Fatherless Daughters: Turning the Pain of Loss into the Power of Forgiveness

A moving, elegantly written, impressively researched book about what it means to lose a father to death or divorce, with advice for fatherless daughters on how to cope.

• An important topic: many books have been written about parental loss—specifically mother loss on daughters and father loss on sons—but few have explored the profound emotional, intellectual, and physical effects of father loss on girls. These effects can be devastating, coloring a fatherless daughter’s attitudes on love, marriage, parenting, career, and physical and emotional well-being. Fatherless Daughters brings this problem out of the shadows and helps women clearly see how father loss has affected their lives and what they can do about it.

• A mosaic of perspectives: Pamela Thomas, whose own father died when she was ten years old, interviewed more than 100 women who have lost their fathers in a variety of circumstances—through death, divorce, and abandonment— and at every age, from birth to late teens. Each story is unique (and many of them are included here, including the author’s own), but the common threads that run through them will inspire both recognition and relief in readers.

• Prescriptive and supportive: Divided into four sections—“ Fathering,” “Shock,” “Aftershock,” and “Coming to Terms”—Fatherless Daughters traces the experience of growing up without a father from the initial trauma of losing him, to the reverberations years later that reflect the impact of his loss. Thomas offers advice on ways women can come to terms with their loss, including getting to know one’s lost father, even if he has passed away. Filled with wisdom, Fatherless Daughters guides readers through their pain to a place of strength, hope, and grace.