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Journal Article The dramatic increase in nonmarital births in the United States cannot be written off as a simple “lifestyle choice” that has no implications for child well-being. Nor is it simply a result of a rise in casual sexual encounters. The vast majority of children born outside of marriage are born to parents in committed yet fragile relationships. Our challenge in this volume is to explore the ramifications of this new reality and to fashion policy recommendations that reduce the number of fragile families in the first place, and that ensure that children born into fragile families receive the…
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Journal Article ZERO TO THREE's Parenting Infants and Toddlers Today survey presents an opportunity to explore areas where African American, Hispanic, and White parents may differ in their perceptions of infant development. This article highlights some of the differences in these racial and ethnic groups, such as parents' understanding of early social and emotional development, expectations for school readiness, and the sources of support and information that have the most influence on parents. Exploring these differences is an important first step in understanding ways to more effectively engage all parents…
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Journal Article Introduction Little is known about the effect of family structure on childhood obesity among US children. This study examines the effect of number of parents and number of siblings on children's body mass index and risk of obesity. Methods We conducted a secondary data analysis of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study -- Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K), which consists of a nationally representative cohort of children who entered kindergarten during 1998-1999. Our analyses included 2 cross-sectional outcomes and 1 longitudinal outcome: body mass index (BMI) calculated from measured height and…
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Journal Article The purpose of this study was to investigate if there is a relationship between the genders of teachers when it comes to fathers' involvement in their children's schooling in elementary classrooms. We attempted to answer the following questions: 1) Are the fathers less/more involved when the teacher is female? 2) Are the fathers less/more involved when the teacher is male? 3) Is there a correlation between the gender of the teacher and fathers' involvement? (Author abstract)
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Journal Article We used the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 cohort (NLSY79) from 1979 to 2002 and the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (CNLSY) from 1986 to 2002 to describe the number, shape, and population frequencies of U.S. nonresident father contact trajectories over a 14-year period using growth mixture models. The resulting four-category classification indicated that nonresident father involvement is not adequately characterized by a single population with a monotonic pattern of declining contact over time. Contrary to expectations, about two-thirds of fathers were…
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Journal Article Context It is well established that maternal prenatal and postpartum depression is prevalent and has negative personal, family, and child developmental outcomes. Paternal depression during this period may have similar characteristics, but data are based on an emerging and currently inconsistent literature.Objective To describe point estimates and variability in rates of paternal prenatal and postpartum depression over time and its association with maternal depression.Data Sources Studies that documented depression in fathers between the first trimester and the first postpartum year were…
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Journal Article Policy makers have become increasingly interested in addressing the cultural dimensions of child support, "responsible fatherhood," and marriage in poor communities. However, policy studies have primarily focused on identifying economic determinants of these issues, with a substantial amount of variation in their statistical models left unexplained. This article draws on in-depth interviews the author conducted with disadvantaged mothers and fathers to illustrate how a systematic investigation into the meaning of low-income men's ties to families may fill in or provide alternative…
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Journal Article The majority of studies of nonresident father involvement focus on either child support payments or visitation. However, nearly 60% of custodial parents receive in-kind (i.e., noncash) support of some form. Using data from a nationally representative sample of children with nonresident fathers (the Child Development Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics), we simultaneously investigate via a trivariate probit model the relationships among three aspects of father involvement: child support, in-kind support, and visitation. We find that these dimensions of involvement are positively…
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Journal Article This study uses a sample of 2,139 resident biological fathers from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing surveys (baseline and 12-month follow-up), to examine whether paternal aggravation and stress in parenting is associated with father engagement and coparenting and whether this association differs by father's socioeconomic status. Results of Ordinary Least Squares regression models indicate that paternal aggravation and stress in parenting is significantly associated with lower levels of father engagement and with less supportive coparenting relationships (controlling for mothers'…
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Journal Article This study explored the relevance of a theoretical framework that predicts male investment in offspring in nonhuman primates for understanding paternal involvement in human fathers. We explored the research question: Do the increased demands for childcare in triplet families provide an ecological context that leads to relatively high paternal involvement? The article reports findings based on 20 families, using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. Although most of the fathers were the single or primary breadwinners, their high level of involvement was more characteristic of…
