Ask Michael Bozeman how growing up without a father can affect a child, and his list is a long one.
“Studies have shown that children who grow up without a father are more likely to be aggressive, be depressed, have low self-esteem, do poorly in school, do drugs and be incarcerated,” said Bozeman, a counselor at Pathways Professional Counseling.
But according to him and other researchers, the difference can be even bigger than those things.
View of Christ
Bozeman says children who grow up without a father may struggle to have an accurate view of Christ. And a recent medical study shows that fatherlessness even affects a child’s DNA, shortening the chromosomes that are believed to correspond to health and longevity.
The DNA effect surprised Dr. Daniel Notterman of Princeton University, who co-authored the DNA study.
“Children need fathers; they’re very important,” said Notterman, according to The Christian Post. “They play an economic role, but also provide love and attention, stability and cohesion, and they’re role models.”
Children who lack a father in the home apparently react physically to that void, much as people do to stress and diet, the study showed. Fatherless children have much shorter telomeres, the caps at the end of chromosomes that researchers say are indicators of a person’s length of life.
The research involved about 5,000 children who are part of the federally funded Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, according to the Post. For children who whose fathers died or were imprisoned before they turned 5, the impact on DNA was the worst.
The loss of a father impacted boys’ telomeres 40 percent more than those of girls.
But Bozeman said the effect of fatherlessness that concerns him the most is the negative way that the children would view Christ.
“A father’s role is to help their child understand the characteristics of God through exhibiting those characteristics in their relationship with them,” he said. “The promise the writer of Hebrews shares that Christ will never leave us is easily lost on the child that grows up without a father.”
Christ-centered fathers
What they have seen contradicts everything they are told to believe about their heavenly Father, Bozeman said.
“Christ-centered fathers that raise Christ-centered children may not always be perfect or get it right, but those fathers definitely give their children a better view of Christ,” he said. (TAB)
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