A Message to a Fatherless Generation: The Devastating Consequences of Absent Fathers in the Lives of Boys

By Shafeeq Ameen PhD

With the devastating impact of absent fathers in the lives of their sons, Shafeeq Ameen takes a compelling look at the pathology of violent young men who are disrespectful of women and authority figures and juxtapose those images with a generation of fragile individuals desperate to reconnect with a missing part of themselves.
After thirty years in the classroom, witnessing first hand the destructive consequences of absent fathers in the lives of their sons, A Message to a Fatherless Generation, addresses this issues head on and gives researched based solutions along with real life scenarios to help shine a spotlight on a problem that is destroying the lives of young men who will always feel a sense of loss and insecurity without having an involved father back in their lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781984587213

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Copyright © 2020 by Shafeeq Ameen, PH.D.

Library of Congress Control Number:              2020912563

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 08/10/2020

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CONTENTS

Dedication

Overview

Introduction

Chapter 1 My Guiding Light

Chapter 2 Following His Example

Chapter 3 My Role Model

Chapter 4 Can I Honor You?

Chapter 5 Know Thy Father

Conclusion

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

DEDICATION

T o all the fathers who are absent or uninvolved in the lives of their sons, this book is dedicated to you. The connection that a father has with his son is priceless. It forms the foundation that allows these young men to properly develop psychologically and prepares them for a world that can be difficult for an African American male. When fathers are involved in the lives of their sons, they help them navigate the obstacles that they are sure to encounter and provides them with the ability to face life with the confidence needed to be successful. Fathers, it is never too late to be actively involved in the lives of your sons. They need you!

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.

– Frederick Douglass

OVERVIEW

T here are two commonplace occurrences that happens in the maturation process of a boy becoming a man throughout many cities or states in the U.S. The all too familiar scene of a mother on a high school football field at halftime proudly walking arm in arm with her son during his final home game and driving her son to the mall as he gets fitted for his first tuxedo in preparation for the prom. The question I often ask is, Where are the fathers? There is a disturbingly high rate of African American men who are not present at these seemingly everyday events in the lives of their sons. Absent fathers have a profound impact on the psyche of a child. The sense of incompleteness permeates through the minds of these fragile children. A hole lives in their hearts and absent fathers are the only ones who can fill that space. Children who are raised without a father present in their lives live in a continued state of imbalance. This imbalance affects both boys and girls, but it is especially devastating for the same sex child. Boys miss a role model, a framework after which they can pattern their lives. They miss seeing how a man wakes up every morning and goes to work to provide for his family. They miss the sense of structure and protection that men provide in the household. In addition, especially in the African American community they miss the financial stability that a two-parent household provides.

The father’s absence is not a uniquely African American problem. It is an American problem that crosses racial, ethnic, socio-economic and class lines. Across the United States, fathers are quietly disappearing from the lives of children. For many years, this subtle and growing form of child abuse has been tolerated in communities throughout the county, among rich, poor, and middle class alike, and in nearly every ethnic group. Driven by growing rates of out-of-wedlock births, separations, and divorces, this trend is robbing millions of our nation’s children of the spiritual, emotional, and material support of their fathers.

On far too many occasions, women have been forced into the position of playing the role of both mother and father. They take on this role reluctantly only out of a sense of necessity. Just because the father is unwilling or unable to be in their child’s life, out of a need for self-preservation, the mothers’ internal instincts kicks in and they do what ever is necessary to preserve the sanctity of the family unit. This sense of duality, playing the role of both mother and father is not a natural position for women. Mothers and fathers are designed to be the ying and yang to each other. The sense of shared emotional and physical responsibility is a recipe for a