The Father's Role

Cross Cultural Perspectives

M. E. Lamb

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780805800166
• eBook ISBN: 9781134988402
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Developmental Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Multivariable Modeling and Multivariate Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences shows students how to apply statistical methods to behavioral science data in a sensible manner. Assuming some familiarity with introductory statistics, the book analyzes a host of real-world data to provide useful answers to real-life issues. The author begins by exploring the types and design of behavioral studies. He also explains how models are used in the analysis of data. After describing graphical methods, such as scatterplot matrices, the text covers simple linear regression, locally weighted regression, multiple linear regression, regression diagnostics, the equivalence of regression and ANOVA, the generalized linear model, and logistic regression. The author then discusses aspects of survival analysis, linear mixed effects models for longitudinal data, and the analysis of multivariate data. He also shows how to carry out principal components, factor, and cluster analyses. The final chapter presents approaches to analyzing multivariate observations from several different populations. Through real-life applications of statistical methodology, this book elucidates the implications of behavioral science studies for statistical analysis. It equips behavioral science students with enough statistical tools to help them succeed later on in their careers. Solutions to the problems as well as all R code and data sets for the examples are available at www.crcpress.com

I

NORTH AMERICA

1	Introduction: The Emergent American Father^1

Michael E. Lamb

University of Utah

In the last decade and a half, professional and public interest in the roles played by fathers in their children’s development has increased enormously. Early in this era of paternal rediscovery, psychologists believed that fathers might have an important role to play in childrearing, even if their involvement (relative to that of mothers) was severely limited. Specifically, they questioned the implicit assumptions (a) of a direct correlation between extent of involvement and extent of influence and (b) that if mothers were more influential than fathers, they must be exclusively influential (e.g., Lamb, 1976, 1981c; Lynn, 1974). Interest in fathers was subsequently accentuated by popular and professional discovery of “the new fatherhood.” The new father, immortalized for many by Dustin Hoffman’s performance in Kramer vs. Kramer, was an active, involved, nurturant participant in all aspects of childcare and childrearing. Not surprisingly, belief in the existence and proliferation of such fathers led to further speculation about the importance of paternal influences on child development. As a result, rhetorical exchanges concerning the new father abounded; unfortunately, rhetoric continues to outpace serious analysis. My goal in this chapter is to redress that imbalance by providing a brief integrative overview of research and theorizing concerning the role (or multiple roles) that fathers play.

The thesis advanced here proposes that we are currently witnessing the fourth of a series of changes in popular conceptualizations of the father’s roles and responsibilities. Today’s fathers are expected to be more actively involved in childcare than in the past, and to a modest extent the average contemporary father is indeed more involved in childcare than his predecessor. It may be a mistake, however, to assume that this increased involvement is necessarily beneficial in all family circumstances (Lamb, Pleck, & Levine, 1985). Instead, one has to consider the individual circumstances in order to understand how children are affected by variations in paternal involvement.

In the recent debate about the changing role of fathers, much of the discussion has focused on the increasing role played by fathers in the direct care and rearing of their children. This refocus highlights a shift from a concern with fathers as persons primarily involved in the economic support of the family and perhaps in the discipline and control of older children (e.g., Benson, 1968; Bowlby, 1951) to a view that places increasing emphasis on the role that fathers play in the direct care of children of all ages. To fully appreciate this shift, and to explain better the ways in which contemporary fathers are influential, it is helpful to examine historical changes in the conceptualization of paternal roles and responsibilities. Consequently, the chapter begins with a brief historical review designed to place contemporary paternal roles into perspective. In the second section, I discuss evidence concerning the nature and extent of paternal involvement today, as well as data concerning the extent to which father involvement has changed over the last several years. I then discuss paternal effects on child development, summarizing the findings generated by research of three different genres conducted over the last four decades. Finally, I describe the factors that influence the degree and type of involvement that fathers have in their children’s lives. Because the chapter surveys a broad range of topics and issues, the coverage is necessarily selective. To assist those readers moved to obtain further detail or documentation concerning the conclusions presented here, I include references to key empirical studies and major integrative reviews of the literature.

