red dot icon
Journal Article This study uses early descriptive data from the National Evaluation of Welfare to Work Strategies (NEWWS) Child Outcome Study, a sub-study of the larger random assignment evaluation of the Federal JOBS program, to answer two timely and important questions. First, what factors predict father involvement among nonresident fathers of young children who receive welfare? And second, is nonresident father involvement associated with better outcomes for these children? The three measures of nonresident father involvement examined are father-child visitation, formal child support payments received…
red dot icon
Journal Article This article discusses recent revisions in child support and paternity establishment legislation enacted under the 1996 welfare reform effort, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA). It critically reviews recent studies on child support collection and literature from social service programs that focus on fathers whose children receive welfare. In doing so, it illuminates the ways in which the contemporary U.S. welfare state defines men's fathering. Many scholars of the U.S. welfare state have described the state's role in the (re)production of women's…
When the world talks about rearing children, the tone is decidedly feminine. Despite the growing number of fathers in traditional or single parent families who participate in child-care, resources specifically focusing on fathers are often missing. It is especially true for fathers of children with disabilities. Three Twin Cities men recently acknowledged the lack of materials targeted toward fathers. They offered suggestions, based on their experiences, about how fathers can become more involved in the lives of their children with disabilities. (Author abstract)
This revised edition of The Joy of Fatherhood is for today's dad, touching on timely and relevant subjects from pre-natal care through year one of being a dad. Whether detecting an infant's illnesses, assessing a baby's development, or learning appropriate play with the newest member of the family, author Marcus J. Goldman, M.D., takes a down-to-earth, month-by-month tour of the first year of daddy's new life. Written for dads by a dad, the author applies his fathering experience and medical knowledge to cover all of the basics--from changing a diaper to feeding your baby, from packing a…
Soul searching can provide an in-depth understanding of the father's changing role in the family, the language of fatherhood, paternal contributions to child security, and the need to nurture androgyny. This chapter highlights the mythic and spiritual perspectives of these issues that should be integrated with social science and human studies in fatherhood research and policy. It explains that fatherhood is an act of faith in the acceptance of paternity and the social expectations of its meaning. The social expectations are derived from Biblical myths and common views about the callings of…
red dot icon
Journal Article The facilitation of a positive relationship between the children of abused women and the perpetrator of the violence is extremely complex in the light of the potential danger for women and children and the conflicting needs, interests, and rights of different family members. Nevertheless, social service agencies can no longer ignore the role of abusive men as fathers. Holding men accountable for their children's well being may, under certain conditions, contribute to the healthier emotional development of affected children. This article critically discusses this controversial issue by…
Data collected in longitudinal and cross-sectional studies of divorcing families were analyzed to provide an empirical basis for understanding the dynamics of divorced fathering. The research focused on the difficult circumstances of divorced fathers rather than on their defective characters. Findings revealed that fathers continue to visit their children and pay child support at high levels when they perceive that they retain some degree of paternal authority. The loss of this sense of paternal authority appears to occur, in part, because fathers perceive that the legal system and their…
Data from the Baltimore Parenthood Study, a 30-year longitudinal study of teenage parents, were analyzed to identify the long-term consequences of paternal involvement and the generational transmission of patterns of fatherhood. A subsample of 110 males were examined with an occasional reference made to a subsample of females. Results indicated that a strong link existed between the stable presence of a biological father in the histories of the young men and the timing of their own family formation. Early fatherhood, both during the teen years and early twenties, is much more likely to occur…
Drawing on more than a quarter of a century of Panel Study of Income Dynamics data, this paper examines links between childhood home environment (as reported by fathers during those childhood years) and children's outcomes in early adulthood. The emphasis is on the role of fathers and the unique contribution of their activities and characteristics to children's development, measured in terms of the children's completed schooling, wage rates, and nonmarital childbearing in early adulthood. Results indicate that fathers' abilities add substantial predictive power to models based on maternal…
This chapter clarifies the basic features of a sociological perspective and its applications to the study of fathers' involvement with, and influence on, their children. The analysis emphasizes the dynamic interplay between social structures and processes at the macro, meso, and micro levels while focusing on social psychological issues. The social, organizational, and cultural contexts for fathering are examined, as well as fathers' social capital contributions, the construction and maintenance of father identities, and fathering as a co-constructed accomplishment. These foci draw attention…
