‘Coming Out Tales’: Adult Sons and Daughters' Feelings About Their Gay Father's Sexual Identity

Coming out to their children is a dilemma that concerns many gay, bisexual, and lesbian parents with children from previous heterosexual relationships. How children found out about having a father who identified himself as gay, and their feelings about their father's sexual identity, were explored through qualitative analysis of semi‐structured interviews with 36 sons and daughters (aged 19 to 36 years) whose gay fathers participated in the Gay & Bisexual Parenting Survey (Barrett and Tasker, 2001). Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis revealed that awareness of their father's sexual identity was often left unspoken for various reasons, and that acceptance came about through gradual understanding as well as direct discussion. Interview data indicated the complexity of the relationship between the young adult's personal acceptance of their father's gay identity and their consideration of social context when deciding how open to be to others about their father's sexual identity. This research has varied implications for therapeutic work with gay and bisexual fathers coming out to their children from previous heterosexual relationships.     

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.     

Visitation and the Noncustodial Father

Thirty noncustodial fathers were interviewed with regard to their satisfaction with the amount and quality of visitation. Additional information was obtained about the amount of child support payments, the typical visitation schedule, and the relationship between the former spouses. This study makes three major contributions to the divorce literature. First, it confirms some or the previous findings in the literature about visitation patterns. Second, it clarifies the manner in which the coparenting relationship is related to specific features of visitation. Third, it demonstrates the predominant influence of the continuing interaction of the adults on the father's post-divorce involvement with the children in the post-divorce family relationship patterns.     

The Influence of Religion on Fathers' Relationships With Their Children

This study explores how aspects of a father's religiousness are related to the type and quality of involvement with his children. Factors that potentially confound or explain the connection between religiousness and fathering are also examined. Multiple measures of religiousness and father–child ties are considered in a series of bivariate and multivariate regression models. The sample of 810 fathers comes from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS). Results indicate that religious fathers are more involved fathers and that they report higher quality relationships; this is true for both married and divorced fathers. The greater involvement of religious fathers is explained only in part by demographic factors and the mediating influences of traditional attitudes and marital quality.     

Predicting Presence and Level of Nonresident Fathers' Involvement in Infants' Lives: Mothers' Perspective

A nonresident father's involvement can be divided into two components: presence (if a father is involved in his child's life) and level (how much he is involved). Guided by role saliency theory, this study simultaneously examined predictors of these two components. Data were drawn from 1,215 mothers of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. Zero-inflated negative binomial regression models revealed that the coparental relationship had different influences on the presence and level of father involvement. Although relationship status, quality, and conflict influenced presence of father's involvement, parents' positive relationship was the major factor that predicted level of involvement.     

Exploring Ways to Get Divorced Fathers to Comply Willingly with Child Support Agreements

Most public policy attention given to the child support issue has focused on the impact of involuntaly measures rather than the factors that may encourage fathers to comply willingly with their child support agreements. In this study of 255 divorced fathers, the researcher examines several possible predictor variables of child support compliance, including the divorce proceedings, type of child support agreement, custody arrangements, and frequency of the father's contact with his children. Fathers with shared physical and shared legal custody, and fathers having more frequent contact with their children, were more likely to be in compliance. The results strongly suggest that more attention should be given in divorce agreements to provisions that will enhance the father's involvement in the physical and decision-making aspects of his children's lives so as to increase the likelihood of his involvement in the financial aspects.     

Father Involvement and Regularity of Child Support in Post-Divorce Families

The study examined the relationship between 20 divorced, non-custodial fathers and their children from the perspective of both the mother and the father. Results indicated parental agreement over the perceived consistency of child support but disagreement over the amount of influence the fathers had in the area of finanical affairs. Mothers who did not receive child support on a consistent basis considered a father's influence to be of fathers perceived changes between the father pre-and post-divorce influence with the exception of influence over financial decisions. Overall the results of the study indicate that divorced fathers are not necessarily absent parents and that both mothers and fathers consider post-divorce father involvement desirable.     

Income inequality,cultural capital,and high school students' academic achievement in OECD countries: A moderated mediation analysis

This study examines how social context, in this case, income inequality, shapes the role of cultural capital in educational success. First, we revisit the associations between (objectified) cultural capital and academic achievement, and cultural capital's role in mediating the relationship between family SES and academic achievement. More importantly, we explore how national-level income inequality moderates these two relationships. By analyzing a multilevel dataset of 32 OECD countries, a combination of PISA 2018 data and several national indexes, we find that: (1) cultural capital not only has a positive association with students' academic achievement but also acts as a significant mediator of the relationship between family SES and academic achievement in OECD countries; (2) both cultural capital's association with academic achievement and it's mediating role are stronger in more equal countries than in unequal ones. The findings shed new light on understanding how cultural capital shapes intergenerational education inequality across countries with different levels of inequality.     