FATHERS IN AMERICAN HISTORY

To understand the contemporary concern with and confusion about fatherhood, it may be helpful to step back historically and examine the changes in the conceptualization of paternal roles that have taken place. The available data are obviously limited, but social historians argue that much can be learned by examining letters (admittedly, few wrote letters and even fewer thought to preserve them for posterity) and literature written or popular during particular eras. According to J. H. Pleck (1984a), one can actually discern four phases or periods over the last two centuries of American social history. In each of these, a different dominant motif came into focus, making other aspects of a complex, multifaceted role seem much less important by comparison.

The Moral Teacher

The earliest phase was one that extended from Puritan times, through the Colonial period, into early Republican times. During this lengthy period, the father’s role was perceived as one that was dominated by responsibility for moral oversight and moral teaching. By popular consensus, fathers were primarily responsible for insuring that their children grew up with an appropriate sense of values, acquired primarily from the study of religious materials like the Bible. To the extent that a broader role was defined, fathers assumed responsibility for the education of children—not because education and literacy were valued in their own right, but because children had to be literate in order to read the Scriptures. Thus the father’s responsibility for education was secondary; teaching literacy served as a means of advancing the father’s role as moral guardian by insuring that children were academically equipped to adopt and maintain Christian ways. In their reviews, Demos (1982) and J. H. Pleck (1984a) point out that, during this era, “good fathers” were defined as men who provided models of good Christian living and versed their children well in the Scriptures.

The Breadwinner

Around the time of centralized industrialization, there occurred a shift in the dominant conceptualization of the father’s role (J. H. Pleck, 1984a). Instead of emphasizing the father’s role as moral teacher, his role came to be defined largely in terms of breadwinning, and this conceptualization of the father endured from the mid nineteenth century through the Great Depression (E. Pleck, 1976). An analysis of the then–popular literature and of letters written between fathers and children during that period confirms the dominant conceptualization of fatherhood in terms of breadwinning. Of course, this is not to say that other aspects of the father’s role, such as the presumed responsibility for moral guardianship, had disappeared. Rather, breadwinning came into focus as the most important and defining characteristic of fatherhood and as the criterion by which “good fathers” could be appraised.

The Sex-role Model

Perhaps as a result of the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the disruption and dislocation brought about by the Second World War, the end of the war brought a new conceptualization of fatherhood. Although breadwinning and moral guardianship remained important, focus now shifted to concern about the father’s function as a sex-role model, especially for his sons. Many books and articles in the professional literature focused on the need for strong sex-role models, and many professionals concluded that fathers were clearly not doing a good job in this regard (e.g., Levy, 1943; Strecker, 1946). Their inadequacies were also underscored in dramatic works, such as Rebel Without a Cause, and were ridiculed in comedies and cartoons like “All in the Family” and “Blondie” (Ehrenreich & English, 1979).

The New Nurturant Father

Around the mid 1970s, finally, a fourth stage was reached. For the first time, there was widespread identification of fathers as active, nurturant, caretaking parents. Active parenting was defined as the central component of fatherhood, and as the yardstick by which “good fathers” might be assessed. This redefinition of fatherhood occurred first in the popular media, where it was promulgated in works like Kramer vs. Kramer and The World According to Garp. Professional interest in the new fatherhood soon followed.

It is important to acknowledge the changing conceptualization of fathering because all four of the images or functions outlined above remain important today, although the extent to which they are deemed important varies across groups within our society. In a pluralistic society like ours, various conceptions of the father’s role coexist, and it is important to bear in mind that while journalists and filmmakers here have been lauding active involvement and nurturant fatherhood for the last 10 years, there are many citizens whose conception of fathering is very different. In addition, one must recognize that fathers fill many roles, that the relative importance of each varies from one context to another, and that one must view active fathering—the key focus here—in the context of the various other things that fathers do for their children (for example, breadwinning, sex-role modeling, moral guidance, emotional support of mothers).

