This article is dedicated to the loving memory of my e-do-da, Matthew Jacob Fields.
Data gathered in 2022 showed that 18.3 million children in the United States, or roughly 1 in 4 children, lived without a father in the home. Fathers are absent from approximately 80% of single-parent homes, wherein poverty, teen pregnancy, mental health, and substance abuse issues step in and take their place. Children who come from these broken homes are more likely to experience behavioral problems and disorders and higher rates of suicide. 90% of homeless and runaway youths come from fatherless homes, all of which combined have created a national crisis for the United States and the entire world. With these glaring statistics for the general population, it is tragic that fatherlessness in Indian Country has soared to an all-time high. According to available data, the statistics show that around 50% of Native American children reside in single-parent families.
The absence of fathers in Indian Country often intersects with the effects of historical trauma, including the loss of land, forced relocation, and the breakdown of Indigenous families due to government policies like the Indian Boarding schools. These traumatic experiences can manifest across generations, creating deep-seated emotional and cultural disconnection. In the time before colonization, parenthood was sacred, and the family was at the root of our society. Everyone pitched in to help raise young ones, to prepare the next generation to carry on our ancestors’ traditional ways and knowledge.
Now, in modern times, the care of young ones and the future of our people are being raised by their grandparents or being put into the foster care system. Native children are four times more likely to be placed into foster care than their non-native counterparts. Through ICWA, the Indian Child Welfare Act was made into law in 1978. Native children are supposed to be placed with Native families. Still, there are high removal rates from these families due to a lack of culturally competent state child welfare standards and systematic due process violations.
From the eras of the Indian Boarding schools here in the United States to First Nation children being lost in the Sixties Scoop over in Canada, there have been constant attempts by our white counterparts to eliminate the traditional Indigenous family time and time again. They saw strength and unity among us; to them, that must have been a foreign concept, and they began feeling threatened. If they could get to the root of our way of life, they must have assumed that our people would fall apart, and they were right. Alcoholism, severe types of abuse, and the murder and kidnappings of our women, men, and children brought on by white settlers and their churches plummeted Native people into a time of great sorrow, and we are still working to this day to rebuild and heal from those dark times.
Absent fathers in Indigenous homes are often due to the imprisonment, substance abuse, and deaths of the parent, and it is left to the mother and community to rear the children and handle the home. But more than likely, the mother also turns to substances and physical, emotional, and verbal abuse of her children to ease her loss, and the young ones she has taken care of pay the price. It is a known part of Indigenous life that we will be victimized within our lifetimes by a variety of factors and issues. From partners who say they love you one minute and then beat you the next to trusted family members and friends who perpetrate child sexual abuse crimes, it is so hard to feel safe in any space we go into.
There are hardly any databases on these heinous acts, though, for there is a deep mistrust of law enforcement and child protection services, and rightfully so. Parents and legal guardians fear that reporting any type of abuse will result in their families being ripped apart. So, it is often more than not that such issues are handled within the close-knit tribal community’s justice system.
With so much being put onto Indigenous people over the years, such as generational trauma and loss of traditional ways, it is no wonder that the cornerstone of most families would disintegrate over time. There are many cases as well where the father in a Native family does stay, but they constantly fight with their partners, belittle the children, and carry on extramarital affairs. In these cases, where the environment is toxic, having an absent parent is beneficial but still leads to unimaginable loss and strife within the family unit for years and generations to come.
There is hope, though! Organizations like the Native American Fatherhood & Families Association and the Wellbriety movement, love, kindness, and support spread like wildfire throughout Indian country and beyond. It will take a lot of time and effort to begin paving a path toward growth and healing for Native American men, who are often overlooked in their pain and suffering. They are supposed to be seen and not heard, for they are the future leaders and heads of households, so who has time to hear about their mental illness and trauma? Suicide rates have skyrocketed over the last few decades, with Native American men more likely to commit suicide and leave behind unimaginable loss for their people.
Especially for Native youth, suicide, and mental health issues have become the norm on most Indigenous reservations, and it is not uncommon anymore for them to attend several of their friends or family member’s funerals before they are even 18. Reservations are likened to concentration camps, which is quite literally not an exaggeration as Hitler modeled his death camps after he saw how the American government treated Native Americans. They are a cruel tactic forced upon us by them, and they get worse every year, every decade that goes by.
With the wounds inflicted upon us by colonizers, it will take effort and time to heal so long as we stay committed to righting the wrongs that were committed and never letting them define us. By pushing for legislative and economic change on and off the reservations for Native people across the board, we can unite and create a prosperous time to come for our youth.
With all that we face, always know and remember that being Indigenous is sacred. From the time we are born to when we join our Creator again, every bit that comes in between these moments is precious. We must band together and beat the stereotypes and statistics put upon our people. Truly, though, it starts with the family, so most importantly of all, for your children and those around you, “Show them love without limits.”
