A simple statement by a colleague prompted me to embark on the research question: are children affected by having a father in the British Royal Navy? Conversations with my own children led me to approach it from the perspective of the children, themselves, exploring their personal life-stories, emotions and opinions. I introduces the work with my biography, to exemplify the life-experiences of a Royal Naval family and continued by consulting work of eminent psychologists and sociologists such as Lamb (1982), Bowlby (1998) and Allan (1999) I established criteria to identify a normal family, the expected role of the father and anticipated effects of paternal deprivation. The data was gathered from more than fifty teenagers, who experienced life in a Royal Naval family, by asking than to complete a questionnaire devised and conducted using Robson's model (1999). This addressed issues of family life, with and without their father's presence, their behaviour at school and at home during times of separation, and their views on their family compared to the 'norm'. The results are expressed a both statistical information and summarised versions of their answers. To discuss the question, I correlated the key points from my literature study with the summarised answers from the children and concluded that the children whose fathers are in the Royal Navy experience the temporary pull of separation, but do not recognise their fathers' absences as making a difference to their behaviour. They clearly identify that their lives are different during the times of separation but, contrary to the belief that the might by psychologically or emotionally harmed in some way by the separation experience, many feel they are at an advantage over non-naval families because of the opportunities presented to them to travel, use excellent sport facilities and attend an excellent private school. It is the opinion of the children that having a father in the Royal Navy does not affect them, and that is it the quality of the parenting they receive that is important to their well-being and not the continual physical presence of both mother and father.