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“My father’s struggle to exist as a father after getting married was evident. But at the same time, the birth of his children changed his world forever. His march towards success through hard work, unmatched anger, and repression prevented him from rising out of his poverty mindset, even though he was better off than many of his relatives and friends.”

Morarji Peesay is a neonatologist.

He shares his story and discusses his book, Absent-Father Syndrome: Overcoming the Trauma of a Fatherless Childhood.

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Transcript

Kevin Pho: Hi, and welcome to the show. Rate and review at KevinMD.com/rate. Subscribe at KevinMD.com/podcast. Today on the show, we have Morarji Peesay. He’s a neonatologist, and he’s the author of the book Absent-Father Syndrome: Overcoming the Trauma of a Fatherless Childhood. There’s an excerpt from that book on KevinMD. Morarji, welcome to the show.

Morarji Peesay: Thanks so much, Kevin. I think it’s a fantastic, great opportunity. I’m so thankful to you for inviting me.

Kevin Pho: Well, thank you so much for joining me today. Now, we’re going to talk about your book in a little bit, but just first off, briefly share your story and journey to where you are today.

Morarji Peesay: Yeah. I’m a physician. I’m a pediatrician, and then I did a specialty in neonatology. I take care of the tiny premature babies. I’ve been in the NICUs for more than two decades now. I’m faculty at Georgetown University, and I am an inventor. I have a few patents, a lot of medical devices, and I’ve written books.

Kevin Pho: So you’re a neonatologist. You mentioned that you have a lot of patents with medical devices, and you’re a prolific author who has written so many books. Why is it important to have so many of these interests outside of what you primarily do in clinical medicine?

Morarji Peesay: I know. I think that’s a good question, because just yesterday I gave a talk to the medical students that they should be thinking outside the box. The medical students are so bogged down by an enormous subject, because the basic science is growing exponentially. They have been given so much subject matter that they get home, they get so anxious, and they have no way of thinking outside the box.

Yesterday, in the talk I gave them, I said, “You need to vent yourself outside the box. It frees you up, and it gives you a different way of looking at the problem and the stress that you’re facing.” And they loved it. I think the dean was also there. He said, “Dr. Peesay, this is fantastic. I think all students should learn this lateral thinking.” The vertical thinking, the policies, protocols, and strict things that we do in medicine, is very important, but I think vertical thinking really makes them freeze up. I think lateral thinking relates us to creativity, which is fantastic.

Kevin Pho: Now, for those medical students or early-career physicians who may be listening to that, how can they think outside the box? Because like you said, there’s just so much to learn, especially in clinical medicine. You have very little time to do anything else. So what are some pieces of advice that you could share with them on how they can do things outside of the box?

Morarji Peesay: Right, that’s exactly it. I showed them the examples of my devices, how they came up when I was doing clinical work, when I was talking to the nurses and talking to my colleagues. Lateral thinking is basically a habit, and you have to develop it. It takes months and years to get into it. Once you get into it, it becomes a habit for you, and it really relieves you from the stress that you’re going through. The feeling that you did something new that will make a difference to the patient itself relaxes you and unburdens the stress that you’re going through with a subject matter, and the same subject matter where you were facing stress becomes enjoyable, and they’re starting to say, “Oh my God.” So that’s what happens.

And you learn a lot during that creativity process. Whether that is patentable or anything, it doesn’t matter. In that creative process, you learn a lot about your interests, and that’s how the passion also develops.

Kevin Pho: And one of your examples of lateral thinking is, of course, writing books. One of your books on KevinMD is titled Absent-Father Syndrome: Overcoming the Trauma of a Fatherless Childhood. Now, tell me the background of this book. How did this book come together?

Morarji Peesay: When my father passed away suddenly, I started feeling that vacuum, that emptiness, and I said, “Oh my God, what is this?” This is much more than an absence on my Father’s Day. This vacuum was very disturbing to me, and I started thinking about this. I started researching into it, and I said, “It’s a very interesting phenomenon.” Then suddenly, it was like a Pandora’s box that opened. I said, “Oh my God, this is a huge problem. This is not only a community problem. It’s a state, national, and international problem.” And once I started looking into the statistical data, I said, “This is a big issue.”

And then, as a neonatologist, when I attend deliveries, I started seeing that every second and third mother comes with no father. And then I looked into the research data, and there was clear data that the presence of the father in the delivery room, just by presence, decreases maternal complications, prenatal, natal, and postnatal. I said, “Wow.” So that kind of motivated me to look into this thing, and I said I should bring this up and make it a therapy also.

Kevin Pho: So tell us some of the reasons, the underlying causes, why so many children grow up without fathers.

Morarji Peesay: If I look into the data itself, it seems that, evolutionarily, fathers played a big role in brain development and in humanity in general, it seems, because of the father’s presence. About 10,000 years ago, the father was dominating, taking on their own role, and around 6,000 years ago, when we started settling down as families and farming, there was some equality, it seems, between mother and father. Then by and by, the father started dominating, and that role really changed over the course of the last 2,000 years.

World War I and II, and before that, Roman history, where, yes, they had total authority over their children and their wife too. As a neonatologist, I read the history that when a baby was born in a Roman family, the baby had to be taken and put at the feet of the father, and the paterfamilias would decide whether he was going to consider that as his own son or daughter or discard it. And if he said, “I don’t like this one,” then that child became a bastard, it seems. Sorry for that word, but that’s what they said. Those were the days. I know some of those paterfamilias used to kill those children too, but I think Augustus seems to have stopped that, it seems, in history.

