Ja: Fathers are essential

Delphrene linked her son's inability to talk to the disappearance of his father from their life 14 years ago. She said Franze stopped talking at age six when his father migrated to England.

"He used to say more words like mommy, daddy, and would say when he needed water, and would also ask for food when he was hungry but he stopped talking entirely when his father left," she explained.
...
She said despite his inability to communicate his feelings verbally, he has continuously pined for his father. She said whenever he wanted to speak to his father he would pick up the telephone and when she asked if he wanted to talk to his father he would nod and she would dial his number. The one-sided conversations that have ensued over the years are rays of light in her son's life as she said he is obviously overjoyed when he is listening to him on the telephone.
...
She said sometimes he would be so overwhelmed that his very few words would fail him and he would resort to nodding in response to his father and she would have to remind him to answer yes or no as his father could not hear his nods over the telephone.

In fact, Delphrene said it is his father who might have been indirectly responsible for her son's mysterious disappearance for eight of the longest days of her life.

She said Franze saw his father for the first time in 14 years in January. She said she was told that her son recognised his father on sight without being told by any one that he was his father. She said Franze's father told her that when he saw him, Franze dropped a biscuit and drink he was drinking and started jumping up and down with glee.

She said her son's father returned to England two weeks before Franze disappeared and they surmised that the youth might have been trying to find his father when he wandered off.

In 14 years in the UK, why could not this man have arranged for his wife and child to go live with him? The boy needs a father, and the father has yet to be a man.