One out of every three American children lives in a home without their father. Whether through early death or divorce, incarceration or extreme neglect, twenty-four million children in the United States are left to grow up with the emptiness, guilt, self-doubt, underachievement, anger, and depression that a fatherless home can provoke.
For a growing boy, life without a father can lead to drug and/or alcohol abuse, trouble establishing appropriate sex roles and gender identity. What's more, young men who grow up in fatherless homes are twice as likely to be incarcerated.
Girls who live in fatherless homes are more susceptible to eating disorders. They are more likely to have sexual problems, becoming either fearful of their own sexuality or dangerously promiscuous. A study of 13,986 imprisoned women showed that more than half of them grew up without their father.
(For more statistical information, see "Facts & Figures" under the "What We Have Learned" menu above.)
This website is dedicated to the men and women who have grown up in fatherless homes or with abusive or "silent" fathers who fail to provide the support and security that every child needs. By bringing us all together in an atmosphere of love, support, and understanding, Growing Up Without A Father can help us all find the strength to look past our misfortunes and live full, productive, joyful lives. In doing so, perhaps we really can become the fathers we never had.
– THOMAS TAYLOR III
CEO/Founder
Growing Up Without A Father
ph: 404-539-0532
On Growing Up Without A Father:
"I grew up without a father around. And even though my sister and I were lucky enough to be raised by a wonderful mother and caring grandparents, I always felt his absence and wondered what it would have been like if he had been a greater presence in my life. I still do. It is perhaps for this reason that fatherhood is so important to me, and why I've tried so hard to be there for my own children."
– President Barack Obama, whose father left when Barack was two years old
"I know that I will never find my father in any other man who comes into my life, because it's a void in my life that can only be filled by him.
– Halle Berry, whose father left when Halle was four years old
"Have you any idea what I've been through because of you? Day after day in therapy, screaming for my daddy, sobbing for you to come home. What did you care? Away at sea all of those years." – John Lennon
"One night when my mother was gone, my drunken father got the vacuum cleaner extension cord and trapped me in a room and beat me until the skin was coming off my back."
– Tyler Perry