With Father’s Day upon us, many of us will take a moment this weekend to show our appreciation to our dads. But what is often forgotten is that around 20% of fathers in the United States will likely not hear their child say “Happy Father’s Day.” For a number of reasons, they are absent fathers. For some, this is due to custodial entanglements with mothers; others are homeless, grappling with addiction or incarcerated.
In 2021 and 2022, as a group of interdisciplinary researchers, we spoke with dozens of fathers who were working day in and day out to enhance connections or relationships with their children. Each of these fathers had been grappling with these challenges — and still struggling to strengthen relationships with their children. From countless hours of interviews and focus groups, one of the key messages we received from these fathers is the need to feel heard.
Often our society undervalues the role of fathers as loving caretakers and reduces their contributions to meeting their children’s financial needs. The fathers we spoke with face layers of oppression and devaluation. Our respondents noted that they felt that American society, including the family court and legal systems, make assumptions about who they are as fathers based solely upon a skewed, yet entrenched, negative narrative.