So from there, World War I and II. I think in World War II, kind of, in the U.S., all these men went through this PTSD of war. They had a very different, stressful way of life. Their role was different, their aggression was different, and the children felt that. I think they had to suffer the effect of those wars on their fathers especially, and a lot of them lost their fathers, and there was the impact of the fathers who had served at the time. So the data is very compelling. I did a lot of research, and then I realized that there is a role to play as a physician to bring this topic to the largest audience, not only to the obstetricians and neonatologists, but to the general population too.

Kevin Pho: What are some of the main effects on children who grow up without fathers?

Morarji Peesay: Yeah. In boys, the research has shown that, especially in teenage boys, when they lose their father, the study has shown their voice breaking is delayed. They become less manly, they cling to the mother, and they become very insecure. So there is an interesting effect of the father that has been shown, and now a meta-analysis of the data has really shown that father absence is an independent risk factor.

And then also in girls, a lot of things are affecting girls as teenagers. The study has shown that they start looking for a boyfriend early on. They have early sex and become pregnant early, and then they choose a boyfriend much older, which means they’re looking for the father. So they keep looking for the father figure, and they end up having earlier sex. And the study has also shown that they reach menarche early, so there’s some kind of inherent mechanism built in when they lose that father figure, as a protective mechanism. They develop very low self-esteem and depression, and they are prone to drugs.

National Fatherhood Initiative data has shown that, especially in boys, there is almost a 70 to 80 percent chance that the boys go for guns and drugs. And the majority of incarcerated people really don’t have the influence of a father. There is a partial absence or a total absence of the father. And I think almost 2 million minority children have their father incarcerated, and that has a big impact.

So I think teenagers are affected biologically. A lot of fathers just divorce or separate, or they just die because of cancer or some other reason, an accident or something, not because they wanted to go, but the unfortunate thing happens. In all those situations, I think some studies have shown that even the telomeres of the chromosomes shrink, and that was very interesting to me. I said, “Oh my God.” So I started really expanding much deeper into how it starts to affect people, and I started applying it to my brothers and sisters, and I said, “Wow, then this is a bigger issue.”

Kevin Pho: The subtitle of your book is Overcoming the Trauma of a Fatherless Childhood. Now, for those children who do grow up without fathers, what are some ways that they can cope with that?

Morarji Peesay: Yeah, you know, I think there are a lot of resources. I remember on Father’s Day, whenever you’re there on a Father’s Day, you should see the blogs and the Google searches of those children who don’t have a father. Oh my God, they feel so much pain. They feel, “Why does this father have to be scared?” or, “My dad just lives on the other street, and he never talks to me.” It’s such a painful message. I read them, and I said, “Oh my God, it is not only a child phenomenon.” Even as adults, we feel pain that never goes away. The father-absence pain that I still have never goes away, and it’s a complex mechanism that never goes away.

So I think it’s not only teenagers. It’s people of different ages, as early as three years old and as old as 70 years old. I remember when I was talking to my dad one time, I started exploding. He was in tears, and he was 30 years. I said, “Oh my God, this is unbelievable.”

There’s the National Fatherhood Initiative in the U.S., and there’s a global fatherhood initiative. Each country should have that big treasure of resources. So there are a lot of resources to go to, to analyze yourself, because each person has their own story. And my other friend was saying, “No, you know what? My dad, he was driving, and he died in a car crash. And before that, he was saying these kinds of things. He was making sure, well, he’s written a lot of things.” So if you look through these things, you feel it, and it’s a healing process. Going through the details of the history of your father’s absence in detail is itself a healing process. Knowing that this is a global problem is a healing process.

So that’s why my book brings up that you’re not alone, that this is a global phenomenon. There are a lot of people like that, with that absence on Father’s Day. Don’t feel bad. That’s why I thought, and I started making the point, that one should have an absent-father syndrome day. I created a family, and I said every year, on the day after Father’s Day, we should have Absent Father’s Day, and it will be a healing process too.

Kevin Pho: Tell us, what are some of your take-home messages that you want to leave with the KevinMD audience?

Morarji Peesay: I think the take-home message is that they have to be open to it and accept it, and then that there is absent-father syndrome, as the book says. A syndrome means multiple things are involved. Just like a syndrome where we have a heart problem, lung problem, brain problem, everything, in absent-father syndrome, you have psychological, emotional, and physical elements, and genetic. A lot of things are involved.

And I think we have to accept them and say, “Fine, my father was absent because of these reasons,” and look into that detail, put yourself into their shoes, see what was happening, go back to your past, accept it, and let it go. Once you accept it, the letting go happens. If you don’t accept it, letting go never happens. So accept it wholeheartedly, feel the pain, don’t reject it, and share that with your people. Know that this is a global problem. It’s a social problem. UNESCO and WHO say they are worried this is the biggest social problem around the world. And especially with artificial insemination, a lot of things are happening. They are worried that fatherhood is going to go extinct.

Accepting is the start of the healing process, knowing that this is something one can heal from, and once you heal from it, you will be a different person. And I think my book gives that opportunity. It gives a big picture, takes you into a personal life story, my life story, and then gives some insight from the other people on how to heal.

Kevin Pho: Morarji, thank you so much for sharing your time and insight. Thanks again for being on the show.

Morarji Peesay: All right. Thank you, Kevin. Thanks so much for the opportunity.