Intimate Fatherhood

A Sociological Analysis

Esther Dermott

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780415422628
• eBook ISBN: 9781134100620
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Health Care Delivery
• Index: Social Sciences

Fatherhood is gaining ever more public and political attention, stimulated by the increasing prominence of fathers' rights groups and the introduction of social policies, such as paternity leave. Intimate Fatherhood explores discourses of contemporary fatherhood, men's parenting behaviour and debates about fathers' rights and responsibilities.

The book addresses the extent to which fatherhood has changed by examining key dichotomies - culture versus conduct, involved versus uninvolved and public versus private. The book also looks at longstanding conundrums such as the apparent discrepancy between fathers' acceptance of long hours spent in paid work combined with a preference for involved fathering. Dermott maintains that our current view of good fatherhood is related to new ideas of intimacy. She argues that in order to understand contemporary fatherhood, we must recognise the centrality of the emotional father-child relationship, that the importance of breadwinning has been overstated and that flexible involvement is viewed as more important than the amount of time spent in childcare.

Drawing on original qualitative interviews and large-scale quantitative research, Intimate Fatherhood presents a sociological analysis of contemporary fatherhood in Britain by exploring our ideas of good fatherhood in relation to time use, finance, emotion, motherhood and policy debates. This book will interest students, academics and researchers in sociology, gender studies and social policy.

1 Paradoxes of contemporary fatherhood

Thinking about fatherhood involves thinking about fatherhood, fathering and fathers. Morgan (2003, 2004) has clarified the distinction between the three terms as referring respectively to: the public meanings associated with being a father; the actual practices of ‘doing’ parenting; and the connection between a particular child and a particular man (whether biological or social). This means recognising the construction of fatherhood at the level of meanings, especially the move from an emphasis on fathers as financial providers to emotional nurturers. It also involves a consideration of fathers’ involvement, including the importance of pre-existing social categories as an influence on what fathers do and the extent to which various fathering practices are accommodated, promoted or challenged. Finally, it requires an acknowledgement of the diverse routes by which individual men become fathers.

A useful way of conceptualising current thinking about fatherhood is as characterised by paradoxes.¹ Three paradoxes, which, I suggest, are either explicitly recognised in the literature or are evident from competing sociological positions, are outlined here: attention and absence; creation and construction; and culture and conduct. The first paradox (attention and absence) is that, at a time when levels of father absence from the family are unprecedented (Coltrane 2004) there is increasing attention paid to fathers and fatherhood by academics, policy makers and social commentators. This dilemma, I suggest, is of a different order from the others as it is more apparent than real. The second paradox (creation and construction) is that while the tie between biological father and child is given primary status, there is also recognition that social fatherhood (without a biological link) is increasingly prevalent and that ‘good fathers’ are made, not born. Third, (culture and conduct) is the issue first raised by Ralph La Rossa in the 1980s, namely that while cultural representations of fatherhood suggest a new model of ever increasing involvement and a move towards equal parenthood, the conduct of fathers suggests much less change in men’s activities and an obvious continuing division of labour between mothers and fathers. A better understanding of contemporary fatherhood requires moving beyond the binary positions suggested by these dominant paradoxes and towards a more nuanced approach. There is one additional tension in commentaries on fatherhood, which can be thought of as a paradox to be resolved by considering our purpose in studying fatherhood rather than empirical analysis. That is, given the acknowledgement that the social contexts in which fathering occurs and the routes to fatherhood are manifold, resulting in significant diversity in men’s experiences of fatherhood, why there is still a concern to conceptualise contemporary fatherhood as one entity.

Attention and absence

Interest in fatherhood has probably never been greater, yet, as Gillis (2000) has described, the last few decades have witnessed a loosening of the connection between fatherhood and masculinity, what he refers to as a ‘marginalization of fatherhood’ in the West. The apparent paradox is that the two should be occurring simultaneously.

