Fatherlessness

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Fatherlessness is the upbringing of a child only by the usually single mother and without a father or stepfather . If a child grows up without both parents , one speaks of orphans or social orphans . Around 1.35 million children in Germany are currently growing up without a father.

history

As a result of the two world wars , fatherlessness was a widespread phenomenon from the first half of the 20th century to well beyond the middle of the century.

Both the First and the Second World War, with their death toll in the millions, led to high rates of half and full orphans. Many fallen soldiers left families behind. After World War II, about a quarter of the children were fatherless because their fathers had been killed, missing, or taken prisoner of war . The proportion of children who grew up without a father at least temporarily during the war and afterwards through military service or prisoner-of-war is estimated at a further 25 to 30%.

In the decades that followed, the reasons for fatherlessness changed; the death of the father was replaced as the main cause by the separation of the parents.

Psychosocial Consequences

The psychosocial consequences a child suffers from growing up without one of the parents is assessed differently and is also strongly dependent on other factors. The concrete effects of fatherlessness or motherlessness showed up depending on the general psychological stability of a child and the wider environment of fixed reference persons. The personality of the educating parent also plays a central role.

In psychoanalysis it is assumed that it is very important for the development of a child that there is a third variable in the mother-child constellation , which relativizes the symbiotic relationship (see triangulation ). Whether this third person must necessarily be the father is a matter of dispute. Among other things, the psychoanalyst Berthold Rothschild assumes that this third person can just as easily be a new life companion of the mother, the uncle or the grandmother. There are also studies that show that growing up with homosexual parents (in so-called rainbow families ) does not have any negative effects on the children, regardless of whether they are parents of two men or two women.

The concept of symbiosis with the mother is now extremely controversial. It is more likely that the point is not that a third person has to "rescue" the child from the supposedly symbiotic relationship, but that it is better for a child to have at least two secure caregivers whom it can rely on Have behavioral variations and thus provide more orientation than a single person can - especially for a son. In addition, there is a risk that the child will gain too much weight if there is not an adult contact person for the single parent.

Nevertheless, from the point of view of some experts, fathers and mothers are seen as important for the upbringing of children. This is justified by their behavior, which tends to differ from that of the opposite sex, both in terms of their expectations of their children and in terms of how they deal physically with their children. They also regard fatherlessness or motherlessness as a problem for the development of gender identity . There are also studies that show that children who grew up with a single parent, even after decades, Some of them carry serious consequences with them, as well as others who could even prove positive consequences of fatherlessness, such as B. higher satisfaction in one's own partnership.

literature

  • Alexander Mitscherlich : On the way to a fatherless society. Social Psychology Ideas . 1963.
  • Shmuel Shulman, Inge Seiffge-Krenke : Fathers and Adolescents . Routledge, London 1997 ISBN 0-415-11792-5 .
  • Jürgen Grieser: The fantasized father. On the origin and function of the father image in the son . Tübingen: edition discord 1998.
  • Horst Petri : The drama of deprivation of the father. Chaos of Emotions - Powers of Healing . Freiburg u. a .: Herder 1999, ISBN 3-451-05217-2 . ( Review )
  • Frank Dammasch: The inner world of experiences of children of single mothers . Brandes + Apsel, 2000, ISBN 3-86099-298-8 .
  • Kornelia Steinhardt, Wilfried Datler, Johannes Gstach (eds.): The importance of the father in early childhood . Gießen: Psychosozial 2002, ISBN 3-89806-189-2 . ( Review (PDF))
  • Matthias Franz: When the father is missing . In psychology today . March 2004, pp. 20-25.
  • Hermann Schulz, Jürgen Reulecke , Hartmut Radebold : Sons without fathers - experiences of the war generation . Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2004; 3rd edition 2009, ISBN 3-86153-320-0 . ( Review )
  • Till van Rahden : What was the 'fatherless society'? Alexander Mitscherlich and the discussion about democracy and authority. In: Hilde Landweer, Catherine Newmark (Ed.): How masculine is authority? Feminist criticism and appropriation (= politics of gender relations vol. 60). Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2018, pp. 55–86.
  • Fabian W. Williges: Father Pictures - Conversations with Sons from Rump and Patchwork Families [Volume 1], Berlin 2017 ISBN 978-3-7450-1597-3 and Volume 2, Berlin 2019 ISBN 978-3-7485-0612-6 .

Film documentaries

  • Sons without fathers - from the loss of the war generation . Documentary by Andreas Fischer, Germany 2007, 80 minutes. First broadcast: May 20, 2007, 3sat

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Children without fathers . In: The world
  2. ↑ Fatherlessness during and after World War II