Paternal influences and the father's role: A personal perspective.

Briefly reviews research and theory concerning the role of the father in child development and presents a personal perspective that sees some long-established attitudes toward child care changing. Traditionally, major responsibility for childrearing has been assumed by women. Studies show, however, that most infants become attached to both their parents, although most turn to their mothers when distressed. With older children, fathers appear to have their greatest influence on sex role development. The type and extent of their impact varies depending on the quality of the father–child relationships. Recent trends indicate an increasing involvement of fathers in child care. These trends will increase paternal contributions to the socialization process. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

L-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanine and L-5-hydroxytryptophan share the same transporter in Opossum kidney cells

Previous research on fathers as child-care providers indicates a need to study the father's role in child care in the context of different economic cycles. Using data from the 1988, 1991, and 1993 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation, we examine whether fathers' availability and the couple's economic resources are differently related to child care by fathers over time. We focus on the differences between 1991--a recession year--and 1988 and 1993--two nonrecession years. Increased availability of fathers is significantly related to higher levels of fathers' participation in child care in all three years. Relative economic resources between husbands and wives help explain care by fathers only during the recession year, whereas family income is important only in the nonrecession years. These results suggest that in the future, researchers should acknowledge fluctuations in the economy when studying husbands' participation in traditional female tasks, as macroeconomic shifts appear to impact the likelihood of married fathers caring for their preschoolers during mothers' working hours.     

Undermining fathers: A response to Baumrind.

Suggests that D. Baumrind (see record 1980-25472-001) undermines her case for greater involvement of fathers in childrearing by stating that the primary commitment to a child cannot be shared, although the care itself can and should be. With this stance, Baumrind contributes to the myth of mother primacy and reifies the asymmetrical organization of the family. It is concluded that despite what Baumrind asserts, the primary commitment to a child needs to be shared by both parents. (3 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does child care involvement increase or decrease distress among dual-earner couples?

This study addressed how parents' relative involvement in child care is related to marital-role quality and psychological distress. These relationships were examined in a random sample of 133 mothers and fathers in dual-earner couples. Regression analyses employing hierarchical linear modeling techniques indicated that the more fathers participated in child care relative to their wives, the lower the father's distress. For mothers, the effect of child care involvement was complex: Although there were psychological benefits to spending proportionally more time involved in child care (lowered distress), these benefits were offset by a decrease in marital-role quality, which in turn increased distress. These findings indicate that the relation between child care involvement and the psychological health of both women and men in dual-earner couples is intertwined and complex.     

Mothers and fathers of young developmentally disabled and nondisabled boys: Adaptation and spousal support.

Assessed the extent to which the presence of a young developmentally disabled or nondisabled male child affected adaptation and family roles for both parents. Developmental child assessments, in-home ratings of parenting, and maternal and paternal self-assessments and interviews were included. Marital adjustment, disruptions in family life, and observed parenting of the child (but not depression) varied with disability status of child. Mothers in both groups reported more depressive symptoms and family disruptions than fathers. Fathers of disabled children assumed less responsibility than comparison fathers for child care, even in mother-employed families. Decreased father involvement in child care was specific to the disabled child, not to siblings, and was related to severity of the child's atypical behaviors. Expressive support from one's spouse was the best predictor of quality of parenting for both mothers and fathers of disabled and nondisabled sons. Disharmony between current and "appropriate" spousal support was a significant negative predictor of perceived and observed parental adaptation. The concept of harmonic responsiveness was proposed to explain how proffered support must be tuned to the perceived needs and expectations of one's spouse. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Processes underlying father involvement in dual-earner and single-earner families.

