Young people, the eclipse of the figure of the father: according to research on the obscuring of one of the two parental presences which doubles in the case of separated parents

ROMA – Research demonstrates the darkening of the figure of the father, with a devaluation that doubles in the case of separated parents. Children seek authority in the figure of their mother. in changing families. Research on more than 4 thousand students. Families are constantly evolving and so is the ONLUS Forest Foundation decided to interview 4,383 students aged between 18 and 20 from high schools in Padua and Lecce, between October 2022 and March 2024, to understand how they perceive the parental role and how crucial it is for children’s risky behaviour. “For fifteen years – explains Carlo Foresta, former professor of Endocrinology at the University of Padua and president of the Foresta Onlus Foundation – speaking to thousands of students, we have collected a lot of material to compare the changes in the children’s behavior and family context”.

Problematic father, for girls. “This year we decided to ask the children how they perceived the parental role within the family, between friendly, authoritative, indifferent and problematic, with a distinction between mother and father” explains Foresta. Overall, the maternal figure is seen more frequently as friendly (51.8% vs 44% of fathers), but for girls the paternal figure is more often seen as problematic (10% vs 5% of male peers). Even more marked is the difference in considering the paternal role authoritative in boys (42.2%) compared to girls (27.7%). Authoritative mother, for the boys. Compared to 2005, when the project started, the parents are four years older. The average age of the mother when the child is 18 is 50.7 and that of the father is 54. Furthermore, one boy in five is the child of separated or divorced people. In this single-parent context, the mother is more often described as authoritative by her sons (50%), but much less by her daughters (32.8%), who instead describe her as friendly in 55% of cases compared to only 29.8 % of male peers.

Separated fathers. “In the eyes of the children, the authority of a separated father is halved (from 45 to 23% for males, and from 30 to 15% for females); the risk of appearing indifferent increases 2-3 times, and of being problematic up to 4-5 times compared to married fathers. This devaluation seems more intense in male children, for whom the figure of the father as an authoritative reference collapses”. Paradigm shift. Foresta, who was also a member of the Superior Council of Health, explains: “The study shows that children look for this characteristic in their mother after separation. We are still unable to understand the consequences of this paradigm shift. The constant increase in divorces and separations aligns with that necessary and desirable process of destructuring the patriarchal model. However, the outcomes of this process appear imperfect, and its sometimes merits economic independence for themselves and their children.”

What to do? “In light of these data – comments the president of the Foresta Onlus Foundation – it is essential to return to thinking about the symbolic, psychological and social dynamics that are triggered within family dynamics, the contemporary ones, which in their incessant and lively structural shuffling risk losing sight of a central objective: the well-being of tomorrow’s generations and a sense of harmonious continuity between different generations. If we are abandoning a patricentric and patrilineal value system, we must then ask ourselves: what is our vision of the future?”