Comparing Father and Mother Reports of Father Involvement Among Low‐Income Minority Families

Currently available data and concerns about the validity of reports by mothers significantly truncate the ability of researchers to address a myriad of research questions concerning the involvement of fathers in families. This study aimed to inform this concern by examining predictors of father involvement and father‐mother discrepancies in reports of involvement within a low‐income, predominantly minority sample of families with both resident and nonresident fathers (n= 228). Paired hierarchical linear models were used to control for the interrelation between pairs of reporters. The results indicate that although fathers' and mothers' reports are similar, mothers consistently report lower levels of involvement than do fathers. Parental conflict, fathers' nonresidence, and fathers' age, as well as mothers' education and employment, predicted larger discrepancies between fathers' and mothers' reports.     

In‐Hospital Paternity Establishment and Father Involvement in Fragile Families

This article assesses the effectiveness of in‐hospital paternity establishment, a federal requirement since 1993. We avoid biases in previous studies by using a national sample of nonmarital births (N= 3,254), by including detailed controls for characteristics of unwed mothers and previously unavailable controls for characteristics of fathers, and by estimating reduced form models of the effects of strong paternity establishment regimes. We find that paternity establishment rates are now quite high—69%—and that 6 of 7 paternities are established in the hospital. Even after controlling for previously unavailable characteristics, establishing paternity (in and outside the hospital) is significantly and positively associated with formal and informal child support payments and father‐child visitation. These results hold up in the reduced form models.     

Supporting and Encouraging Father Involvement in Families of Children Who Have a Disability

Although researchers have studied families of children with disabilities for many decades, most of this work has been focused on the mothers. Very little information is available to help social workers and other family professionals understand the importance and benefits of father involvement. Such involvement can be deterred if fathers feel overwhelmed by the transitions the child and family will inevitably face. By identifying the developmental and historical stage of the father, mother, couple, and child, social workers can help the family prepare for impending transitions. Such preparation can avoid likely distress and provide the family with sufficient information and support to change a potential crisis into a positive, affirming turning point. To assist social workers in planning appropriate interventions, a list of potential resources is also provided.     

Effects of Post-Divorce Relationships on Child Adjustment

This study examined how parent-child and interparent relationships affect child adjustment after at least two years of parental separation. Fifteen mother-custodial divorced families and 15 intact families with children from 9-12 years of age completed child adjustment and family relationship assessments. Each child's teacher completed an assessment of school adjustment. No significant difference was found between divorced and intact family groups on the quality of parent-child relationships or child adjustment, even when there is a conflictual interparent relationship.     

Representations of Attachment to Father in the Narratives of Preschool Girls in Post-Divorce Families: Implications for Family Relationships and Social Development

This study used the Attachment Story Completion Task-Revised (ASCT-R) (Bretherton, Ridgeway, & Cassidy, 1990), a representational measure of attachment security, to examine characteristics of preschool-aged girls' narratives associated with portrayals of attachment to the father. The children's (n = 27) parents had been divorced or legally separated for at least 2 years, and they lived in the primary custody of their mothers. We had previously discovered that girls' responses to the ASCT-R differed from those of boys in unexpected ways. Whereas boys' representations of child-father attachment varied positively with teacher ratings of social behavior in child-care settings, the opposite was the case for girls. Girls who portrayed children's attachment to the father more frequently were rated lower in social competence, contrary to expectations. A more detailed analysis of responses to the ASCT-R suggests that girls' representational attachment behavior toward the father was associated with narrative representations of both parents as unavailable, family instability, and concerns for the father's well-being.     

Cohesion and Adaptability in Post-Divorce Remarried and First Married Families:

Past research indicates that post-divorce remarried families report lower levels of family cohesion and adaptability than do first married families, but differences are not found in the adjustment of children or satisfaction with the marital relationship. The present study examined the possibilities that (a) lower levels of cohesion and adaptability may be optimal for remarried families, (b) cohesion and adaptability may be less important for coping and stress in stepfamilies than in first married families, and (c) patterns of relationships between the two sets of variables may be different for the two family types. A series of analyses relating cohesion and adaptability to family stress and coping styles revealed that high levels of family cohesion and adaptability are equally if not more important for stepfamilies as they are for biological families in reference to family stress and coping.     

