Article summary with The history of research on father involvement by Lamb - 2000

Reviewing past research into fatherhood, what are three major themes of study?

There are three broad and widely recognized themes when reviewing scientific studies into fatherhood:

• The equation of responsible fatherhood with successful provisioning.
• Direct interactions between fathers and children in the provision of care, coaching, education, discipline, companionship, supervision, and play.
• The relationship between the parents as a primary determinant of the family climate, which in turn affects child development and adjustment.

How has the concept of fatherhood developed throughout history?

Fatherhood has always been a multifaceted concept. but throughout time people’s views of what is most important about fatherhood changes. We can observe changes in the definition of what it means to be a father in the following order:

• Fathers were responsible for moral guidance, moral teaching, and ensuring that their children grew up with an appropriate sense of values and knowledge of the scripture.
• From the mid-nineteenth century through the Great Depression (during centralized industrialization) it became more important for fathers to be breadwinners. Before industrialization, mothers and fathers shared the responsibility of provision for the family. Industrialization made subsistence agriculture and home industry less important and forced a separation between in- and out-of-home work.
• In the 1930s and early 1940s there was a focus on the inadequacy of many fathers. Their role became to be good sex-role models and good examples for their sons.
• Around the mid-1970s an emphasis was placed on the nurturance of fathers and their involvement in the day-to-day-care of their children.

What are important shortcomings in the research into fatherhood in the late 1970s?

Research into fatherhood mainly focused on the amount of time that fathers spent with their children. This narrow definition of fatherhood is problematic. Firstly because just looking at the amount of time spent with the children doesn’t recognize differences in the quality of the interactions. Secondly, focusing on direct interaction ignores the other ways in which fathers can make important contributions to their children’s welfare and development (for example through emotional support for the mother or financial support for the family).

Why is it difficult to compare studies into fatherhood?

The conceptualization of the essence of fatherhood changes throughout time. Paternal involvement has been viewed and conceptualized in different ways at different times. This makes comparisons of the extent of paternal involvement difficult to do, and if even possible, those comparisons are difficult to interpret.

How do researchers try to compare levels of paternal involvement?

To try and compare different studies into fatherhood, it is necessary to define a few components of fatherhood that may be used for comparison. At the very least, the following components of paternal involvement should be distinguished:

• Level of engagement. This refers to the time spent in actual one-on-one interaction with the child.
• Accessibility. This refers to the level of parental accessibility, for example, cooking in the kitchen while the child plays at the table.
• Responsibility. This refers to the extent to which the parent takes ultimate responsibility for the child’s welfare and care. For example, time spent making important appointments for the child, buying clothes, doing the laundry, making baby-sitting arrangements.

What are behavioral and motivational differences between mothers and fathers?

Mothers and fathers engage in different types of interactions with their children. Mothers’ interactions are dominated by caretaking, the fathers’ with play. Mothers play more with their children in absolute terms, but as a proportion of the total amount of child-parent interactions, fathers play more with their children. The reason for this is yet to be investigated. Conceptions of fatherhood appear to be determined by the men’s socio-cultural background, their current social circumstances, and their earlier experiences, particularly the behavior of their own parents.

What is a sociobiological explanation for the motivational differences between mothers and fathers?

Both men and women strive to maximize the representation of their genes in future generations. Males, unlike females, can be biologically involved in many pregnancies simultaneously and don’t need to contribute physiologically to the physical survival of their offspring after insemination.

What is fatherhood today?

All four components of fatherhood (moral guidance, breadwinning, sex-role modelling, emotional support of mothers) are important today, but the extent of their importance varies across cultural, ethnic, religious, and social class groupings. In pluralistic societies, various conceptions of the father’s role coexist. Committed fathers may behave in different ways and the same behavior may be viewed as successful or unsuccessful depending on the definition held by those making the evaluations.