Ambiguous Grief with Fathers and Daughters
Can you imagine what it would be like to have a parent who, through no fault of your own, is not available in your most vulnerable years? Perhaps your mother or father went to rehabilitation for drug or alcohol abuse, or to a psychiatric facility for extended periods of time. Perhaps instead of being home to help your other parent raise you, they went to prison or jail, leaving you to wonder where they were, how they were, and to yearn for them.
This is the dilemma that several children in the 2024 documentary “Daughters”[i] are faced with. Their fathers are all in prison for varying lengths of time, and they often have to help raise their younger siblings. This post explores the ambiguous grief of mourning the loss of someone who is still alive and could be in your life, but currently is not.
What is ambiguous grief, and how does it relate to missing parents?
Ambiguous loss can happen when a person is physically absent but psychologically present for you, or it can come from someone who is physically present but psychologically absent.
For example, if you suffered neglect because your caretakers were abusing substances or psychologically preoccupied with their own mental health problems, that is an example of being physically present but psychologically absent. For the girls in this movie, their fathers were psychologically present because they yearned for them and thought about them, but they were physically absent because they were incarcerated.
Dr. Pauline Boss called this type of grief "ambiguous loss." This term is frequently used interchangeably with "ambiguous grief. Ambiguous grief arises from a loss that is unclear, lacks closure, or remains unresolved. It can be confusing for the mourner because the lost loved one is "here but not here" or "gone but not gone." Because the loss has no clear marker or confirmation, the grieving process gets thwarted. The mourner lives in a constant state of uncertainty. They have to straddle two different worlds, one that could include their lost loved one someday, and one where they adapt to the loss and move on with their lives.
The bond that hurts between fathers and daughters with ambiguous grief.
Unfortunately for both the fathers and the daughters in this movie, the normal interchange that includes appropriate touch and hugs cannot be fulfilled when the father is incarcerated. The children in the movie have varying approaches to being able to see their fathers in person, without a cold plexiglass barrier or a video screen between them.
For this one night, the “Date With Daughters” program allows the daughters and fathers to dance and bond together in lockup, after the fathers complete a 10-week coaching program to prepare them for a successful visit. The program is beautiful and gives them a space to talk about their apprehension, fears, insecurities, and their own insecure attachments to their fathers, many of whom were also incarcerated during their childhoods.
Hope for a better life
The children are in another community program that empowers them with better self-esteem, helps them prepare for life and gives them hope for the future. In the process of empowering the children, the mothers also get support for being both mother and father to these girls while their partners are incarcerated.
What is clear is how much the fathers and daughters love each other, but how poignant it is to have one special night where they can see each other, touch, and be touched, and then go back to their lives without each other. Some children have a very painful and prolonged grief, and other children seem to adapt by detaching. The ones who detach are likely trying to protect themselves from yearning incessantly to no avail.
Fortunately, the Date with Daughters program appears to provide hope for the fathers. They have a chance to stay out of jail and rebuild their lives. The documentary says that 95% of the program participants were able to avoid reincarceration. Hope is a powerful thing, and the healing in the families that can result is inspirational. That said, we cannot ignore the various factors that make it hard for people with incarceration records to rebuild their lives: racism; stigma; intergenerational trauma; and economic disadvantages.
Do you have ambiguous grief with a family member?
You may not have a family member who is incarcerated or deported from the country, but you might have someone who comes and goes in your life. That pain is hard to bear. You don't know when you might see the person again or how they will be next time you do see them. It might be difficult to reconcile with the person once they reenter your life.
You may, like the girls in the movie, have a mixture of emotions: anger, sadness, confusion, ambivalence, all mixed with your love for them. If you struggle with ambiguous loss, grief therapy might be good for you to help you resolve those painful feelings. Please click the button below to schedule a free, no-pressure, 15-minute consultation to see if grief counseling is right for you.
[i] Daughters is a 2024 documentary (directed by Angela Patton and Natalie Rae) that follows four young girls preparing for a special father-daughter dance with their incarcerated fathers inside a Washington, D.C. prison. It won the Audience Award and Festival Favorite Award at Sundance 2024 and was released on Netflix.
