Whatever Happened to Daddy's Little Girl? The Impact of Fatherlessness on Black Women by Jonetta Rose Barras Review by Paul Jimenez "Truth! Truth; Truth! Truth," tolled the bell (or is it "told the bell"?) as its chorus echoed and reechoed from mountainside to mountainside across the valleys and plains of psychological insight. And the ring of truth, distinct and distinguishable, is to be found in the book Whatever Happened to Daddy's Little Girl? The Impact of Fatherlessness on Black Women The

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... author has brought rays of light to the subconscious and magnum doses of warmth to help break up the submerged portion of that iceberg. The book's theme, and the problem it delineates, is fatherless daughters-specifically as it relates to African-American women. But it would be remiss to exclude the book from any type of study relating to the effects of parental deprivation (eg, fatherless sons, motherless daughters, motherless sons). With the huge increase of single-parent, nuclear families in this country, this condition merits urgent attention before it becomes an epidemic, if it isn't already. With many characteristics of a disease, this dis-ease of fatherlessness is intergenerational. Mom passes the values and attitudes that define the condition to her daughter, who in turn wills it to her daughter-something like a family heirloom. The source of this particular disease is the absence of the child's father. The reason for the absence, at least initially, does not matter. It could be the father's death; the parents divorcing; a workaholic father; or a father who is so emotionally withdrawn that he doesn't display any care, attention, or affection toward his daughter. She, in her undeveloped reasoning, interprets this absence as rejection or abandonment and wonders why she was so singularly expelled from her father's life and denied his gifts. The best answer that her immaturity can come up with is that she is not worthy of her father's attention, or that she is in some manner defective or unlovable, or that she is deficient in some quality her father admires. She blames herself and promptly proceeds to hide the pain. Burying the pain and at the same time wishing to earn her father's attention (but not having the vaguest idea of how to do this), she compromises her integrity, her sense of worth, and her self-esteem-in other words, her very sense of self. The pain, which is the consequence concomitant with the sense of loss, becomes the prime mover (though subconsciously) of her existence-of her need to survive. This pain-sometimes sensed as a void-defines, colors, and controls virtually every facet of her life-from the attitude she projects onto people, to how she interprets her life events and experiences. The fatherless daughter might react with aggression or suspicion to a neutral or even a positive remark. Everything becomes tainted with the potential of another loss, more pain, and a greater void-something that fatherless daughters try to minimize. The author says, "They sing a fatherless song." I'll play on a word and say they do "a-void-dance." The book's author identifies five characteristics of the Fatherless Woman Syndrome. First, the "un" factor. The fatherless daughter feels unworthy and unlovable. And though she may have buried (denied) these feelings, her unconscious guides her into relationships and circumstances where these dormant feelings are awakened-to her surprise and anguish! The second factor is the "triple fear" of rejection, abandonment, and commitment. Rejection and abandonment we have touched on, but the fear of commitment is explained by once being so badly burned by commitment to her father, or father-surrogate,-she is reluctant to experiment with commitment again. The third factor is sexual healing, which may range from promiscuity to abstinence, but the consistent element throughout is the lack of intimacy. In true intimacy, a person loses momen-