Would Having a Father Make the Difference?

This book, Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, brings together the issue of poverty and bullying. Piddy Sanchez is the daughter of single mother, who knows nothing about her father. She feels abandoned. Always day dreaming about what her father would be like. She even imagines other men as her own father. She feels unwanted. She cannot relate to her mother very well. Her mother seems bitter about the past. Even though she loves Piddy, very much so, she is resentful of Piddy’s father and their current situation. She always talks about the sacrifices she has had to make for Piddy. This making Piddy feel even more like a burden. She is unwanted by her father and burdensome to her mother.

Unfortunately, this is a sad truth for many youth today. With the struggles of poverty parents are under extremes amount of stress to provide for their children. For a family with two parents and two incomes it is a struggle, let alone a single parent with one income. I wonder if Piddy would have handled her bullying situation differently if she would have had a positive father figure in her life. Each parent plays a significant role in the development of a child. I wonder if her self-worth would have been elevated with a father in her life? Her mother would no longer hold the burden alone of being a single parent trying to provide for her and her daughter. This may have helped her mother withhold her verbal acknowledgment of the struggles of parenthood to her daughter. This in turn would probably boost Piddy as she is no longer being told that she is burdensome. Her father, in turn, would hopefully have been a strong moral figure for her to look upon. It would have been another support system for her. An additional person that loved and cared for her. This may have also helped Piddy in her bullying situation.