Abstract
Fathers play a unique role in a young childs life. What then, can we predict about an
individuals development throughout their lifespan if a father is absent? This essay uses
a finding from the Growing Up in New Zealand study to look at how nine-month-olds
and two-year-olds, who live in single-mother households, may be impacted by father
absence. I discuss and critically examine research which addresses the potential impacts
of father absence on physical, cognitive, and psychosocial development throughout an
individuals lifespan.
In this essay, I address a finding from Growing Up in New Zealand (2014), a
longitudinal study following the lives of approximately 7,000 children from conception
until young adulthood. Specifically, I look at data in section 3.3 of report 3 which
suggests that at nine-months and two-years-old, 7.5% and 5% of children live in solo
mother households respectively. That is, there are no other adults present, but possibly
other children (Morton, 2014). Using this data, I discuss how this may impact these
children across childhood, adolescence and adulthood in respect to their physical,
cognitive, and psychosocial development. Supplementing my discussion is a variety of
empirical research published within the last decade ago. I provide evidence for the
effects discussed and, in doing so, underscore the significance of father absence in
toddler-hood for predicting future outcomes.
While a widely accepted belief is that mothers tend to raise children and thus their
absence in toddler-hood unequivocally affects an individuals outcomes, there are reasons
to believe that fathers have a unique influence in their childrens lives as well. Bowlbys
(1958) attachment theory puts forward reasoned arguments regarding mother-child
attachment, and while much research has been done since to validate his initial
observations, one cannot deny its limitations when considering father-child attachment.
In respect to this, Paquette (2004) proposes a theory on father-child attachment: the
activation relationship theory. While Bowlby (1958) focuses on four attachment styles
with regards to the mother-child attachment, Paquette (2004) seeks to explain the
nature of father-child attachment with two primary dimensions: stimulation and
discipline. According to Paquette (2004) through a fathers encouragement, children
open themselves up to the outside world (stimulation), whilst the father simultaneously
sets appropriate limitations for their safety (discipline). Through these affectional
bonds, fathers cultivate their childrens sense of security and self-confidence.
A mixed-methods study observing differences in parent interactions with children
between the ages of two- and four-years-old found qualitative differences in child-mother
and child-father interactions (John, Halliburton, & Humphrey, 2013). Mothers were
shown to be more structured in their play, providing guidance and teaching, and
engaging in empathic conversations. An example of structured play would be if a child
was playing with blocks and the mother asked, What are we building here? Are you
making a house? On the other hand, the study suggests that fathers engage more in
physical play, behaving like peers by following a childs lead and challenging them. An
example of challenging a child would be if a child was playing on the floor with a ball
and the father placed it slightly out of reach and asked the child to retrieve it. Dumont
and Paquette (2013) suggest that men are more aggressive than women and that,
therefore, it is understandable that fathers are uniquely suited and more inclined to
stimulate arousal and foster boundary-setting through rough-and-tumble play. Taken
together, these findings suggest that fathers play a unique role in children’s lives.
An individuals physical development is arguably chief amongst all other domains
in terms of immediate significance. Simply put, our cognitive and psychosocial domains
seem secondary when we consider that the physical domain consists of our vital organs
and the functions of our physiology that influence aging, weight, and sexual
development. We may be without our wits, we may exist in absence of sociality, but we
fail utterly without our physical selves. It is, therefore, imperative to examine to what
degree an absent father may have on a childs physical development.
A longitudinal study from 2009 entitled, Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing,
followed a birth cohort of approximately 3,700 in the U.S., data from which was used by
researchers to conduct baseline interviews with mothers shortly after birth and then
again 15-months later. It found that children whose fathers did not live with them were
more likely to be diagnosed with asthma and experience an emergency due to breathing
problems (Harknett, 2009). These results, however, should be interpreted with caution
as, although researchers did well to control for low birth weight, gender, and city of
residence, they did not have access to data on stress or air and housing quality. Such
factors are important given that single-parent households are more likely to have less
income due to the absence of another financial source. Due to such financial limitations,
it may be the case that single-parent families are more likely to live in houses of lower
quality with poorer ventilation. Such factors, therefore, may explain the higher rates of
asthma and breathing issues in children from fatherless households in the study.
Supporting the idea that socioeconomic circumstances may explain disparities in health
issues is a study by Scharte and Bolte (2012), who investigated the differences between
17,218 German pre-school children of single-mother and two-parent families. They
found that, after they adjusted for socioeconomic factors, the strength of the association
between household structure and child health lessened.
Research conducted by Hohwü et al. (2015) found that children at the age of
nine- to eleven-years-old from solo mother families were more likely to have a higher
body mass index and an increased risk of obesity. The study specifically looks at the
Aarhus Birth Cohort in Denmark which consists of 2,876 children. As this is a
cross-sectional study, interpretations that elude to possible fetal programming effect or
unmeasured differences in psychosocial factors must be carried out with caution. It
should also be considered that, although the baseline data was acquired prior to birth in
the Aarhus Birth Cohort, the number of households that consisted of a single parent
prior to the birth of the children in the Growing Up in New Zealand (2014) study is not included in the report.
