The absence of a father in the home is, unfortunately, becoming more common and accepted in many communities, such as in my hometown of Antioch, California. Antioch is a very diverse town compared to many bay area towns. The majority of our population is made of Hispanics and African Americans, and these groups are being affected by the harsh reality that the majority of the children have never known their father, because their fathers are in jail, walked out on them, or have died.

Most of the time, the fathers of these children have walked out on them, which leaves the mother to carry the weight of raising this child all on her own. This isn't only affecting the mother, but in the long term, it will affect the child in one form or another. It is major to not have that father figure in the household. Not having a father around to tell you right from wrong, and, in boys' cases, how to be a man, affects these children in many negative ways.

It all comes down to circumstances; if you're a little African-American boy who lives in the hood where poverty is everywhere and drugs and crime are always present, it's easy to get lost at a young age without guidance and teachings from a solid father figure. I knew kids who had their dads walked out on them, and the drug dealers they started working for made them feel like they had someone to look up to. These kids saw them as father figures because they had everything - drugs, women, and money. Not having a father figure can take you down a dark path if you don't have the proper guidance.

Another problem that this generation of children has is the lack of respect for authority and elders. What happens when you don't have a figure at home whom you see and respect at all times, because you know if you don't, you are going to get backhanded? Well, you don't gain that little sense of fear that becomes respect for authority and elders.

It's sad to see this on a daily basis because I was lucky to have my father at home, even if we didn't have the best relationship at times. After he passed away this past December, I realized how important he was to my growth as a man and how I perceive the world.

This new generation of fathers must change this horrible trend of fatherless homes and the amount of disrespect many children show to their elders and authority figures in society. If this trend can decrease, I know that future generations won't have these problems, because there is a difference between having a man watching over your shoulder waiting for you to mess up so he can guide you compared to living out in the world and becoming just another statistic.