A Fathers Impact

2 Pages 465 Words

A father’s absence in a child’s life can have a significant impact on a child, but wether it is an important factor in criminal behavior is something that I seriously doubt. A father’s absence can cause several key problems. The first of which is that it creates a single parent household. This means less supervision with the one parent being forced to work and often time work long hours to support the family. The less supervision means that there is more of a possibility for peer influence in a child’s life, especially during those key after school hours when most juvenile crimes are committed. However, I believe while those things do factor in, the most important factor in a child’s life is the example and morals guidance provided by the mother in the father’s absence. I will use myself as an example. My father was abusive, and an alcoholic and my mother left him when I was 5. While I’m sure this was somewhat traumatic for me at the time, its impact was minimal. Despite the fact that we lived below the poverty line and in government housing my mother continued to practice and teach good moral character. Even after she joined the military, we still struggled financially as she was a single mother with two children. The key to I guess my so called criminal prevention was that she laid down strict rules and guidelines. Although she was not around nearly as much as she would have liked, when she was, she made sure that we were loved and guided. It sounds simple, and perhaps it is. Criminal behavior is learned. It is not a result of the absence of something missing in your life. You can’t miss what you never had. The problem develops when a mother fails to provide guidance in the absence of the other parent. Often single mothers are young and aren’t prepared for motherhood. In turn they themselves aren’t sure how to guide a child, or don’t realize the impact that a lack of supervision will have on th...