Correlates of father involvement were examined separately in 20 dual-earner and 20 single-earner families that were participating in a larger longitudinal study of the early years of marriage. All families had one child between 1 and 25 months of age. During interviews held 2? years after marriage, parents completed questionnaires from which data on fathers' work hours, sex role attitudes, perceived skill at child care, and perceptions of love for their wives were drawn. During the several weeks following these interviews, mothers and fathers were telephoned on nine occasions and asked to report separately on child care, leisure activities, and marital interactions that had occurred during the 24 hr preceding each call. Fathers in dual-earner families were significantly more involved in child care than single-earner fathers, but the two groups did not differ in leisure involvement with their children. More important, there were different correlates of father involvement in the two groups, patterns suggesting that dual-earner fathers may increase their involvement with their children at the expense of harmonious marital relations. The findings are discussed with regard to the importance of studying family processes in contrasting family ecologies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differential susceptibility to parenting and quality child care.

Research on differential susceptibility to rearing suggests that infants with difficult temperaments are disproportionately affected by parenting and child care quality, but a major U.S. child care study raises questions as to whether quality of care influences social adjustment. One thousand three hundred sixty-four American children from reasonably diverse backgrounds were followed from 1 month to 11 years with repeated observational assessments of parenting and child care quality, as well as teacher report and standardized assessments of children’s cognitive-academic and social functioning, to determine whether those with histories of difficult temperament proved more susceptible to early rearing effects at ages 10 and 11. Evidence for such differential susceptibility emerges in the case of both parenting and child care quality and with respect to both cognitive-academic and social functioning. Differential susceptibility to parenting and child care quality extends to late middle childhood. J. Belsky, D. L. Vandell, et al.’s (2007) failure to consider such temperament-moderated rearing effects in their evaluation of long-term child care effects misestimates effects of child care quality on social adjustment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reply to Hoffman and Teyber.

Responds to C. Hoffman and E. Teyber's (see record 1982-01142-001) comment on the present author's (see record 1980-25472-001) earlier paper concerning symmetrical child care. The author maintains that her intention was not to exclude fathers, but rather to remind mothers legitimately seeking self-fulfillment outside the home that if society gives a woman the power of life and death over the fetus, she is thereby morally bound to the life she gives birth to. (2 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Unmarried, nonresident fathers' involvement with their infants: A risk and resilience perspective.

The authors used a subsample of fathers (n = 652) who participated during the 1-year follow-up of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study to assess the influence of risk and resilience factors on unmarried, nonresident fathers' involvement with their infants. They examined the additive, multiplicative, and moderating models of risk and resilience in relation to paternal involvement. Fathers' relationship to the child's mother was conceptualized as a risk or resilience factor. Fathers in acquaintance relationships with the mother and fathers who scored higher on the additive risk index were less involved in child care. Fathers who scored higher on the additive resilience index were more involved in child care. There was a multiplicative effect of relationship status and the risk index on fathers' involvement. The findings point to the importance of programs that address risk and resilience conditions affecting nonresident fathers in interaction with the quality of relationships they have with their children's birth mother. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lay judgments about child custody after divorce.

In a pair of studies, we examine lay people's judgments about how hypothetical cases involving child custody after divorce should be resolved. The respondents were citizens called to jury service in Pima County, AZ. Study 1 found that both male and female respondents, if they were the judge, would most commonly award equally shared custody arrangements, as advocated by most fathers' groups. However, if the predivorce child care had been divided disproportionately between the parents, this preference shifted, slightly but significantly, toward giving more time to the parent who had provided most of that care, consistent with the Approximation Rule advocated by the American Law Institute. Moreover, respondents judged that the arrangements prevailing in today's court and legal environment would award equal custody considerably less often, and would thereby provide much less parenting time to fathers, than the respondents themselves would award. Study 2 found that respondents maintained their strong preference for equally shared custody even when there are very high levels of parental conflict for which the parents were equally to blame, but awarded substantially less time to the culpable parent when only one was the primary instigator of the parental conflict. The striking degree to which the public favors equal custody combined with their view that the current court system under-awards parenting time to fathers could account for past findings that the system is seriously slanted toward mothers, and suggests that family law may have a public relations problem. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Still looking for Poppa.

