If you skim any forum where adults talk about their experiences with their parents, you’ll spot the trend of disappearing dads.
There are message boards where willing participants step in to offer fatherly advice to those whose dad is unavailable or unhelpful, discussions of the effect of an absent father, and titles like “ghost dad.” There’s an endless stream of jokes about dads who went out to buy milk and never returned.
The social phenomenon of the disappearing dad is a prominent image, with significant effects on kids, and a group of researchers is examining how it affects communication into adulthood.
Relevant disclaimer: this study looked at averages and statistics. The results do not invalidate any person whose experiences are different, take away from those dads who put in the effort, or deny that there are people in their 70s who keep up with modern technology.
The Struggle To Stay In Contact With An Adult Child
How often do you communicate with your adult children? How frequently do you interact with your parents?
This particular study examined communication between adult offspring between the ages of 30 and 55 and their parents. The researchers found that, on average, more communication was with mothers, that the reduced communication from fathers was more prominent when the child was a daughter, and that the child’s age at separation was also a factor.
Researchers rejected the assumption that dads don’t want to keep in touch with their kids and instead looked at factors that may make it harder for them.
The Numbers Tell A Very Stark Story Of Disappearing Dads
The study was conducted in Italy, where researchers explain that families tend to live near one another and keep in frequent contact, so when a parent is in contact with their adult child less than weekly, it really stands out. In addition to sorting contact into “frequent” and “not frequent,” they also divided types of contact into three categories: face-to-face; phone (voice calls, not video or text); and digital (including video calls and texts).
The gender of the offspring also seems to play a significant role. For instance, while the study found that (in separated families) 70% of grown daughters are in frequent face-to-face contact with their mothers, only 43% see their fathers as often. With sons, 56% say they see their mother frequently, with 50% seeing their fathers in person with similar frequency.
This study specifically focused on families in which the parents are separated. When they compared the stats to families where the parents are still together, they found that the contact between adult daughters and their mothers was about the same in families where there had been a separation and intact families (81% and 82% respectively reported at least a weekly phone call), but drops off slightly for sons and mothers (72% in families where the parents remain married; 61% when there’s been a divorce).
The gap widens significantly with dads. Daughters with still-married dads report at least a weekly phone call in 77% of cases, but if the parents are apart, only 44% of daughters say they have weekly contact with their dads. For adult sons, the frequency of phone contact with dad drops from 70% if he’s still married to their mom to 40% if he’s not.
What Are The Causes Of This Dad-Distancing Phenomenon?
There are a lot of theories about why so many dads are less connected to their kids after a divorce.
One of the most obvious factors is that society has normalized moms carrying most of the emotional labor, including phone calls and texting. We’ve created a society where it’s not expected that dads do those tasks, and one reason contact remains higher for those in intact marriages may be a wife who helps keep the relationship active.
That theory has a huge silver lining: if it’s a major factor, we should see this decrease in future generations as we continue normalizing dads doing emotional labor. (Remember, the ‘kids’ in this study are current adults.)
Another factor that the study considered is digital skills. The parents in the study were older, with the average age in the early 70s, and potentially less adept with technological means of keeping in touch.
What Do We Do To Correct This In Future Generations?
The changes in social norms that we’re already seeing, where gender roles are shifting and dads are more encouraged to be actively involved in their kids’ lives than just a few decades ago, may already improve this.
Shifts in the family court system that mean dads today are far more likely to get equal custody than they may have been in the past could also help. One factor the study noted was that daughters who were younger when the separation occurred were likely to have less contact with their dads than older ones, so more equal custody splits could result in better bonding during childhood and more ongoing connection.
There may also be less technological rift between generations for those currently raising kids, especially if our jobs continue implementing the same new technology popular for communication.
Dads (and honestly, all parents) can make intentional decisions to be more connected and make regular contact with their grown kids, even if that involves setting a reminder on their calendar or phone to reach out.