Accounting for Patterns of Father Involvement: Age of Child, Father-Child Coresidence, and Father Role Salience

This study examines the extent to which fathers are involved in parenting their children under several conditions, using a multivariate regression model. The model includes the age of the child, father role salience, and the father and child's coresidential status as predictors of father involvement. Although nonresidential fathers tend to be less involved than residential fathers under most conditions, this is not the case for fathers of adolescents who find the father role to be at least moderately salient. Explanations for their greater involvement are proposed, focusing specifically on the unique characteristics of the parent-child relationship involving an adolescent child and a nonresidential parent.     

Public Policies and Father Involvement

SUMMARY

The last two decades have been marked by a series of social and policy developments that are changing both how men see themselves as fathers and how policies conceptualize and encourage their involvement in the lives of children and families. This paper focuses on several areas of intersection between research on fathers and policy. The paper first summarizes the research that led to the current political and social interest in fathers. The paper then describes the Fatherhood Initiative, a set of activities that stemmed from a 1995 memorandum from President Clinton. This Initiative led to coordinated efforts by U.S. Federal Statistical agencies to collect better data about fathers. The paper concludes with a discussion of what we know about the effects on father involvement of policies such as welfare reform, child support, work place policies, responsible fatherhood programs, and other fatherhood interventions. Examples of new programs and initiatives on father involvement are also given.     

Father Involvement and Childhood Injuries

Unintentional injury is the leading cause of death for children in the United States. Parental supervision is a key factor in preventing injuries, but little is known about the role of fathers. Today, one quarter of children live with a single mother, and another third live with a mother and her new partner, resulting in tremendous diversity in the amount and type of paternal involvement in children's lives. The authors examined the effects of involvement by resident biological, nonresident biological, and resident social fathers on the risk of injury among children from birth to age 5 using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 4,352). They found that living with a social father and social fathers' more frequent engagement with children increase risk of injury, but only for the youngest children. Higher levels of fathers' cooperative parenting reduce children's risk of injury regardless of fathers' biological or residential status.     

Comparing the Effects on the Child of Post-Divorce Parenting Arrangements

Comparisons of the impact on the child of parenting arrangements as a result of parental divorce were examined. Twenty-four children were matched in eight triplets consisting of one joint-custody child, one single-custody child, and one child from an intact family. Results of this exploratory study revealed that shared parenting in joint custody was at least as beneficial, perhaps more beneficial parenting arrangement than the solo parenting arrangement for children in custody due to parental divorce.     

Planned Gay Father Families in Kinship Arrangements

The current study examined whether there are differences between gay father families (n = 36) and heterosexual families (n = 36) on father‐child relationship, fathers' experiences of parental stress and children's wellbeing. The gay fathers in this study all became parents while in same‐sex relationships. They donated sperm to lesbian couples and then shared the child‐rearing with them in kinship arrangements. It was also examined whether aspects that are related specifically to gay fathers (i.e., experiences of rejection, having to defend their family situation, with whom the children live, and conflicts with the children's mothers) are also related to the father‐child relationship, parental stress and children's wellbeing. Data were collected by means of questionnaires filled in by the fathers. No significant differences between the family types were found on emotional involvement and parental concern in the father‐child relationship, parental burden (as an aspect of parental stress) or the children's wellbeing. However, gay fathers felt less competent in their child‐rearing role than heterosexual fathers. For gay fathers especially, experiences of rejection and the feeling that they have to defend their situation were significantly related to father‐child relationship, parental stress and children's wellbeing.     

