The Impact of Absent Fathers on the Mental Health of Black Boys [TheRoot.com]

Thabiti Boone grew up in a neighborhood where fathers didn’t exist, he says. The few who were physically present weren’t there spiritually or emotionally.

“I never saw dads in the park playing with their sons,” Boone recalls.

In his own life, Boone, a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., says that his father was present but not there. A star high school basketball player, Boone says his father came to only one of his games.

“I don’t remember my father hugging me. We never heard him say he was proud of us,” Boone says of himself and his brother. “The emotional pain of what I deserve and didn’t get, I have to carry it for the rest of my life.”