Causes of Paternal Absenteeism in Society

There has been a tremendous breakdown in the way that the society views and depicts family life. In a newspaper article titled, “More moms than dads”, Kevin Baldeosingh revealed that there were approximately “70, 000 fewer fathers than mothers in Trinidad and Tobago” (June 2011). According to Baldeosingh, this figure reflected that less and less fathers were being involved in the lives of their children and as such were failing to acknowledge them as their own. Furthermore, the author pointed to the possibility that some fathers did not know about their offspring and consequently reported that they had no children. Such a statistic causes one to wonder about the thousands of Trinidadian and Tobagonian children who remained unclaimed by their fathers. Anyone whose heart goes out to youth would wonder about what goes through the minds of children, teenagers and even adults who have been disowned by their fathers.

            While some authors and researchers have argued that the reason for the breakdown of the society is tied to economic instability and political turmoil rather than the family, it cannot be denied that the breakdown in family life does play a significant role in the development of the children who emerge from them. In fact, statistics have shown that most of the persons, who are behind bars in jail, came from broken homes (Baldeosingh, February 2008). If the elements of the broken home had no role to play in the dysfunction of individuals in the society, then why would this be a common thread that runs throughout this group of people? More and more fathers are denying their rights to their children. In 1994, Berrington pointed out that in Caribbean territories, women were less likely to marry and separation from their spouses as a result of divorce and legal separation was more common in this region than in others (as cited in Scott, Treas & Richards, 2004, p. 274). These facts point to the unfortunate reality that paternal absenteeism is a problem in the society which needs to be addressed with urgency.

According to the 2002 Census in Guyana (Marriage, Divorce and Cohabitation, 2002, p. 2), there was a high incidence of young people who were deciding to become married so that by the time they reached the age range of 24 – 29, only 4% of them were unmarried.  However, this same report showed that the rate of divorce also increased tremendously with age. Marital discord accounts for one of the causes of paternal absenteeism since it has been more common for fathers to leave the mothers in the home with the children than for mothers to leave the fathers with the children. As stated earlier, in 1982, 30% of the homes in the Caribbean were headed by women (as cited in Roopnarine & Brown, 1997, p.4). The reality is that there has not been much of a decline in the rates of divorce or marital separation. As such, paternal absenteeism has been perpetuated through the years.