Low birthweight: Do unwed fathers help?

Previous studies have revealed that marital status is an important predictor of birth outcomes, with unmarried mothers having a higher probability than married mothers of delivering low birthweight babies. However, research on the impact of different mother-father relationships among unwed parents is virtually non-existent and little is known about whether and how father involvement affects birth outcomes. In this study, we use the sample of unwed parents in the 7-cities baseline Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing data to examine the effects of parents' relationship status and support provided by the baby's father during pregnancy on the likelihood of delivering a low birthweight baby, and to examine whether father involvement explains racial and ethnic disparities in low birthweight. We include several variables that past studies have suggested may be important in explaining birth outcomes but generally have not been able to include, such as mother's social support, her attitudes and values, and her religiosity. We find that having received monetary support from the baby's father has a negative effect on the likelihood of low birthweight and that mothers who are in a non-cohabiting romantic relationship with the father have significantly higher odds of low birthweight compared to mothers who cohabit with the father of their baby. Finally, racial ethnic differences in birth outcomes within this population appear to be invariant to the level of father involvement. A major contribution of the study is that it uses rich new data to examine birth outcomes in a population at high risk—unmarried mothers—and incorporates measures such as parents' relationship status and father's financial support, along with an extensive set of demographic, social, and behavioral risk factors.     

Engaging with Parents in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services

This paper asks the question: How can child and adolescent mental health clinicians constructively engage parents as a resource in the young person's treatment? It draws from qualitative research data that explore parents' experience of their involvement in their adolescent's mental health treatment program. The paper especially focuses on challenges for clinicians in engaging with parents as part of the treatment program for young people. Clinicians' input about their perceptions of interacting with parents is utilised alongside parents' experiences of their involvement in clinical processes. The clinician data revealed key challenges were managing their reactions to parent defensiveness; broadening the focus from just alleviating symptoms in the young person; not taking sides with the young person; and resisting becoming an expert instructor. The paper discusses Murray Bowen's original family research about engaging parents in treatment with the symptom bearer and addresses how clinicians can build a positive alliance with parents that avoids blame while constructively opening exploration of the family relationship process as part of a collaborative approach.     

Participation in Athletics and Academic Achievement: A Replication and Extension*

Accumulating research based upon cross-sectional designs has shown relationships between involvement in athletics and academic achievement and aspiration. These results have been interpreted as contrary to Coleman's early conclusion that athletics diverted talent from academic programs. However, more recent study of this relationship in five metropolitan high schools seriously questions the causal interpretation of the effects of high school athletics upon academic achievement. Athletes have higher GPAs at the end of their high school career than at the start, but they do not gain as much as nonathletes over the years of high school, thus experiencing a relative decline in achievement. These results replicate an earlier study in twenty Wisconsin high schools. These similar results obtained in schools separated in time and space support Coleman's original view of the effect of athletics.     

Father's Occupation and Son's Personality: Findings and Questions for the Emerging Linkage Hypothesis*

In the past decade an impressive body of research has accumulated on the association between social structure and personality. An important development in that literature has been the emergence of a linkage hypothesis relating the personality of the child to the characteristics of the father's occupation through the intervening linkages of father's personality and family socialization. This study uses survey data from senior males in twenty high schools to make a partial test of the occupational linkage hypothesis. We examine the relationship between the occupational complexity of the father's job and the son's achievement patterns and work orientations while controlling for the related variables of family income, father's education, and occupational status. The findings and interpretations raise questions for the occupational linkage hypothesis. When related extrinsic aspects of the father's occupation are controlled adequately, there are no direct relationships between the substantive complexity of the father's job and son's personality as measured in this study. Thus, we conclude that previous research findings on the occupational linkage hypothesis are open to alternative interpretations and that satisfactory evidence for the full, cross-generational linkage hypothesis does not yet exist.     

Paternal Involvement with Children: The Influence of Gender Ideologies

Although prior social science research has established the ability of gender ideologies to influence the domestic division of labor, it has neglected to disentangle their potentially unique influence on paternal involvement with children. Past research examining the influence of gender ideology on parenting behaviors does not acknowledge potential differences that may result from accounting for each parent's gender ideology. Using both waves of the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 1,088), I assess the effect of both mother's and father's gender ideology on two measures of paternal involvement. Whereas egalitarian fathers demonstrate greater involvement than traditional fathers, mother's gender ideology failed to predict paternal involvement. Egalitarian mothers do not appear to negotiate greater father involvement successfully.     