A review of research on families and health between 2000 to 2009 by Carr and
Spring (2010) found that overall, high-quality father-child interaction predicted better
infant health. Interestingly, however, they found evidence to suggest that high quality
interaction even by non-residential fathers predicted better health in children (Carr &
Springer, 2010). These findings (although based on now outdated research) point to a
need for researchers involved in the Growing Up in New Zealand (2014) study to
differentiate between potential nuances that extend beyond household structures to
better predict the effects of father absence in the cohort. Such nuances could include
shared custody unions or non-residential fathers who are still involved in their children’s
lives. In addition, although some studies have connected a childs risk of obesity with
parental separation, a study by Schmeer (2012) found an association between children
gaining healthier body mass indexes with single-mothers entering new relationships.
Having discussed the potential impact of father absence on the physical
development of pre-teen children, I now turn to evidence looking at adolescents.
Adolescence represents a time in life when dramatic physical changes are occurring
simultaneously, with fluctuations in both height and weight, as well as physical signs of
sexual maturation. Considering that adolescence is a period in an individuals life
preceding adulthood, it is important to investigate how a fathers presence, or lack of,
affects these physical changes during this time.
For adolescent girls, there is research to suggest that father absence is linked to
earlier sexual maturation. A birth cohort study of 5,295 girls from the U.K. found
strong evidence of a correlation between father absence from birth until the age of five
and early sexual maturation (Culpin et al., 2014). Unlike previous studies mentioned,
this study adjusts for both socioeconomic factors and maternal characteristics and finds
some evidence to suggest that early sexual maturation in girls from single-mother
households can be explained by maternal depression and major financial problems.
These findings are concerning when taking into account research which suggests that
early sexual maturation in adolescent girls is linked to increased vulnerability to eating
disorders (Baker, Thornton, Lichtenstein, & Bulik, 2012) and further psychosocial
problems throughout adolescence (Copeland et al., 2010). Furthermore, there is
evidence to suggest that early pubertal onset predicts increases in risk factors such as
substance abuse, anti-social behaviours, and sexual risk-taking for both adolescent boys
and girls (Downing & Bellis, 2009). Supporting the above, Ikramullah, Manlove, Cui,
and Moore (2009) conducted a study which compared adolescent girls who had a strong
relationship with their fathers, to those who did not. Importantly, the research used a
randomised experimental design to eliminate genetic and environmental confounds.
What they found was that, before the age of 16, those girls with strong relationships
with their fathers were less likely to be involved in risky sexual behaviours.
While the above findings are concerning, as always, caution must be taken when
extrapolating such results to individuals lifespans. As much as a multitude of
correlations can be made between father absence and its seemingly resultant effects, it
is difficult to originate each occurrence to father absence. As demonstrated above, much
of the research can be just as easily mediated by other factors such as financial
circumstance or maternal predispositions. Even studies which adjust for said factors,
and which manipulate relevant controls, still cannot account for omitted data in
self-report questionnaires or other unknown confounds. While this is not a call for
inaction, for indeed these associations are concerning, there is reason to be hopeful. For
example, although early sexual maturation predicts psychosocial problems throughout
adolescence, there is evidence to suggest that this diminishes in young adulthood
(Copeland et al., 2010). Taken together, research discussed above seem to suggest
possible effects for father absence on physical development across childhood and
adolescence; though further research must take place to account for other, potentially
mediating factors.
Individuals undergo significant changes in cognition during adolescence. There are
gains and losses in perception, intellect, memory, learning and other mental processes.
Understandably, these mental processes are malleable by environmental contexts and so
require guidance and counsel. For Vygotsky (1998), social interaction plays a
fundamental role in the development of cognition. Specifically, Vygotsky (1998) argued
that children develop by virtue of interacting with a knowledgeable peer or adult;
thereby developing independent, problem-solving abilities. Given that children and
adolescents can be characterised by their lack of judgment and proneness to risky
behaviours, a closer look at how a fathers absence might affect these behaviours is
important.
Pougnet, Serbin, Stac, and Schwartzman (2011) examined the potential
associations between father absence and childrens cognitive functioning and found that
children whose fathers were present in the home from two- to five-years-old had higher
performance IQ scores than those whose fathers were absent. The researchers used a
sample of 138 children from the Concordia Longitudinal Risk Project, a large
intergenerational research programme based in Canada. The families were from lower to
middle class backgrounds and participated in two waves of data collection: the first
during middle childhood, and the second later in preadolescence. While research on
families from disadvantaged backgrounds is appreciated, the study would have been
more comprehensive if families from the whole spectrum of financial backgrounds were
included. Furthermore, the sample used in the Canadian study originated from a
demographically and culturally unique province; and so generalisation must be carried
out with caution.
