4) Three Long Term Effects of Childhood Loss of Father

In the last post you read about my step father’s acts of cruelty. In this post I’ll share some research on the long-term effects of losing a Dad in early childhood.

You have read my story of witnessing the loss of Dad to a heart attack when I was four years old and then our family experiencing abuse by my first step-dad.

But my story is one of thousands who lose a parent to death in the early years. I wanted to understand more about the long-term effects of this so I poked around and identified the following findings:

One Result: Perceived Forfeited Childhood

“Among the findings: 73% believe their lives would be ‘much better’ if their parents hadn’t died young; 66% said that after their loss ‘they felt they weren’t a kid anymore.”

Cause of Grieving in Children Often Not Recognized or Treated

“Childhood grief is “one of society’s most chronically painful yet most underestimated phenomena,” says Comfort Zone founder Lynne Hughes, who lost both her parents before she was 13. She says she is worried that educators, doctors, and the clergy get little or no training to help them recognize signs of loneliness, isolation and depression in grieving children—and in adults who lost parents in childhood.”

“Students are often promoted from grade to grade, with new teachers never being informed that they’re grieving. Adults visit physicians, speak of depression, but are never asked if a childhood loss might be a factor.”

Source: http://www.hellogrief.org/families-with-a-missing-piece/

Scars a Child in Ways Often Hidden but Powerful

“[Grief…]as a child can be a trauma very hard to overcome, especially at a very young age. It has consequences that go beyond the death of the loved one. It changes the child, it changes its future, its personality, its beliefs, its fears, its cravings, the way the child perceives the world.”

“It is hard for others, who have not had a similar experience, to understand what this means. It is hard for the adults around the child to comprehend how it scars the child. This scar will last forever. It will be with the child as she grows, year after year, until adulthood and beyond into the old age and it will never disappear.”

Source: http://algarveview.hubpages.com/hub/Losing-a-parent-as-a-child

Loss of Father Affects Intimacy

“The quality of a father-child relationship effects intimate relationships in adulthood February 19, 2007 Recent research at the University of Haifa School of Social Work revealed a connection between father-child relationship and the ability to achieve the interrelation intimacy in adulthood. The research, conducted by Dr. Nurit Nahmani, examined the quality of father-child relationships among three groups: orphans, children of divorced parents and children of intact families. 82% of the children of married parents reported being involved in an intimate relationship while only 62% of the orphans and 60% of the children of divorced parents did.”

Source: http://phys.org/news91115690.html#jCp

Book Cover Image: http://www.amazon.com/Losing-Parent-Death-Early-Years/dp/0943657725

Have you lost a parent during childhood?

Next: Grandma’s Breath Smelled Like Black Licorice

2) Why Dad’s Death Solved Mom’s Biggest Problem

In yesterday’s post you read about Dad’s train accident in 1938, 12 years before I was born.

Mom (Myna R. Schmidt) and Dad (Rush D. Stanley) met around 1933 at a friends house. After Dad’s legs were severed in the train accident in 1938, Mom worked as a domestic during the time Dad was recovering from his accident and later during the time my sisters (Pam and Darla) and brother (Dean) were very young.

I was the last of Mom’s four children and was born on April 21, 1950 at The Swedish Hospital in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The first house I lived in, at 1508 53rd Ave. North, Brooklyn Center, is shown in the image on the left.

In 1951 our family bought a run-down tavern in Range, Wisconsin called The Log Cabin Cafe and lived there approximately one-year. According to my brother Dean, he and I slept in the basement, which from time to time, flooded.

Can you pick out Mom and Dad?

In 1952  we moved to 53rd Avenue N. & Knox Avenue N. in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And after a few years later – as best folks can remember – we spent a winter on a frozen farm in Wisconsin.

A Small Child Witnesses Something Ghastly

“Dad, wake-up,” I recall saying, in 1954, when I was four years old. Dad couldn’t. He had just died of a heart attack at 39 years of age right there before my eyes. Dad was changing the license plates on the family car in our driveway. My brother Dean was 14 at the time and my sisters a few years older. How does the death (and witnessing it) of your father affect you the rest of your life? I cannot say for sure. Although it must. I miss him terribly at times. The photo just above shows Mom and me shortly after Dad’s passing. Notice the boy hanging his head? People speculate Mom was relieved when Dad died. She escaped the beatings. Their drunken combat was Mom’s biggest problem.

But Life Goes On, Doesn’t It?

“I can remember many times just having bread, butter and sugar for you kids,” said my Mom, remembering that winter in 1955 on  Grand mother’s farm-house in Luck, Wisconsin, after Dad passed away. “Hold on. Hold on tight!” Dean shouted, pulling me on the saucer as his longer legs devoured the snow-covered ground beneath us in the pasture on that run-down, secluded country farm. Holding on to the canvas straps of the saucer with half-frozen mittens,  I could hear the sound soft snow makes as it is crushed beneath the tin disk upon which I sat. Dean pulled the saucer really fast, occasionally twirling me in a giant circle. He never seemed to get tired.

Will your life be worthy of a story like this one when you pass away?

Next – Three Cruelest Acts My Step Father Ever Committed