This chapter describes a study that assessed whether the events of adult children's leaving and returning home, by themselves, affected the overall well-being of fathers, their family life satisfaction, the frequency of reported psychosomatic complaints, and their personal feelings about their child's leaving. Data were collected by mailed questionnaires from a two-State, stratified random sampling of 325 fathers living in Indiana and Michigan. Results provide support for Hill's A-B-C-X model of family stress, which suggests that it is the perception of the stressor event that determines if a…
The chapter headings of this letter addressed to a birthfather state succinctly this pamphlet's contents: "The Boxing Match," "Doing the Right Thing," "Rights and Responsibilities." The male who reads this book may doubt that he is a child's father, suspect that he is, or know that he is. His paternity cannot be proven until the infant is six-months old when a blood test can be made. Most men or youths that abandon mother and child do so because they do not know what else to do. The author's purpose for writing this pamphlet-letter is to try to tell the putative birth father what he thinks…