Is it better to have an absent father, a paper father or an abusive father?

Of the three situations, I would have to say an absentee father would be my chosen, followed by a “paper” father, then an abusive one. I hope it’s clear why I would pick the abusive one as a last resort.

To me, you don’t really miss what you never had. Parents can’t take a place of another parent, but I know my mother did a damn good job filling in the gaps. If I had someone there but I never felt like they cared or loved me as in a “paper dad” case, what good would it do to have them around?

I am not a psycologist, but I am going to say that of the three probably having a dad around, but absent at the same time, is probably best. Next would be no dad around at all. Last is the abusive father.

None of the options are a dad outside of the home who the child rarely sees right? Who is unreliable? I think that one can be worse than no dad to speak of.

I had a wonderful father growing up, yes he worked but he was there with us he played baseball with my brother, we went sledding with him, and camping with him, I have so many memories of him. The sad thing is that he passed away when I was only 17, you don’t want any of the above fathers you mentioned you want one who is there with you and your mother whether he is a biological or a step father. My mother re-married 10 years later to a wonder man who is wonderful to her and being grown really doesn’t have to be there for us but is. He is a wonderful step-father and my children and my neices and nephews all call him grandpa because he is a true grandpa to them just as my mother is a nana to them. So really you want someone who loves and wants to be there for you through the thick and thin of it.

Absent father. A paper father will have intermittent reinforcement, so it will be much harder for the child to learn not to count on their father because every now and again they can. I would argue that neglect is a form of abuse.

Of the three, a paper father may be best. At least a paper father financially supports you and provides the basic necessities for life. Paper comes in all different types of sizes and thicknesses, too. The right paper could be strong and supportive, like construction paper, and there only at the times you really need it to be.

An abusive parent is definitely the worst, but all can affect self-esteem adversely.

There aren’t many absolutes in parenting, but I don’t think I’m sticking my neck out too far by saying that abusive is never, ever an option. At all!

I’m not exactly clear on what the other two options you stated actually mean. Is the absent father a case of having ‘father unknown’ written on the birth certificate? That is the only case I can think of where the father is actually absent. Having a man who refuses to acknowledge paternity as a progenitor is not an ideal situation but depending on the circumstances and with love and care completely surmountable.

A paper father! as opposed to what?? I think you mean a human father. They are all human fathers, each and every one of them and that you can never ever change. He may not be a super hero father, or a TV star father or even a particularly anything father, but there you go. Human is what we all are, strangely enough.

All are tragedies, it is hard to say what is the worst.

it’s not clear to me what the diff is between absent father and paper father. If you know your father (he’s documented as your dad), but he’s not around, he would clarify as a paper father, but he is also absent.

I loved my father dearly, he had great traits, he had other not so great traits (like not wanting to be around us too much) but when he was ill he acknowledged all the things he was not so good at. At the same time the little that I was around him he taught me life skills. He never lost his temper, his strength and will for life were outstanding, which taught me to never give up. He wasn’t a talker and I knew if I wanted to talk about anything I would ask my mother, even with that, I was not the greatest teen he never disrespected me in any way and that gave me a certain respect for him, I treated my mother more crappy we had more of a “relationship”.

I would rather no father for my children than any of the above father listed here. I would go it alone if these were my choices. I adopted my kids and I am currently going it alone and have no problem with the task at hand if this were my choice of men, but I know there are good men out there that would have a positive effect on my kids should I get married so I choose to look and date to see if I shall find one.

My father probably loved me. I say probably because he never told me so. He was more than a paper father. He did a lot of things with the family. My main problem with him, however, was that I never knew how I was doing. He never told me if I was doing well enough.

I think that all three types of fathers abandon their children. This kind of abandonment often causes the children to be unable to trust others, and it makes it harder for them to establish good intimate relationships.

Absentee fathers, according to the people I’ve talked to (in fact, all of what I am about to say is based on personal experience, and should not be mistaken for scientific fact), leave children wondering what they did wrong. Why were they so bad they chased their fathers away? This tends to do a number of self-esteem. Maybe even inherently bad people.

Abusive fathers can do all kinds of damage. Their kids are left with a legacy of mistrust, abandoment, low self-esteem, hypersexuality, in ability to form attachments. I’d have to say they are the worst.

Paper fathers—there but not there, can model a fear of emotions, or a reluctance to share emotions. They can make it hard for children to face themselves. It leads to low self-esteem. The child feels like they aren’t good enough to deserve their father’s attention. They learn to hide everything inside and not admit to any weakness.

