The similarity of one at-risk teen girl to another can be quite astounding. I should know, I was one of those girls. The book Women and the Criminal Justice System identifies an at-risk teen girl as such: “She is 13 to 18 years old. She has experienced academic failure, truancy, and dropping out. She has a history of repeat victimization, especially physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. She is from an unstable family background that includes involvement in the criminal justice system, lack of connectedness, and social isolation. She has a history of unhealthy dependent relationships, especially with older males. She has mental health issues, including a history of substance abuse. She is apt to be a member of a community of color.”

It is my belief that many of at-risk girls’ issues stem from the absence of a strong family support group. Say, the lack of a parent, especially a father. They could be lacking a parental figure due to death, divorce, or incarceration. The important thing is that they are missing.

According to a study titled The Impact of Father Absence on Daughter Sexual Development and Behaviors: Implications for Professional Counselors, father absence due to divorce has a higher negative impact on daughters than it does sons, despite fathers spending more times with their sons. This is due to the fact that daughters learn to trust, appreciate and relate to males through interaction with their fathers.

Statistically, this results in higher rates of teen marriage, and higher divorce rates to go with that, teen pregnancy rates at 2 and ½ times the norm, and single parenthood. Girls with absent fathers become sexually active younger than the norm, at a rate four times the norm. This goes along with being more likely to exhibit antisocial behavior, increased self-image problems, more psychological problems, and a history of abuse of drugs or alcohol.

Additionally, when a father is absent during a daughter’s pre-adolescent and adolescent years, it shows on her standardized test scores, IQ scores and school performance. All of these mentioned things line up with Women and the Criminal Justice System’s analysis of an at-risk teen girl.

Is it a coincidence that the identifying factors of being an at-risk teenaged girl are the same as the results of being a female with an absent father? I do not believe so. Although correlation does not necessarily equal causation, I believe there is a strong case here for these two factors being related.

I was an at-risk teenaged girl. I was also the product of a father absent home. Growing up, I was not necessarily conscious of the reasons behind the things I did. I did not realize that I was being victimized repeatedly, I thought it was normal. I did not think that dating older men (which led to being victimized more frequently) was a bad thing. I did not think that my mental health issues were a big deal.

And I certainly did not think that my father caused any of these problems, because if you had asked me about my father, my answer was generally to shrug and say “Oh, I don’t know, I have not seen him for (blank) amount of years” and I would leave it at that. To me, he was gone, so he didn’t matter, there was no reason to talk about it, he did not affect me.

Little did I know that he affected me more than I could have thought. My father’s absence led to me becoming an at-risk teenaged girl. I find myself affected by it even now. I find myself chasing older men, subjecting myself to a poor self-image, and struggling with mental illness.

However, while I may be a product of my past, I am not defined by my past. I am not just a former at-risk teenaged girl. I am secure in who I am as a survivor. I made it through those years without being too badly damaged.

There are many girls out there who went through the same things as I did, growing up without a father, and falling into the same cycle of victimization as I did. The main difference is that they fell into the cycle of offending and reoffending. These are the girls who need help. These are the girls who did not have the strong support that they needed.

I wish I could say I knew how to fix the problem, though I do not. I believe it is a societal problem that teenaged girls find themselves caught up in. These girls find themselves in a family system where they are missing the support, whether due to death, divorce, or incarceration.

To change the offense rate of the at-risk teenaged girl would require that we alter rates of broken families as well. The article, The Impact of Father Absence on Daughter Sexual Development and Behaviors: Implications for Professional Counselors, talked about how teenaged girls tend to become either underachievers or overachievers with the absence of their fathers. And while that means that these girls do not have a happy medium, it also speaks volumes about these girls’ capabilities.

It would be my desire to see those girls realize that where they come from does not determine what they can achieve, but coming from that situation myself, I know how hard it is to believe. Therefore, my main hope is that they make it to where I have made it; a sense of understanding, and hope.