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Journal Article Recent cases that awarded custody to the birth father of a child have prompted state legislatures to reform adoption laws that were originally intended to secure permanency for children who had lost both parents. Contemporary cases often involve unwed fathers who are not given the opportunity to approve or object to the adoption. However, judgments that favor the birth father in such cases cause the separation of the child from the only parents he or she has ever known, causing attachment disruption and other difficulties. States attempted to remedy the situation by either expanding their…
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Journal Article This article examines provisions of the Uniform Adoption Act in the context of efforts by unwed fathers to assume custody of children who have been adopted. It describes the psychological impact of adoption on the birth parents, the adoptive parents, and the child, and highlights court decisions in three controversial cases involving the rights of unwed fathers in adoptions. In each case, the biological father sought to overturn an adoption to which the biological mother had consented. The adoptive parents countered with charges that the father had abandoned his child. The Uniform Adoption…
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Journal Article When states establish paternity registries they must set deadlines after which an unwed father cannot assert his right to paternity, the author states. While these laws apply to paternity registration in cases where a mother chooses to keep her baby, state statutes vary on whether such registration deadlines should apply in custody cases where the mother later decides to put the child up for adoption. The author explores federal and state legal rulings relevant to the discussion, noting that some states measure the date of child's birth as the beginning of this registration period while…
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Journal Article The relative extent to which mothers and fathers administer physical punishment sheds light on family relationships, parental roles and, perhaps, the identity of potential abusers. In this study, 362 British mothers and 103 fathers of randomly selected children from 366 two-parent families were interviewed. According to self-reports, the proportions of mothers and fathers who had used physical punishments were similar, as were the frequencies with which they used them. About 50 percent more mothers than fathers smacked or hit their children weekly or more often, whereas fathers were more…
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Journal Article Using data from interviews with caseworkers in two agencies, this article describes the extent to which 74 African American fathers participated in services on behalf of children placed in kinship foster homes because of abuse, neglect, or dependency. The data revealed that few fathers were involved in case assessments, case planning, or receipt of services. Caseworkers usually did not pursue paternal involvement or identify lack of participation as a professional concern. The article explores possible explanations for the low participation and identifies practice and policy changes that…
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Journal Article Fifteen foster fathers were interviewed for this study about their experience as foster parents. The men provided information about their motivations for becoming foster fathers, their function as a foster parent, attachment and loss during their relationship, and personal connections between the child and the birth family. In general, the study found that the motivations of foster fathers focused on the emotional benefits and the strength of commitment the man feels to the child. The foster fathers reported involvement in all parts of the child's life, with the exception of contact with…
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Journal Article This article examines the factors deemed important to people when making custody decisions, focusing on a number of recent controversial adoptions cases in which courts have been forced to decide if a birth father should be granted custody of his child when the birth mother purposely fails to inform him of the child's birth or of her intention to place the child for adoption. Three independent variables from which eight vignettes were created are described, modeled on actual court cases: the birth father's knowledge of the adoption plan; the birth father's parental fitness; and the presence…
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Journal Article Although a large number of studies have examined associations between paternal involvement and children's outcomes, most are based on a single source of data or fail to control for maternal involvement. We used data from the National Survey of Families and Households (n = 994) to test the hypothesis that positive father involvement is associated with fewer behavior problems in children. To avoid same-source bias, we used fathers' reports of involvement with children and mothers' reports of children's behavior problems. To determine if fathers make a unique contribution to their children's…
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Journal Article The central hypothesis of this article, that large investments by fathers in childrearing are associated with high marital stability, is tested against two competing hypotheses about marital stability. The hypotheses are examined using data from a national survey of households in the Netherlands. Investments are measured with retrospective questions about the degree to which fathers were involved in childrearing tasks. Divorce is measured indirectly, with questions about husbands' and wives' perceptions of the stability of their marriage. Multivariate analyses indicate that when fathers are…
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Journal Article Data on matched triads of 428 biological mothers, their husbands, and a young adult child interviewed in the second wave of the National Survey of Families and Households are used to examine affective relationships from the perspective of both parent and child. The analysis examines the ways each dyadic relationship depends on relationships with the third member of the triad and whether these processes operate differently for mothers and fathers, for fathers and stepfathers, for daughters and sons. Results show that parents' affect is related significantly to marital quality and the partner's…
