How Is a Father Figure Important in a Girl's Life?

How is a Father Figure Important in a Girl's Life?

Debbie Jordan

Seminole State College of Florida

Abstract

This research paper involves interviews with two people of two different age groups. Analyzing the psychoanalytic theory like Freud and Erikson did, the main question to be answered is just how a father figure is important in a girl's life? To compare and contrast, one interview was done with someone who had a father figure growing up and the other did not. My results were as I suspected that a father figure is very important in a girl's life as they grow up. The child has a sense of more self-esteem and secureness with herself and usually makes better choices with life decisions entering into her adulthood years.

How is a Father Figure Important in a Girl's Life?

I chose this topic for basic curiosity on my behalf. I was interested in looking up studies on this particular subject, maybe to better understand my own life, especially because I recently lost my father. The theory I am focusing on is the psychoanalytic theory, which I found some very interesting facts from our text expressed by Sigmund Freud and Erik Erikson, to whom I totally agree with their theories on this subject. One in particular fact is that with Freud, he believed that adult personalities and habits are stemmed from childhood, (Berber, 2011) which in my opinion means your childhood experiences whether good or bad plays a significant role in your future as an adult. Same goes for Erikson when he stated that unresolved issues from your childhood can cause conflicts in your adult life. (Berger, 2011) As I conducted my interviews I had a set of specific questions that were asked to each one of my participants. My main focus was to find out at all if the theories in which both Erikson and Freud stated in our textbook were at all going to coincide with my outcome from these two interviews. My goal is to find out just how important is a father figure, especially in a girl's life, and that having a father can make a positive difference in a child's life compared to not having one.

My first interview was with a 35 year old female(Betty), who did not grow up with a father figure and as a result found herself repeating the similar patterns of wrong choices especially in her relationships with men. She is my neighbor, so I interviewed her at her house and spent about an hour and a half with her. When asked if she felt she missed anything not having a father growing up in her life, Betty (personal communication, November 12, 2012)

responded by saying, "I feel I missed out on that sense of security and bond that some of my other friends had with their fathers. My mother was not around much, she was busy working, so I mostly hung out with my friends growing up". As I stated before in my introduction about basing my information from these two interviews on the psychoanalytic theory, one other theory could be considered. The fact she spent most of her time with her friends, could be an example of the social learning theory, especially with this next statement. Betty also stated ( personal communication, November 12, 2012) " I did not feel very confident about myself and really did not know how to deal with it, basically because no one was really around, so I found myself starting to hang with the wrong crowd and got into drinking and drugs". She really did not have any close relationship with any type of parent, which brings me to something that was written in an article I found on line about psychoanalysis. As you grow older, if you do not have a strong bond, and or healthy role model with at least one of your parents, most likely you will continue to struggle with relationships into your early adulthood, possibly even longer. (Berman, 1995) It begins with trust, security and self-esteem. As a parent, these are very important to instill in your children, especially in the early years. Overall, I would summarize Betty's experience growing up without a father figure shows just how important it is to have one let alone a mother figure also. It effects many decisions one makes growing up.

My second interview was with a woman I work with at Kidtown, so we did the interview over nap time, approximately a little over an hour. Haley is about 58 years old, she would not reveal exactly how old she was, but I know she is older than me, and I am 50. Haley did have a

father but he was not in the picture, her step father was and Haley (personal communication, November 9, 2012) stated "Even though he came into my life during my teenage years, he always made me feel like I was his own from the very beginning. He was my Rock and Hero!" Haley (personal communication, November 9, 2012) also added "My mother was very military, which I feel helped me when my real father was not there. Definitely, if my step father had not been in my life, I would not have the faith or the secure feeling within myself that I feel today, I would have a void, for sure!" In a situation where a child has a strong parent at first, then if a father figure steps into the picture it could possibly go either way with the child but hopefully with patience, understanding, love, and guidance, a child may be able to deal with any problems that might arise when having the support of two parents. Unfortunately, her step father past away 4 years ago,