed father by his side, it is also true that Those who do have it have many and better opportunities in the life. And there are also cases in which paternal absence becomes a burden that significantly deteriorates existence.

Why do we need a father and a mother?

Psychoanalysis postulates that love maternal is voracious and totalizing. The mother exerts a global influence on the life of her baby. She is everything. She influences the big and the small, the trivial and the important. She is the environment, the universe in which a child’s life takes place. Dependence is absolute at the beginning of life.

The strong bond between a mother and her child tends to last over time. The child knows that he depends on her for everything and obeys her logic. Theirs is a basically unconditional love and this gives security to the little one.

Some of us are lucky enough to also have a father. Finally, there is a world beyond the mother. The father is a universe over which the mother does not have full control. It is the other side of reality. A third party that comes to modulate that relationship of absolute dependence. It represents the limit for that symbiosis between mother and child. Symbolically it is the law. And it is also the floor from which we learn that the world will not adapt to us, but quite the opposite.

The different forms of abandonment

Just as there are many ways to accompany a child, there are also different ways to abandon them.. The absent father, in principle, is one who leaves the mother physically and psychologically alone in raising her child. He ignores the economic contribution, the domestic tasks and does not care what happens to the child.

There are also those who abandon emotionally, but not physically. They feel that children are the mother’s business. They are there, but they do not believe they have any responsibility in raising the children. They don’t talk to them, they don’t spend time with them, they have no idea how their life is going. They limit themselves to paying the bills and giving the occasional order, from time to time and at their convenience. They do not interact with the little ones.

There are also those who do not abandon emotionally, but physically.. They formed another family or are far away. Even so, they try to be aware of what is happening to their children. They can never dedicate as much time to them as they would like, but they have them in their minds and in their hearts.

The different consequences of abandonment

Each type of abandonment generates its own consequences. In the case of the completely absent father, the consequences range from serious to very serious. If the father figure is replaced, always partially by someone, the effect will be less. If only a void remains, the echoes of that absence will likely be nothing short of devastating..

By not having a third party in the mother-son dyad, It will be very difficult for the child to individualize himself. You will probably have difficulty exploring, expanding your horizons. and trust in their abilities. He will carry a feeling of having been excluded, of having an emotional deprivation. It is no good for the mother to be “father and mother at the same time.” No matter how she wants, her presence will never replace that of that third party who will always be needed.

Children abandoned by their father have a much harder time adapting to the world and reality.. They are also likely to develop a fear of deep emotional bonds. And they can become “abandoners” too. If they are girls, they will distrust men, or trust too much, always repeating the abandonment they want to overcome.

When abandonment is partial, the consequences are less obvious. The same features appear, but nuanced and to some extent diluted. In any case, the absence of the father opens a deep emotional wound, especially in the first years of life. His emptiness will never be filled and, on the other hand, the trace of his lack will be very difficult to erase.

What does the research tell us?

According to research carried out by Arvelo (2002)father abandonment is associated with a greater number of emotional, cognitive and language problems and the male children. Apparently, these problems are related to identification processes, in which the absence of a male role model in the home would affect men more for gender reasons.

The author also points out that it is observed in children “poor school performance, transgressive behaviors, depressionschool problems, frequent lies, rebellion and communication difficulties.”

According to the research team Laura Evelia Torres (2011) from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, The role of the father is important because his figure imposes challenges. According to Torres and his team, parents set more challenges for their children, which leads them to try harder and thus opens up the possibility of taking new paths and perspectives.

The results of their research affirm that mothers support and consent, but Parents are the ones who want their children to develop their potential.they present challenges and promote a feeling of achievement that they transfer to the rest of the activities.

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