Interest in fathers and fatherhood

In 1984, Jackson titled the first chapter of his book on fatherhood ‘the invisible man’: in the last few decades the attention lavished on analysis of fatherhood means that this is no longer the case. Across the range of social science disciplines – sociology, psychology, history, policy, cultural studies, socio-legal, geography – fatherhood has become a mainstream concern and this has been accompanied by, or perhaps led by, attention in the popular press, in fictional writing, in books offering parenting advice, and in political debate.

As recently as the 1990s, academic writing on masculinity often excluded discussions of fatherhood altogether and texts on the sociology of the family did not automatically include references to fatherhood. For example, Morgan’s important work Family Connections published in 1996 has a number of entries under ‘mother’ and ‘parenting’ but none under fathers or fatherhood in the index. Collections of writing on the sociology of the family would now be considered lacking if, at minimum, one chapter was not dedicated to some aspect of fatherhood. Major journals in the areas of masculinity/gender and family (such as Gender and Society and Journal of Marriage and the Family) have regular articles on fatherhood as a matter of course, while others, such as Journal of Family History, have had special issues focused on fatherhood, and there is also at least one journal dedicated specifically to research on fatherhood, Fathering: A Journal of Research, Theory and Practice. There are many research monographs and edited volumes on fatherhood that are too numerous to list, but recent publications cover a wide range in terms of discipline and methodology; from the ethnographic (Townsend 2002) to the socio-legal (Collier and Sheldon 2008), from policy focused (Hobson 2002) to edited collections (Peters and Day 2002). Research examining the situation of fathers has also been commissioned by government funded organisations such as the Equal Opportunities Commission (e.g. O’Brien 2005, O’Brien and Schemilt 2003, Smeaton 2006). Furthermore, the last decade has witnessed the publication of a number of commentaries offering overviews of the considerable research to date and setting out agendas for the future (e.g. Lewis and Lamb 2006, Marsiglio 1993, Marsiglio et al. 2000). It is though worth echoing Lamb’s (1993) comment that the previous lack of attention did not necessarily refect the position of fathers in society. There was a tendency in some earlier studies of fatherhood to suggest that fathering as a personal and socially recognised identity was a new invention: historical work, such as Griswold’s (1993) influential Fatherhood in America, was important in challenging this idea. Instead the ‘newness’ originates from developments in sociology (and other disciplines) that now recognise fathers as an interesting social fact.

Current interest in fathers is further emphasised by the frequent presence of the topic in lay writing. The number of ‘how to’ books on fathering has expanded exponentially, a product of the publishing phenomenon of self-help alongside a particular demand for parenting guides. These are accompanied by both serious advice and more light-hearted refections in popular publications, such as lists of ‘Things A Man Should Know About Fatherhood’, in magazines and newspapers which portray family life as not only the preserve of women and children: as just one example a current column ‘Dad Rules’ appears weekly in The Sunday Times and details everyday events in the life of a father. The subject of fatherhood has also made an impact in popular fiction with, to name just two bestsellers in the UK; Tony Parsons’ Man and Boy (1999), a fictionalised version of lone fatherhood drawing heavily on the author’s personal biography, and Nick Hornby’s About a Boy (1998), which has a surrogate father relationship at its centre. The prevalence of fatherhood is perhaps most obvious in the mass of autobiographical accounts from the perspective of parents and children, of which Blake Morrison’s And When Did You Last See Your Father, which recounts the relationship with his own father and inspired a raft of confessional memoirs, is perhaps the best known (see also Martin Amis Experience 2000, Fraser Harrison A Father’s Diary 1985 and Fergal Keane Letter to Daniel 1996). This wealth of material is supplemented further by the presence of anthologies on fatherhood (e.g. Guinness 1998, Lewis-Stempel 2001).

