Mario Conliffe, Hannah Barnhill Bayne, Ph.D.
The Lived Experiences of College Age Men Who are Fatherless
In this poster session I will present preliminary results from a pilot study on the
lived experiences of college age men (ages 18-26) whose father was either physically
and/or emotionally absent from their lives prior to age 13. Research has shown that
fatherless children tend to be at a greater risk along a number of dimensions: academic
challenges, alcohol and drug abuse, promiscuous behavior, mental health issues (e.g.,
depression, anxiety), attachment issues (e.g., poor emotional connection, difficulty
trusting others, an unfulfilled void), aggression, delinquency, crime, sexual abuse,
and poverty (Biller, 1993; Jones, 2004; Lamb & Tamis-LeMonda, 2004; Mitchell & King,
2009; National Fatherhood Initiative, 2008; Williams, 2013). However, there seems
to be a paucity of literature that voices this concern, and the limited scholarship
that exists seems dated. Yet, fatherlessness is an ongoing and growing epidemic in
the United States of America (National Fatherhood Initiative, 2008; United States
Census Bureau; 2015). This gap in literature and the ever-growing concerns that fatherlessness
presents indicate a need to empirically revisit and explore this phenomenon as experienced
by young men who tend to be at a greater disadvantage than women in the wake of fatherlessness
(Gruenert & Galligan, 2007). Thus, to further explore the aforementioned themes through
first-person accounts, I selected a qualitative study with a phenomenological design.
Data was collected via in-depth individual interviews regarding the unique experience
of fatherlessness, including the way fatherlessness has, if at all, impacted the college
age men who participated in this study. This poster presentation will include a description
of current literature, rationale for this qualitative study, procedures of data collection
and analysis, and preliminary results.