A Father's Education as a Determinant of Socioeconomic and Cultural Characteristics of Families in a Sample of Iranian Adolescents*

In order to find out the degree to which a father's education can be used as a predictor of the socioeconomic status (SES) of the family, 1,047 high school students in and around Shiraz, Iran were given a questionnaire covering a wide variety of issues. A considerable variation was found in the physical, cultural, and financial milieus of subjects with different FEs (father's education). Results indicate a close association between a father's education and his occupational status and income. Subjects with better-educated fathers have reported a higher rate of literacy among their mothers and a more culturally enriched home environment than those with less-educated fathers. The parental homes of the high FE group also appear to be mostly located in the more fashionable, modern residential areas of the city and to contain a larger number of rooms. The findings are taken as further justification for the use of FE as an index of parental SES. The significance of education as a means of social mobility in the Iranian culture is briefly discussed and the implication of this for the educational system of the country is commented upon.     

Engaging Fathers in the Post-Divorce Family

SUMMARY

Data we collected in longitudinal and cross-sectional studies of divorcing families provide an empirical basis for understanding the dynamics of divorced fathering. Our findings focus on the difficult circumstances of divorced fathers, rather than on their defective characters. We find that fathers continue visiting and paying at high levels when they perceive that they retain some degree of paternal authority. The loss of this sense of paternal authority appears to occur, in part, because fathers perceive that the legal system and their divorce settlements were unfair to them. We also find that the custodial mother, who sometimes sees little value in the father's involvement, limits the father's role within the post-divorce family. These findings formed the theoretical foundation for an intervention we developed for recently divorced fathers called DADS FOR LIFE. This 8-week program focuses on retraining divorced fathers' attitudes and motivations by teaching them skills to manage conflict with the custodial mother, and giving them parenting tools to use during visitation. We are in the process of a randomized trial to evaluate this program.     

When Children Have Two Fathers: Effects of Relationships With Stepfathers and Noncustodial Fathers on Adolescent Outcomes

Using data on 189 adolescents who have a living biological father and a resident stepfather, we examined the effects of children's relationships with both fathers on child outcomes. Interview data from mothers and stepfathers provide an assessment of two types of child outcomes, internalizing and externalizing problems. Interviews with the children themselves provide data about the child's relationships with the mother, stepfather, and biological father. Results show a significant positive association between quality of relationship with stepfathers and child outcomes. Relationships with noncustodial fathers have less consistent but appear to have positive effects on child outcomes. We find that many children have good relationships with both fathers and that, even controlling for quality of relationship with the mother, good relationships with both fathers are associated with better child outcomes.     

Father involvement,child health and maternal health behavior

This paper uses data from the baseline Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study to examine the level and effects of father-involvement on child's birth weight and mother's health behavior during pregnancy (prenatal care, drinking, drug use and smoking). The findings indicate that most fathers, including unwed fathers, are involved with their children at birth and have intentions to remain involved. The effects of father involvement on health and health behavior depend, however, on how the construct is measured. When measured as parent's relationship status (married, cohabiting, romantic or non-romantic), the effects of marriage are beneficial for all but one outcome, the effects of cohabitation are positive for prenatal care only, and the effects of romantic involvement are negative for child's birth weight. When measured as paternity acknowledgement, contributions during pregnancy and intentions to contribute, unmarried father involvement has no effect on child's birth weight, a strong effect on early prenatal care and a variable but overall positive effect on mother's health behaviors. Furthermore, the effects of father involvement do not vary systematically by fathers' earnings potential and psychosocial attributes. While these results support the notion that fathers can influence mothers to maintain or adopt healthy pregnancy behaviors, they do not indicate that father-involvement improves birth outcomes.     

Father's Migration and Leaving the Parental Home in Rural Mozambique

Migration is an increasingly common global phenomenon and has important implications for the well‐being of family members left behind. Although extensive research has examined the impact of parental labor migration on school‐age children, less is known about its effect on adolescents. In this study, the authors used longitudinal survey data collected in rural Mozambique (N = 515) to assess the association between father's migration and adolescent children's leaving the parental home, an important component of the transition to adulthood. The results showed that father's migration delays home‐leaving for adolescent girls and that these effects are not mediated by school enrollment. The results for boys were inconclusive. The authors also found that remittances and longer durations of paternal migration were negatively associated with the transition out of the home. On the basis of the findings, they argue that father's migration delays girls' marriage.     

Mothers of Children With Physical Disabilities: Influence of Family Processes on Mothers' Depressive Symptomatology

This study examines how family processes, or specific behaviors and relationships within the family, influence the risk of depression in mothers of children with disabilities. Specifically, the collective influence of children's maladaptive behavior problems, father involvement, and coparental conflict on the risk of depression among 60 married mothers of children with physical disabilities is examined. Based on data from the National Survey of Families and Households, findings showed that these mothers perceived the child's behavioral problems as less influential when they were more satisfied with the father's parenting. Furthermore, coparental conflict appeared to mediate the influence of the child's behavior and her satisfaction with the father's involvement on the mother's risk of depression.