Fatherless families, familyless men

At the same time as fathers are being ‘found’ as the subject of academic and popular study, the current historical period often finds men absent from the realm of parenthood. Commentators refer to the current era as witnessing a societal wide epidemic of ‘fatherlessness’ (Blankenhorn 1995) or the ‘shrinking’ of fatherhood (Jensen 1998, 1999). The evidence for this state of affairs is twofold: first, that fewer men now become fathers; second, that greater numbers of men ‘leave’ fatherhood, in the sense of having less involvement in the lives of their children. The factors behind this abstention from fatherhood are related to the organisation of personal relationships. In terms of ‘entry’ factors, more options in personal and sexual relationships means that a choice exists either to have children or remain childless/childfree; fatherhood can no longer be automatically assumed as a life event. Commentary in the United States suggests that this avoidance of fatherhood is the choice of a particular section of society, the educated upper-middle-class (Oláh et al. 2002), who make up Connell’s (1998) influential minority of men who exhibit ‘trans-national business masculinity’. Men are having fewer children and are more likely to remain ‘childfree’ than their recent predecessors (Kiernan 2004), but this is often attributed to the decision-making of women and it is the issue of women remaining childless that is prominent in accounts of social change. Worries about father absence tend to focus more on men who have children, rather than on voluntary childlessness.

In terms of influences on ‘exit’, ‘the question of the fragility of men’s relationships with their children has become more pressing’ (Collier and Sheldon 2006: 11). This is usually attributed to the end of the universality and permanence of marriage; significant numbers of fathers are not married to the mothers of their children and marital ties are less secure. The end of a marriage need not mean the end of parenting; in fact, as Smart (1997) has argued, the parent–child relationship has replaced marriage as the relationship of permanence (see also Chapter 7). However, the framing of the debate about father absence has co-residence as a central component: in arguing the case for the ‘shrinkage’ of fatherhood, Jensen (1998, 1999) notes that across Europe, women in their mid-thirties are more likely to live with children than with an adult partner, while men are more likely to live with a partner than with a child. The advent of childbearing as a dimension of serial monogamy means that children are increasingly likely to live apart from one biological parent at some point. In the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand around one-fifth of children live in one-parent households at any one time, a figure that rises to about one quarter in the US (Pryor and Trinder 2004). Given the tendency for children to remain resident with their mother after divorce or separation, at any one point in time there are considerable numbers of nonresident fathers, and even more biological fathers who will live apart from their offspring for some period.

The ‘absence’ of fathers has a number of dimensions: the physical absence of men from the households in which their children live; an emotional distance from children’s lives; a relinquishing of the role of financial provider and thereby economic absence. In effect, what is usually being spoken about is the absence of fathers from the households in which children live on a permanent basis, in response to relationship breakdown. This, in turn, is viewed as impacting on the ability of men to be involved with their children in other ways. Fatherlessness, as it has been termed, has been identified as the cause of a whole range of social problems for children, from low educational achievement to childhood delinquency, gun crime to promiscuity. Just recently in the UK, incidents of youth violence have, again, been attributed to an absence of fathers. Particular concern about father absence in Afro-Caribbean families has led to efforts to promote alternative ‘father figure’ role models for those most ‘at risk’:

And as we know – lads need dads. Of course they need their mums as well, but there is a particular point in teenagers’ development, of young men, where fathers are very important and they are more likely to be absent in the case of the Afro-Caribbean.

(Jack Straw, Justice Secretary, 21 August 2007, BBC Radio 4)

For writers such as Blankenhorn (1995) in the US and Dench (1996) in the UK, men’s natural tendency towards selfishness (with the ominous prospect of ‘deadbeat dads’ or ‘feckless fathers’ becoming rampant) threatens the basis of social order, unless it is tamed by the influence of women and the responsibilities of fatherhood. ‘Absent’ fathers are therefore considered a social ill not only because individual children are believed to suffer without the influence of their (biological) father but because this lack of responsibility has a detrimental effect on men themselves.

Apparent paradox?