In 1992, V. Phares published an article titled "Where's Poppa?: The Relative Lack of Attention to the Role of Fathers in Child and Adolescent Psychopathology" (see record 1992-35063-001). Since that time, there have been modest gains in the research literature on clinical child issues, but there remains a wide gap between the inclusion of mothers and fathers in clinical child and family research. To provide an update of this issue for the field of developmental psychopathology, the authors of this comment conducted an updated review and analysis of the research on fathers and developmental psychopathology. These current data were compared with the data from the Phares and Compas (1992) study. It was found that there continues to be a dearth of research on fathers and developmental psychopathology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Science and advocacy issues in research on children of gay and lesbian parents.

Herek (see record 2006-11202-004) identified the question "Does having gay, lesbian, or bisexual parents disadvantage a child relative to comparable children of heterosexual parents, parents, such that denying same-sex couples the right to marry is ultimately beneficial for children?" (p. 607) as a central issue that has featured prominently in legal and policy debates about same-sex marriage. This comment is a response to Herek's minimization of the significance of the virtual lack of any research focusing on the overall adjustment of children of gay fathers and his failure to clarify that findings about children raised by lesbians are being generalized to children of gay fathers. Given that opponents make egregious statements about the unfitness of gay and lesbian parents and the pathology of their children, are we justified in lowering our standards about how scientific research is described and reported? Herek was correct when he called for more research in understudied areas (p. 614), but until such research is conducted, psychologists must consider carefully what standards to use in summarizing and communicating research findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"If you want me to treat you like an adult, start acting like one!" Comparing the criteria that emerging adults and their parents have for adulthood.

The purpose of this study was (a) to identify the criteria parents of emerging adults consider necessary and important for their children to achieve adulthood, (b) to compare parents' criteria for adulthood with the criteria espoused by emerging adults, and (c) to examine how these criteria might differ on the basis of gender of the parent and gender of the child. Participants included 392 unmarried college students, ages 18-25, and at least 1 of their parents (271 fathers, 319 mothers). Results revealed that (a) as did their children, most parents did not yet view their children as adults, (b) there was disagreement between children and their parents in the emphasis they placed on various criteria for adulthood, (c) mothers and fathers did not always agree on the importance of various criteria, and (d) the gender of both the parent and the child played a role in the criteria parents deemed important for adulthood. Taken together, the findings suggest that parents and children view the transition to adulthood differently, which might have implications for the parent-child relationship during this period of development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mothers and fathers teaching 3-year-olds: Authoritative parenting and adult scaffolding of young children's learning.

Investigated variations in parental tutoring of children on the basis of Vygotsky's (1978) theorizing and concept of parental scaffolding of children's learning. Twenty-four couples and their 3-year-old children participated. Mothers and fathers worked separately with the child on three difficult tasks: a block construction task, a matrix classification task, and a story retelling task. Parental interventions were classified by level of support and were used to define the region of sensitivity to instruction, following the work of Wood (1980). Independent observers rated each parent separately on authoritative/uninvolved and authoritarian/permissive styles, following Baumrind's (1967, 1973) typology. Both mothers and fathers adjusted their support of the child as predicted. Later portions of the tutoring interactions demonstrated more fine tuning of interventions by parents than earlier portions. However, authoritative mothers and fathers were generally more likely than nonauthoritative parents to focus interventions in the region of sensitivity across tasks and to shift their interventions contingent on child success or failure. These patterns were also associated with more dyadic success on task as predicted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Transforming the child-care debate.

Criticizes L. B. Silverstein's (see record 1992-05293-001) article on child and maternal employment, which attacks what she perceives as the current agenda and misrepresents the nature and scope of current child-care research. N. Shpancer suggests that current child-care research is far from being confined by the myth of motherhood, and that it is largely aimed at exploring the factors contributing to quality care and those influencing both within-type and between-type differences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptions of fatherhood: Longitudinal reciprocal associations within the couple.

