Absent Father vs. Father with alcohol addiction
I was raised with a father who was dependent on alcohol and who was very abusive emotionally but sometimes physically towards my mother. At that time I wished I wouldn't have a father at all. But I know he was there to support us financially and sometimes it wasn't that bad. During the time when he was sober and behaving normally, he was showing affection and love towards us.
Now when I look at it I wonder if it's better to have an absent father or a father with dependent drinking who is present. Is there any study showing that having an abusive father dependent on alcohol is better than an absent one?
My parents' generation tended to stay in a marriage in spite of these problems. But now people advise to get a divorce. I'm wondering which is better for the children? All the studies I found only compare good present fathers vs absent ones.
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Clearly it's all a matter of degree.
An absent father is not good for the child. And there are different kinds of "absent" fathers: Fathers who just disappear, fathers who disappear but support the mother / child financially, fathers who come back regularly or irregularly. Fathers who die. Fathers who are in jail (guilty or innocently), or away for their job for long times.
A father dependent on alcohol isn't good for the child, but there are various degrees how strong the dependency is, and how it affects everyday life. One person may be a total wreck all week, another may disappear once a month for a weekend and may never be visibly drunk at home. And of course a person can drink too much without being alcohol dependent (yet).
An abusive father (and abusive and alcohol dependent may be statistically correlated, but any individual may be one but not the other) isn't good for the child, but again there is a huge range from mostly harmless to absolutely harmful behaviour.
So you need to weigh up, depending on an individual case, what causes more and what causes less damage. Every individual case will be different.
In practice, no law can force a father to stay with the child. And in cases where the law forces the father to leave the child, it is obviously assumed that the father being present is so harmful that an absent father cannot possibly be worse.
The interesting case would be a father asking himself whether it is better for the children if he leaves. You think your father should have asked himself that question. On the other hand, being an adult now, you could ask yourself whether and how much damage would have been caused to the father by leaving. Did having a wife and children keep him from going completely under?
Children have a human right to a family life with their parents; and parents have a human right to a family life with their children; but everything must be done with the child's best interests in mind.
Children need to be protected from harm. Witnessing abuse is harmful. Children need to be protected from that. Being in the presence of a drunk person carries increased risk of accidental harm; and there's some risk just from witnessing someone being drunk. Note use of the word drunk there - some of the harms are reduced if the person with dependant drinking is not drunk when in the presence of the child.
That evidence of harm caused by abusive or drunk parents is pretty clear.
It's still possible for a violent parent with problem or dependant drinking to have contact with their child. (So long as the parent has not been violent to the child.). This might be at a children's contact centre, with constant one to one supervision to start, and then moving to group supervision. If the parent proves trust (that they don't turn up to contact sessions drunk, or that they have a close and loving bond with the child) they can move to unsupervised access.
But in general: protect children from harm; drunk violent parents are a source of significant risks of harm.
I know this is pretty old but found it searching for answers. I will post something else that hasn't been mentioned. I left the man I loved after I delivered his baby because of his drinking, which began during my pregnancy. He would wake up at 5am cracking a beer and that would be pretty much how his day would go until 2am the following morning when he'd fall asleep somewhere in the apartment, he didn't always make it to the bed.
He'd go out to the clubs and bring random strangers home with him (men) to 'continue' the party at our apartment. Once, when our son was only about 2 months old, he brought home a group of strange men around 3am and came busting through the door, flicked on the stereo blasting music and waking us all up. I took my son and left him there with them and when I returned the next day, the men had stolen all of my jewelry.
That is why I left him. This was my life during my pregnancy which I spent alone most of the time. I had to take 8 unpaid weeks off after my c-Section and had to wait until I was able to return to work. By then, he had lost his job due to drinking on the job so often and I was left paying all the bills. My son hasn't seen his father in many years and I refuse to leave him alone with him. Not out of vengeance but because my son is my life and I just can't lose him. I tried to get him help and he refused, he thinks I'm just a boring person and sees nothing wrong with his life. I wish people would consider, it's not just that someone drinks, it's how the drinking affects them.
It's best for the well-being of the child that he/she is not living in an environment that is unstable. Alcoholics and drug users should not be positioned as authority figures and/or role models in his/her life, this parent is not a sound individual and this situation can prove very dangerous for the child. The alcoholic parent must either voluntarily leave and seek treatment if he wants to be in the child's life, or the other parent must have him removed from the home environment. The child has to be able to look to his/her home for safety and stability.
Sounds like you are making up exscuses for the man .. he had an addiction and children seeing that will think it's ok .. I lived with that and my mother and father we're divorced early thank God for my mother who didn't let me around d that.. later in life he turned his life around and changed his life for me as his child. If your children are watching you pass out drunk every night then that's something they should not show a child and it is something that is a choice .. not a disease .. if you want to change for your children you will if you don't you won't.. children deserve the best bit the you'll do with that what I have because I need money for beer .. it's just a sad addiction really for the kids .
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