What Can the Church Do to Help?

It is not enough for the church to be merely aware of the implications of paternal absenteeism on daughters. There must be something that they can do to help. Daughters in this survey were asked to give their opinion of what they felt the church can do to help with the problem of paternal absenteeism and how it affects daughters. Most daughters in this study selected multiple answers from the options suggested. There were 53 daughters who believed that men in the church should act as father figures and 52 believed that the church should teach daughters how to cope with father absence. There were 76 daughters who felt that the church could help by teaching men how to be fathers to their daughters while 54 daughters said that churches should plan and host activities just for fathers and their daughters.

The most commonly selected option in this question was that the church should teach men how to be fathers to their daughters. This is significant to note. One may wonder about whether these daughters felt that fathers knew enough about how to be fathers to their girls. It is also important to note that a good number of the daughters in this study said that about half of the women said that men in the church could act as father figures. There is no way to completely eliminate the negative effects of paternal absenteeism on daughters because it causes a lot of emotional damage. However, it is refreshing to note that there is hope for the hurting heart. What is even better is that based on the responses to this question, daughters still believe that there is hope for something to be done.