And that's the issue - poverty, not whether or not there is a dad in the home. I've also never purported that it's not sometimes difficult, but my husband grew up with an uninvolved/abusive dad and that left scars too. Did you have three adults in your life where you felt really safe and loved? Because that's another key factor. If not, it may be part of where you still struggle. Or it could just be that life is hard and we all struggle with something.

Please explain to me how a father teaches a boy to be a man -and what that even means because guys keep saying that but as far as I can tell it's just a platitude - because nobody can explain it. Are you not actually a man? Because by your own metric, you wouldn't be without a dad in the house to teach you. I think that's just silly. Clearly, you figured out how to be a man without a dad. My husband figured out how to be a man with a crappy dad who didn't teach him anything except how he wanted to be the total opposite of him.

"University of Cambridge fatherhood expert Michael) Lamb says that decades ago, researchers were concerned about risks to children, and “their concerns were driven by a lot of cultural assumptions, which led them to propose kids are better off in the traditional family.”

“The evidence, on the whole, hasn’t supported that, but the beliefs have persisted in society,” he says.

Another expert on fatherhood, sociologist Tim Biblarz of the University of Southern California-Los Angeles, says the evidence shows economics plays a significant role in the risk for negative outcomes, such as poorer grades and lower educational attainment, substance abuse or poor social adjustment.“Those who grow up with single mothers with adequate socioeconomic resources tend to do well. “Many of the results that say that kids are at increased risk for negative outcomes have to do with economics.”The children of poor single mothers are more at risk,” Biblarz says. "Many of the results that say that kids are at increased risk for negative outcomes have to do with economics." (emphasis mine)

“What’s important is not whether they are raised by one or two parents. It’s how good is the relationship with the parent, how much support they’re getting from that parent and how harmonious is the environment.

Single Moms’ Sons Can Succeed, New Research Shows

Thanks for the discussion, but it sounds to me like your mother raised you successfully. Everyone has struggles and places where they need to grow and take better responsibility for themselves - even people who grew up with two loving parents in economic security - which to be honest, is only a small fraction of people who have all of that.