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Absentee Fathers and the Effect on Their Children

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Submitted By 1761rodeo
Words 3283
Pages 14
English Composition II
14 November 2011 Bill is a 38 year old man whom most of his adult life has been spent in and out of prison. He is very articulate and appears to be quite intelligent. We sat down to talk, and I asked him what had happened in his life that had led him to a life of trouble? He stares at the floor, sighs and then begins to talk. “I didn’t have a father to guide me” he exclaims. His father had abandoned him and his teen mother when he was just months old. Bill’s mother had to quit school and go to work to support him. He jumped from babysitter to babysitter throughout his childhood. His mother was forced to work two jobs and was absent most of the time. There has been occasions when his mother was without work and they ended up on welfare. With his father not in the picture and his mother at work most of the time, he found himself seeking refuge with the wrong crowd of people. He got involved with drugs, and started selling them to support his habit, and ended up dropping out of school. Bill practically grew up alone, with no guidance, discipline or supervision. He has a son, whom was born out of wedlock, and has no contact with him. In spite of his apparent intelligence and with no formal education, he is not able to get a decent job. He works here-and-there doing manual labor, but he is going nowhere. He considers himself a failure and suffers from depression. Bill has tried to locate his father to ask him why he did not want him, and why he had abandoned him. Unfortunately, he said he has not been able to find him. Every question I asked him about his life’s mistakes led him to say “I did not have a father to guide me.” Unfortunately Bill is repeating his father’s behavior pattern for he has also abandoned his own child (William Jones). Non-resident fathers are fathers who do not live with their children in the same

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