Contextualizing Father Involvement and Paternal Influence

SUMMARY

We clarify the basic features of a sociological perspective as it relates to the study of fathers' involvement with, and influence on, their children. Our analysis emphasizes the dynamic interplay between social structures and processes at the macro, meso, and micro levels while focusing on social psychological issues. We examine (a) the social, organizational, and cultural contexts for fathering, (b) fathers' social capital contributions, (c) the construction and maintenance of father identities, and (d) fathering as a co-constructed accomplishment. These foci draw attention to how father involvement is affected by race, gender, economic considerations and a father's relationships with his child's mother and others in the community. We also examine how reflected appraisals of others may affect how a man perceives himself as a father. Relying heavily on qualitative approaches such as in-depth interviews, discourse analysis, interpretive practice, narrative practice, and dramaturgy, we suggest a number of ways a sociological lens can inform our understanding of father involvement.     

Parent-Child Relationships,Parental Relationships and Children's Self-Esteem in Post-Divorce Families in Hong Kong

Abstract

In recent research on post-divorce families in Hong Kong, there has been a shift away from the assumption of pathology, and in favor of a trend of increasing attention to children's resilience and the benefits of a continuous parental relationship. There remains, however, a lack of empirical knowledge to guide social work practices in this area in contemporary Hong Kong. The present study is designed to examine how children's relationships with both parents and the different patterns of parental relationships impact children's self-esteem. Sixty-nine post-divorce families participated in the survey. The findings of a positive impact of quality relationship with both parents supported the promotion of active involvement of both parents. The likelihood of increased parental conflicts, however, makes the co-parental involvement a double-edged sword as far as the children are concerned, while an avoidance/low-conflict pattern of parental relationship is found to be the most beneficial pattern for the children. To enhance the well-being of children, a secure residential parent-child relationship with a noncompetitive nonresidential parent-child relationship is deemed beneficial.     

Indebted Relationships: Child Support Arrears and Nonresident Fathers' Involvement With Children

Low‐income, nonresident fathers owe a disproportionate amount of child support arrears, creating potential challenges for these fathers and their family relationships. This article uses mediation analysis to provide new evidence about how and why child support debt is related to paternal involvement using information from 1,017 nonresident fathers in the Fragile Families Study. Results show that child support arrears are associated with nonresident fathers having significantly less contact with children, being less engaged with them in daily activities, and providing less frequent in‐kind support 9 years after the birth. This negative association between child support debt and father involvement is most strongly and consistently mediated by the quality of the relationship between the biological parents. Although child support policies are designed to facilitate fathers' economic and emotional support, these results suggest that the accruement of child support debt may serve as an important barrier to father involvement.     

The History of Research on Father Involvement

SUMMARY

Both our understanding and operationalization of fatherhood and father involvement have changed over time. Fatherhood has always been a multifaceted concept, although over time the dominant or defining motif has shifted in turn from moral guidance to breadwinning to sex-role modeling, marital support, and finally nurturance. As a result of these changing concepts, the extent of father involvement has been viewed and indexed in different ways at different times. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, at a time when societal concerns about the effects of fatherlessness were coming to the fore, social scientists also became much more interested in quantification of concepts such as father involvement, motivated in part by the emergence and popularity of time-use methodologies. This prompted a shift from a focus on qualitative dimensions (such as masculinity and dominance) to quantifiable dimensions (the amount of time spent by fathers with their children). This led to a restricted focus on paternal nurturance with little if any attention paid to the other functions or aspects of fatherhood. The narrowly focused view of fatherhood that resulted, ignored subcultural variation in the definition and understanding of fatherhood. Social scientists are only now beginning to seek a broader and more inclusive understanding of fatherhood-efforts that should permit more insightful research on the effects of variations in performance of the relevant roles.     

Interactional Cornmaanmication Patterns in Father/Daughter Incest Families

This paper focuses on a broad spectrum of interactional communication patterns in fatherldaughter incest families. "Live communications" were analyzed using Lorna Benjamin's Structural Analysis of Social Behavior (SASE!) circum lex model. Incest familiesy communications were compared to familes who had daughters classified as 0 positional and to Nonclinical families. In light of current research t R e study examined the concepts of mother1 daughter role-reversal, controlling incest fathers, and conflictual motherldaughter relationships. Implications of the findings as applied to treatment are discussed.