Modes of Paternal Influence Today

If one thinks about fatherhood simply in terms of the ways in which fathers are likely to influence their children, one can discern at least four ways in which fathers can have a substantial impact on their children and their children’s development. Clearly, breadwinning remains a key component of the father’s role in most segments of society today (Benson, 1968; Cazenave, 1979; J. H. Pleck, 1983). Even in the vast majority of families in which there are two wage-earners, the father is still seen as a primary breadwinner, if only because of continuing disparities between the salaries of male and female workers. Economic support of the family constitutes an indirect but important way in which fathers contribute to the rearing and emotional health of their children. A second important but indirect source of influence stems from the fathers’ role as a source of emotional support to the other people—such as mothers—involved in the direct care of children (Parke, Power, & Gottman, 1979). When fathers function as sources of emotional support for mothers and others in the family, this tends to enhance the quality of mother-child relationships and thus facilitates positive adjustment by the children; by contrast, when fathers are unsupportive, children may suffer (Rutter, 1973, 1979). Fathers can also affect the quality of family dynamics by being involved in child-related housework, thus easing the mothers’ workloads (J. H. Pleck, 1983, 1984b). (Paternal involvement in housework may also constitute a helpful model for children.) Fathers also influence their children by interacting with the children directly, and much of this chapter is concerned with paternal influences deriving from the caretaking, teaching, play, and one-on-one interaction with particular children (Lamb, 1981b). Most of the research on paternal influences is concerned with such direct influence patterns, even though there are multiple aspects of the father’s role, and there are many ways other than direct interaction in which fathers can affect their children’s development.

QUANTIFYING THE NEW FATHERHOOD

Much attention has recently been paid to the changing role of fathers, with particular focus on “the new father” who is, by definition, deeply involved in the day-to-day care and rearing of his children. Unfortunately, much of the evidence concerning the new fatherhood is journalistic in nature, and we do not know how representative the men featured in such accounts really are. Before pursuing our topic further, therefore, we need to ask: What does the average American father do and how has that changed over the last several years?

Components of Father Involvement

A large number of studies have been designed to determine both how much time fathers spend with their children and what sorts of activities occupy that time (Lamb, Pleck, Charnov, & Levine, 1985, 1987; J. H. Pleck, 1983). Many of these studies involve small and often unrepresentative samples—a perennial problem in developmental research. Fortunately, this area of research can boast of several studies involving nationally representative samples of individuals (both mothers and fathers) who were asked what fathers do and how much they do.

Given the availability of these data, it would seem easy to determine what contemporary fathers really do. Sadly, the task is not as easy as it sounds because the results of different surveys vary dramatically. One problem is that researchers have invoked very different implicit definitions of parental involvement in different surveys; because different activities comprise aspects of paternal involvement in different studies it becomes very difficult to compare results. To make sense of the data, therefore, it is first necessary to group studies in terms of similarities in the implicit definitions of paternal involvement employed (Lamb et al., 1987).

For purposes of analysis, one can distinguish three components of parental involvement. The first and most restrictive type of involvement involves time spent in actual one-on-one interaction with the child (whether feeding her, helping him with homework, or playing catch in the garden). These estimates, which Lamb et al. (1987) labelled estimates of engagement or interaction, do not include time spent engaged in child-related housework or time spent sitting in the living room while the child is playing in the family room next door. Lamb et al. (1987) included the latter in a second category comprising activities involving less intense degrees of interaction. The latter activities imply parental accessibility to the child, even if parent and child are not actually interacting with one another. Cooking in the kitchen while the child plays in the next room or even cooking in the kitchen while the child plays at the parent’s feet would be examples of such types of involvement.

The final type of involvement is the hardest to define, but is perhaps the most important of all. This has to do with the extent to which the parent takes ultimate responsibility for the child’s welfare and care, and can be illustrated by considering the difference between being responsible for childcare as opposed to being able and willing to “help out” when it is convenient. Responsibility involves knowing when the child needs to go to the pediatrician, making the appointment, and making sure that somebody takes the child to it. Responsibility involves making childcare and babysitting arrangements, ensuring that the child has clothes to wear, and making arrangements for the child’s supervision when she is sick. Much of the time involved in being a responsible parent does not involve direct interaction with the child. Consequently, it is especially easy for survey researchers to lose sight of this type of involvement. It is hard to quantify the time involved, particularly because the anxiety, worry, and contingency-planning that comprise parental responsibility often occur when the parent is ostensibly doing something else.

When one distinguishes between the different components or types of parental involvement, one finds greater consistency from study to study than was apparent earlier, but a considerable degree of inconsistency remains. In part, this is because the distinction between the three types of involvement has been developed and applied retrospectively to the results of independent investigations conducted years earlier. As a result, there are still differences across studies in terms of specific definitions of engagement, accessibility, and responsibility. For example, in one of the major national surveys, “watching TV together” was...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Contributors
• Preface
• Part I North America
• Part II Western Europe
• Part III Asia
• Part IV Africa
• Part V Australia
• Author Index
• Subject Index