Cognition represents a multiplicity of mechanisms which are deeply complex and
inextricably linked to both physical and psychosocial domains. One such mechanism is
that of unconscious thought; salient in its influence as well as its vulnerabilities. In
other words, thoughts have a lot to do with why and how an individual acts and are
easily influenced by external factors. Evidence of this, and pertinent to the subject at
hand, are experiments conducted by Delpriore and Hill (2013) which show that
reminders of paternal disengagement in childhood influence subsequent thoughts.
Participants, consisting of undergraduate, heterosexual females were asked to write an
essay about a time when their father was absent both physically and psychologically in
their lives. What the researchers found was that these reminders increased the womens
activation of sexual thoughts, negativity towards the use of sexual protection, and
sexual permissiveness. The foremost strength of this study is its experimental design;
the first, to my knowledge, of its kind as far as measuring the causal relationship
between father absence and changes in womens cognition. As with all studies that are
the first of their kind, replication must be done to rule out potential confounds present
in the original study. Taken together, with study limitations withstanding, these
findings seem to suggest that father absence may have effects on children’s and adult’s
cognitive development; however, further research on different populations is suggested.
Whereas discussions regarding physical and cognitive development underscore
more internal effects, psychosocial development refers to external effects. That is,
aspects in an individuals lifespan that refer to interpersonal skills, relationships, and
roles played in relation to society. Bronfenbrenner (1998) invites us to understand ones
psychosocial development within environmental contexts. For Bronfenbrenner, human
development does not happen in a vacuum but, rather, environmental factors are
central to ones development. Given that family is one of these environmental contexts,
it is therefore imperative to consider how a fathers absence may impact an individuals
lifespan.
There is research to suggest that interactions unique to the father-child
relationship, namely rough-and-tumble play, have a crucial role in childrens
psychosocial development. In an observational study of eighty-five children between
two- and six-years-old, researchers videotaped father-child dyads during
rough-and-tumble play and measured the fathers dominance and play frequency with
children during their first visits (Flanders, Leo, Paquette, Pihl, & Séguin, 2009). During
the second visit, six months later, the fathers completed a questionnaire on their childs
social behaviour. The researchers found a significant statistical interaction between
frequency of rough-and-tumble play and a childs physical aggression, with less dominant
fathers having more physically aggressive children (Flanders et al., 2009). Father
dominance was measured by the ways in which a father controlled the flow of play or
held the dominant position. Interestingly, in a follow-up study conducted five years
later, Flanders et al. (2009) found that the more physically aggressive children were less
able to regulate their emotions.
The assumption made here is that this unique father-child interaction affects
psychosocial development, however, alternative explanations are certainly possible. The
first is potential reverse-causality; that is, a childs characteristics may influence the
fathers response instead of the other way around. Put another way, it may be the case
that child temperament dictates the level of dominance a father exerts as opposed to the
father dictating the play itself. Another possible explanation is that children with poor
emotional regulation skills tend to be more aggressive, and so more difficult to control.
Mikkonen et al. (2016) suggest, in their lifelong observation of the Helsinki Birth
Cohort, that children born from single-mothers have approximately a three times
greater chance of being in the lowest groups for education and occupational outcomes.
Moreover, the results suggest that the children most likely to end up with these
outcomes are those who have absent fathers during childhood (Mikkonen et al., 2016).
As with the previous studies discussed, this study suggests that single-mother
households are more likely to have less financial resources during a childs fetal period
and childhood. Nutrition plays a considerable role in the development of vital organs
and may have long-term consequences for future development. Moreover, social stigmas
experienced by single mothers, as well as their children, may bring about stress
throughout their lifespans and thus affect development. All in all, the findings discussed
above suggest that father absence may have effects on children’s psychososocial
development across childhood and adulthood; however, further research is suggested in
ruling out other, potentially mediating factors.
Given the above research, I predict that those children from the Growing Up in
New Zealand (2014) cohort who grow up in father-absent households will be negatively
impacted in regard to their physical, cognitive, and psychosocial development.
Admittedly, each study cited here has its own strengths and limitations, be it in
research methods, experiment design, study controls, or relevance. These limitations
notwithstanding, it is important to consider that when taken together, these results
provide compelling evidence regarding the potential impacts of father absence for the
Growing Up in New Zealand (2014) cohort. These impacts may occur across childhood,
adolescence, and adulthood in respect to physical, cognitive, and psycho-social
development.
While there are certainly reasons to be concerned, it is difficult at this stage to
put forth recommendations to policy makers and government officials. Many more
studies must be conducted, especially within the New Zealand context, before wider
social change is inculcated. In regard to the Growing Up in New Zealand (2014) study,
more information must be garnered so that specific, robust research can be conducted.
For example, the finding that, at nine-months and two-years-old, 7.5% and 5% of
children live in solo mother households respectively, does not differentiate between
shared custodies or long-distance relationships. This is significant as there are studies
which suggest that children from shared parenting families, for example, have better
outcomes than children raised solely by one parent (Nielsen, 2014). Indeed, evidence
exists showing potential effects of father absence across multiple domains throughout an
individual’s lifespan; however, it is not sufficient to argue causation.
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