Fatherlessness is a Form of Trauma

Fatherlessness is not a generational curse, but it might be a psychological one.

I hate to say it, but my brothers are bad dads, and by bad, I mean perpetually absent from the lives of their children. Granted, I love both my brothers dearly. I was even idolizing them at one point in my adolescence, which led me to make a couple of questionable decisions of my own. But in the clarity of my adulthood, their decisions have become much harder, at times impossible, to defend. And you won’t hear me making a defense for them here, because there is no defense for fatherlessness. I do, however, understand my brothers. And it is because I understand them that I’m able to see their behavior beyond its’ brashness, past the point where it perpetuates the silent cycle of the dysfunctional family and crosses over into toxic and traumatic territory. Which is what fatherlessness is.

I was an adult when I learned that fatherlessness was much more severe than the people around me led me to believe. Unfortunately, I come from a community where adult men’s perpetual absence has become more accepted than alarming. To this day, many think little of the lifelong impact. In my neighborhood, fathers were considered a “blessing,” not a birthright. And while his immediate influence was unclear, I would learn just how significant my father’s presence was to my mental wellness and overall well-being. My brothers, however, didn’t appear to partake in that privilege. I had convinced myself that their fathers’ absence wouldn’t feel so fatal with my father, their stepfather, in the picture. But there was way more in the way of that warm reality than I understood, not just a genetic disconnect, but a psychological one.

Adverse childhood experiences (ACE’s) describe a wide range of unpleasant childhood experiences that can result in psychological, physical, and social problems across an individual’s lifespan. Examples of this include emotional and physical abuse, divorce, sexual assault and sexual abuse, physical neglect, and, you guessed it, abandonment. Now, some call these collective experiences generational curses, and in a sense, that too would be accurate being that their impact can last from one generation to the next. And while not all ACE’s are created equally, some can traumatize, fatherlessness for sure.