I've read that children raised by widows do better than those raised by single mothers where the father is merely absent.
Children with deceased fathers know that their father is gone not because he doesn't care but because he CAN'T be there.
It makes a lot of difference.
This is true. One factor is that when one's father has died, his memory is usually honored. There's his picture on the mantel, there are the snapshots in the family album; and the mother will say things like,
--"You've got perfect pitch, just like your father"
--"Oh, I wish your father could have been here for your graduation"
--"Your dad had a wild, wacky sense of humor, just like yours"
--"Your dad always said ..."
--"Your dad's wuld be so proud..."
--"He was the best husband, the kindest man..."
In other words, though he's passed on, he still has a role: he "lives on," so to speak, and gives the child a sense of identity and continuity. A religious child knows that his deceased father still knows him, loves him, and prays for him in heaven; and amazingly, even non-religious kids can have this sense of being accompanied or cared-for by the father who died years before.
I agree: being fatherless from tragic death can actually be less traumatic than being fatherless from abandonment, artificial insemination, etc.
Something about love eternal.