It All Starts Now! Gay Men and Fatherhood in Sweden

ABSTRACT

This article investigates how Swedish gay men pursue and understand fatherhood, using a qualitative, semi-structured methodological approach. We are interested in how practical issues and different fatherhood arrangements are understood and handled by the fathers; how the construction of “rainbow families” is understood in relation to legal issues; parental responsibilities; and thoughts regarding gender-equal and gender-neutral relationships within Swedish society and culture. The results show that the trajectory of gay men toward fatherhood is shaped by a variety of mediating factors such as interactions with agencies, clinics, attorneys, and the state. There are some significant legal, social, financial, and cultural obstacles to realizing gay parenthood. There are also cases where study participants talked about a sense of intolerance expressed toward gay parents within a gay community. Although there are still strong normative dimensions involved in the construction of modern parenthood, the grip of heteronormative views on family life and sexuality is changing; the narratives presented also represent a questioning of the hegemonic image of fatherhood in Sweden. Consequently, it is possible to discern different attempts at transgressing and changing the cultural landscape of fatherhood and the ways people build families today.     

Influence of Perceived Maternal Psychological Control on Academic Performance in Chinese Adolescents: Moderating Roles of Adolescents’ Age,Gender, and Filial Piety

Existing studies with East Asian samples have reported inconsistent findings on the association between parental psychological control and academic performance in children and adolescents. A moderation effect is present, when the magnitude or direction of the association between two variables significantly changes with another variable called a moderator. This study explored moderators for the association between maternal psychological control and academic performance. A total of 338 Chinese secondary school students aged 14–20completed self-report measures of perceived maternal psychological control, academic performance, and attitudes toward filial piety. Structural equation modeling suggested that adolescent age moderated the association of interest: the influence of perceived maternal psychological control on academic performance significantly varied between middle adolescents aged 14–17 and late adolescents aged 18–20. Based on the findings, this study offers a possible rationale for the inconsistent findings in studies with East Asian samples and proposes that parenting effect should be assessed developmentally.     

Barriers to equality: why British fathers do not use parental leave

In 2011, the UK passed the Additional Paternity Leave (APL) policy, but less than 1% of eligible fathers took APL in its first year. This study investigates reasons for nonuse of APL. We find four main reasons: financial costs, gendered expectations, perceived workplace resistance, and policy restrictions. First, most fathers emphasized the role of finances in their leave decisions, sometimes taking annual leave for their second week because statutory pay was not enough. Second, both mothers and fathers largely assumed that mothers would take longer maternity leave due to gender differences in earnings and a greater emphasis on maternal over paternal bonding. Third, fathers felt that their workplaces would not be fully supportive of longer leave. Fourth, APL provides low pay and little flexibility. Gender plays a prominent role in each of the four themes. We discuss implications for Shared Parental Leave (SPL), which recently went into effect. Based on our findings, SPL is unlikely to be effective.     

Educational Progress and Parenting Among Mexican Immigrant Mothers of Young Children

This study examined the potential for educational investments in Mexican immigrant mothers to enhance their management of their children's pathways through the educational system in the United States, which often disadvantages them. We tested this hypothesis with data on 816 Mexican immigrant women and their children from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS‐K). The results suggest that mothers who pursued their own schooling over a 4‐year period, regardless of whether they obtained a degree, increased their engagement with their children's schools during that same period. The results appear to be robust to a wide range of factors that select women into continuing education.     

Single,Cohabitating, and Married Mothers’ Time With Children

Utilizing the 2003 and 2004 American Time Use Survey (ATUS), this study examines the relationship between family structure and maternal time with children among 4,309 married mothers and 1,821 single mothers with children less than 13 years of age. Single mothers spend less time with their children than married mothers, though the differences are not large. Marital status and living arrangement differences in time with children largely disappear or single mothers engage in more child care than married mothers after controls for socioeconomic status and other characteristics are introduced. Thus, less maternal time with children appears to be mainly attributable to the disadvantaged social structural location of single mothers rather than different proclivities toward mothering between married and single mothers.     

Interparental Incongruence in Differential Treatment of Adolescent Siblings: Links With Marital Quality

This study examined longitudinal links between incongruence in mothers’ versus fathers’ differential treatment of adolescent‐age siblings and parents’ marital quality. Multilevel models including 200 families, over four waves, spaced across 6 years tested whether youth perceptions of incongruence in differential intimacy and conflict predicted trajectories of mothers’ and fathers’ reports of marital conflict and satisfaction and vice versa. Analyses showed that changes in interparental incongruence covaried longitudinally with changes in marital quality and that these linkages became stronger over time. These results extend previous cross‐sectional research with younger children and are consistent with theories regarding family alliances and coparenting. Discussion focuses on the reciprocal relations between incongruence in parenting and marital quality as an important aspect of family systems.     

He Said,She Said: Comparing Mother and Father Reports of Father Involvement

This study compares mother and father reports of fathers’ involvement, including frequency of involvement and emotional involvement, with their child and examines demographic and social factors that predict the discrepancy in father and mother reports. Using matched pairs of parents (n = 2,058) from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing data, this study finds that father and mother reports of fathers’ involvement differ significantly. For example, fathers report spending 17.6% more time engaged in 11 activities with their young children than mothers report. How parental disagreement is measured yields starkly different results given the underlying distribution of these data. The paper also provides insight into what data issues should concern researchers studying fathers’ involvement and contributes to the growing literature on fathers’ involvement.     

Relational ethics as a cultural constraint on fathers' parental leave in a Confucian welfare state,South Korea

Promoting fathers' parental leave has recently become of major policy interest in many welfare states. The Korean Government also introduced paid parental leave for working fathers in 2001 and has increasingly strengthened such incentive schemes. However, despite its rapid advancement, fathers' utilisation of parental leave is increasing slowly and most fathers still opt out of their responsibilities for childcare. As sociocultural norms are a primary cause of this low take-up behaviour pattern, this study focuses on the Confucian relational ethics deeply embedded in Korean society. Through in-depth interviews with 15 Korean working couples, this article demonstrates how Confucian relational ethics constrain fathers from enjoying their individual right to parental leave by designating them as last-resort caregivers within families and as forefront workers in the workplace. This study shows the importance of the sociocultural grounding of a society to ordinary citizens when they utilise a social policy in their daily lives.     

王维早期行事探究

文章主要对王维开元年间的行事进行了新的探索。认为 :(一 )王维与祖讠永曾在开元五年、十五年、十九年、二十二年过从四次 ;(二 )王维被贬济州后 ,曾任职曲阜一带 ,于开元十三年春正月获赦还长安 ;(三)开元十四年夏 ,铨选后的王维被调任“淇上”,其于赴任途中曾还家一次 ,被后人定为伪作的《休假还旧业便使》一诗 ,即为王维写于是时。     

“七七事变”后张自忠留守北平的真相

对于"七七事变"后张自忠留守北平一事,史学界多数研究者认为张是奉宋哲元之命,但也有人持"逼宫"一说。本文根据20世纪80年代以来海峡两岸公布的国民政府档案,并结合《徐永昌日记》等一些新材料,对此问题作了进一步的分析研究。结论是:"逼宫"说仅凭传闻立论,缺乏事实根据。