Father factors : What social science research tells us about fathers and how to work with them

By the mid- • the factors that have an impact on the ways in 1990s that started to change, and the pace of which men undertake their parenting roles and academic and professional activity and interest in responsibilities; fathers increases year by year. [...] This vulnerability of the fathering role was, in That is partly because these observers fact, the principal conclusion of a 1998 review of increasingly see the need for, and the need to father-related research by William Doherty, support, increased father involvement in today’s Edward Kouneski and Martha Erickson of the families. [...] Fathers reporting high levels uncomfortable reality of the early weeks with a of support from their own parents were 40% newborn led fathers to make a conscious more likely to report optimal levels of positive decision to work at becoming the kind of fathers parenting behaviour and 70% more likely to they wanted to be.”11 Although mothers usually express confidence in their parenting than fathers [...] However, the Victoria, 86% of the 90 participants referred in majority of children (60%) decreased contact some way to “disrupted intergenerational with their fathers over that two-year period, and transmission of fathering” due primarily to the overall, close to half of the children were seeing negative influence of residential schools and their fathers either sporadically (22%) or not all simila [...] Simply put: Fathers tend to When moms have jobs, dads parent more be more involved with children when their partners are employed1 and/or work non- A key factor driving the increased involvement of standard hours,2 and when the mother earns fathers in the care of young children has been the more than the father.3 increased number of mothers of young children who work outside the home.