I think I would choose the paper father over the absentee father. I would most certainly not want the abusive father. They say that silence and emotional distance is abuse, too. That’s probably true.

The only time I ever saw my father showing emotion was when he was angry. I could never do good. Only bad. It’s been hard working through it, and I don’t know when (or if) it will end.

I’d say an absent father, because at least you’d have your fantasies. You can create him to be whatever you’d want him to be. With the paper father, you’d always be wishing he was more available, but he wouldn’t be and you’d wonder if there was something wrong with you that he should ignore you. The abusive father shouldn’t be in anyone’s picture.

I had an abusive, paper father who I wished were absent.

My father was around but paid hardly any attention to us. He has an excuse though as I suspect that he has Asperger’s syndrome. That being said it was awful growing up not understanding why he couldn’t even keep my name straight. He never tried to get to know me but I tried to get to know him when I was about 14. That ended up with us just fighting and I gave up.

As an adult he has never called me, wished me a happy birthday nor acknowledged my children in any meaningful fashion. When he passes away I don’t know that I will mourn him.

When I hear other people talk about their seemingly normal relationships with their fathers I become sad. That is something I will never experience.

I married a great man though. He is a good father to our children and a great husband to me.

Having an abusive parent is definitely worse. My mother was a rageaholic when I was a kid. If you were within her sights when she lost her temper you could count of having the crap beat out of you. The phrase, “it’ll be worse if run” was enough for you to stand still and wait for blows because it was worse if we ran. Best case scenario was hearing her raging before she saw you. If you could make it out of the house you did. I spent many an afternoon sitting in the rain wondering when it would be safe to go home.

I can’t speak to the absent father. If you had a really supportive mother then I don’t believe that dealing with it would be insurmountable.

@Avray I’m not exactly clear on what the other two options you stated actually mean. Is the absent father a case of having ‘father unknown’ written on the birth certificate? Absent as you know he exist and you know his name, might have even met him once but by his will he left and never looked back. You know he is out there somewhere but you don’t know where. He don’t call. don’t write, never makes contact.

A paper father! as opposed to what?? I think you mean a human father. Paper as in official but not in actual practice. If you get hurt in school or in trouble he might get the call if they can’t reach the mother. He signs permission slips for school functions but that is about it. He don’t go to practices, recitals, he don’t take the kids to the movies and hardly drives them anywhere they have to go. If you have a problem he hardly takes the time no matter how important it is to the kid. He don’t buy toys, clothes, no food really, he has little interest in or contribute to the day to day support of the kids; he is like the sperm donor that is there in physical body only but little more than that.

Better to have an absent or paper father than an abusive one. To me, the paper father is the best because at least he pays child support.

@Neizvestnaya He pays if he is outside the house but if he is still at home he is just a breathing body with the moniker of “dad”

@Hypocrisy_Central I think my answer sounded harsher than I’d intended, all of those scenarios are sad and difficult to deal with. There is always hope with the paper father that it will get better.

I’ve still been following this Q and was thinking that what I tend to observe is children can handle their “normal.” If the dad was never there, or paper, or so ething similiar it is just how it is inside that family. When the mom finally pushes the dad out, asks for a divorce, from the paper dad, and the routine of the child is disrupted, maybe that is very difficult for the children? At least initially; it can be the best thing in the long run. Abuse is never good of course, but there are different levels of abuse in my opinion. Some children feel they have been abused if there was verbal fighting in the home, so children accept it as how their family is. Some cultures do more fighting than others. Physical hitting and sexual abuse is another thing. Even verbally, people screaming is different than actually telling children they are worthless and stupid. Probably most families are not ideal, some dysfunction in some way.

Probably the biggest loss a child feels when their dad is not around is when comparing his family to the families of his friends, or when visiting a friends house everything seems so “normal” but you never know what is going on behind closed doors.

I guess also there might be the feeling of wanting to know your birth parent, like in the case of adoptions, a missing piece, or sadness and feelings of rejection possibly.

I have observed and personally experienced that the relationship between parents is usually the model the child comes to believe is the “normal” type of relationship to have with one another. Therefore given the 3 above, I would choose absent because at least that is not giving a child a distorted idea of what a relationship entails. If a child has a paper or abusive father, then that is what they think a father should be and imitate that behavior. This is often not blatant or obvious, but I think it is always there, sometimes hidden deeply inside, other times very close to the surface.

Just my opinion.

@rooeytoo Good point.