This longitudinal study examines reciprocal associations between maternal perceptions of paternal involvement and paternal perceptions of themselves as a father and of their relationship with the mother over the first 18 months after the birth of a first child, that is, during the transition to parenthood. Both members of intact heterosexual couples (n = 183) completed self-report questionnaires when their first child was two, five, and 18 months of age. Each assessment period included measures of fathers' perceptions of the importance of their parental identity, their parental self-efficacy, and their marital satisfaction, as well as mothers' perceptions of the quality and quantity of paternal involvement in child care. Results of cross-lag path analyses indicate that fathers' greater parental self-efficacy at two months predicts mothers' perceptions of greater paternal involvement at five months. Conversely, mothers' perceptions of greater paternal involvement at two months predict greater parental self-efficacy and marital satisfaction in fathers at five months. This study highlights the importance of the first few months after the birth of a child for perceptions of fatherhood within the couple. Results suggest that when couples become parents, new mothers and fathers mutually influence their respective perceptions relative to fatherhood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of fathers in child and adolescent psychopathology: Make room for daddy.

Summarizes research concerning the relation between paternal factors and child and adolescent psychopathology. When compared with mothers, fathers continue to be dramatically underrepresented in developmental research on psychopathology. However, findings from studies of children of clinically referred fathers and nonreferred samples of children and their fathers indicate that there is substantial association between paternal characteristics and child and adolescent psychopathology. Findings from studies of fathers of clinically referred children are stronger for fathers' effects on children's externalizing than internalizing problems. In most cases the degree of risk associated with paternal psychopathology is comparable to that associated with maternal psychopathology. Evidence indicates that the presence of paternal psychopathology is a sufficient but not necessary condition for child or adolescent psychopathology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social support and stress factors in child maltreatment among alcoholic families.

Investigated the relationships among social support, stress, child maltreatment, and child aggressiveness in alcoholic families. Ss were 62 fathers, 65 mothers, and 65 children (aged 3–5 yrs). Three process models based on prior research were proposed and tested against one another using path analysis. Results suggest that for fathers, social support and stress were each independent direct predictors of child maltreatment. For mothers, social support was an indirect predictor of child maltreatment, and it buffered (moderated) the effect of stress on child maltreatment. For both fathers and mothers, lifetime alcohol problems predicted extent of child maltreatment. The data also indicate that child maltreatment influenced child aggressiveness. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intergenerational comparisons of child-rearing attitudes and practices in Hong Kong.

The present research comprises two studies, one focusing on maternal child-rearing attitudes and practices and the other on paternal roles and attitudes in Hong Kong. Intergenerational comparisons are made possible by having 17 pairs of grandmothers and mothers and 20 pairs of grandfathers and fathers from the same families serve as informants. An interview schedule was used in the first study, and a questionnaire and two attitude scales were used in the second study. Results show that the fathers depart more from the traditional orientation concerning child training and filial piety and tend to be more involved in child care than the grandfathers. On the other hand, intergenerational comparisons of maternal care are mostly nonsignificant (at the .05 level). Despite important changes that have taken place, continuity with the past remains strong, such as in the control of sex and aggression. A high degree of intergenerational commonality remains in attitudes and conceptions concerning human nature, the importance of social–environmental influences in character formation, and the desired characteristics expected of children when they grow up. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toward a contingency hypothesis of empathy development.

Found that the empathy level (assessed by a version of the Feshbach and Roe Situational Test for Empathy) of 42 normal 9- and 10-yr-old children from a Greek island was negatively related to their fear of physical punishment from their parents, particularly from their fathers. Low empathy Ss also reported more spanking from and more fear of their fathers than their mothers. Ss whose fathers were away from home for most of the year scored higher in empathy. Results are explained in terms of the relatively distant and ambivalent relationship that Greek children have with their fathers, in contrast to the very positive relationship they have with their mothers. It is therefore suggested that when punishment is delivered by a parent with whom the child has a prior strong positive bonding, such punishment may not be very deleterious to the child's development of empathy. (9 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)