Dissecting the various aspects of the ‘absence’ dilemma highlights where a paradox over the absence of fathers in families and their presence in accounts really exists and where this only appears to be the case. It is paradoxical for attention on fatherhood to be increasing at a time when it is dropping in terms of importance as a social identity. However, although it is true that successful masculinity is not tied to the achievement of fatherhood, and that parenthood is less central to the construction of adulthood for men than women, it is not clear that fatherhood has entirely lost its significance. Only around 5 per cent of people across the European Union expect to remain childless and the majority of people, both men and women, think that having a child is important (Kiernan 2004). ‘Fatherhood is a common life experience for nearly all men’ (Dowd 2000: 22), while Townsend’s (2002) study of a group of ‘family’ men in the US situates fatherhood as an important part of the ‘package deal’ of masculine adulthood (along with a steady job, being married and owning a home). Similarly, research with young men about their expectations for the future reveals trajectories which include fatherhood (Edley and Wetherell 1999); not as a considered choice but as the default option. This unquestioning attitude is, though, likely to be restricted to those who identify as heterosexual:

Heterosexual ‘situations’ continue to lead a preponderance of straight men into paternity. Homosexual situations, on the other hand, currently lead most gay men to childlessness.

(Stacey 2006: 48)

The second way in which absence has entered discussions provides less of an obstacle. It is completely consistent that the worry about a ‘crisis of fatherhood’, characterised as men failing to fulfil their duties as responsible fathers, should be accompanied by the study of ways in which fathering is conceptualised and practised. It would make sense for this concern to lead to a particular focus on; fathers who are labelled as ‘bad dads’ (Furstenburg 1988), the impact of absence in various forms, and research on social policies that could affect men’s parenting behaviour: all of which are indeed themes in the literature. Research in this area is though preoccupied with resolving the ‘problem’ of modern fatherhood, and the dominance of this orientation means that fatherhood in general tends to be set up as an issue that needs to be solved.

Creation and construction

Applying the term father is ‘the process of identification, of linking a child or children to a particular man, identifying the biological or the social father or both’ (Morgan 2004: 382). As any student of marriage and the family will have been taught, in many societies it has been presumed that a married man is the father of any child born to his wife; marriage is taken as a proxy for a biological tie. However, this is no longer the case – as Castelain-Meunier phrases it ‘the paternal link, a socializing link, is no longer guaranteed by the institution of the family: it must be built’ (2002: 192). Technologies have been developed which can determine biological fatherhood, whilst at the same time the routes to social fatherhood have multiplied, so that the two often fail to coincide, leading to a ‘fragmentation of fatherhood’ (Sheldon 2005a). The paradox of creation and construction is that at a time when parenting by non-biological fathers is socially visible and increasingly accepted, there should be such especial attention paid to biological fathers.

Biological fatherhood

Fatherhood status has been defined in terms of a genetic connection for only a few decades (now proved through DNA testing and, prior to this development, the less accurate method of matching blood group proteins). The popularity of making sure of a genetic connection is evidenced by the inclusion of DNA testing as a stock component of daytime talk shows along with the large numbers of private companies that have sprung up to offer paternity testing services, including those that can be done in the comfort of your own home and posted off for analysis. The largest user of testing services in the UK context is in fact the state, mainly for decision making over immigration status that depends on a family link and in determining liability for the payment of child support (Richards 2004).

Even when a man has had a social role as the father of a child for many years, the dismissal of any genetic link can remove caring obligations: witness the case of one separated father who visited his young daughter, was involved in her childcare and paid child support, until a paternity test (incorrectly) revealed that he was not the biological father, at which point he refused further involvement (The Daily Telegraph 19/6/2001). Similarly, Smart (2006) quotes a notable English case where a father had applied for parental responsibility in relation to the children of his partner so that his status as their (social) father could be recognised. When the relationship ended he refused to pay child support and reclaimed his status as a non-father, which he could legally do since he was not biologically related to the children. Equally, a father who has had little or no contact with a child can be deemed liable for the upkeep of that child if biological fatherhood is established. ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Paradoxes of contemporary fatherhood
• 2 Fathering as breadwinning
• 3 Fathering activities and the meaning of time
• 4 Performing emotion
• 5 Linking fatherhood and motherhood
• 6 Policy: defining and accommodating fatherhood
• 7 Fragile fathers
• 8 Discussion: aspects of intimacy and fatherhood
• Appendix: men, work and family life
• Notes
• References
• Index