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Journal Article A total of 82 separated and divorced fathers were interviewed in a study utilizing thematic analysis to examine fathers’ narratives about their divorce experiences, particularly in regard to their relationship with their children, and grounded theory analysis to uncover themes related to fathers’ perceptions of their children’s needs, and parental and social institutional responsibilities to these needs, during the divorce transition. We found that contextual factors, particularly the legal custody determination process, largely determine both the level of paternal involvement and quality…
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Journal Article Research on family structure has led some to claim that sex-based parenting differences exist. But if such differences exist in single-parent families, the absence of a second parent rather than specific sex-typed parenting might explain them. We examine differences in mothering and fathering behavior in single-parent households, where number of parents is held constant, and we describe individualist and structuralist perspectives for potential sex-based parenting behaviors. We compare 3,202 single mothers and 307 single fathers in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (Kindergarten Cohort…
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Journal Article Using a sample of 3,977 youths from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97), this study examines the unique characteristics of single-custodial-father families with adolescents and the effects of single fathers' involvement and parenting on outcomes in emerging adulthood. Findings suggest that single-custodial-father families are distinct from single-mother and 2-biological-parent families in terms of sociodemographic characteristics, parenting styles, and involvement. Parenting styles and involvement mediate the differences between single-father families and 2-parent families in…
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Journal Article Cultural imperatives for "good" parenting include spending time with children and ensuring that they do well in life. Knowledge of how these factors influence employed parents' work-family balance is limited. Analyses using time diary and survey data from the 2000 National Survey of Parents (N = 933) indicate that how time with children relates to parents' feelings of balance varies by gender and social class. Interactive "quality" time is linked with mothers' feelings of balance more than fathers'. More time in routine care relates to imbalance for fathers without college degrees. Feeling…
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Journal Article This article uses time-diary data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC; N = 2,157 weekday diaries; N = 2,110 weekend diaries) to examine differences in infants' time with a resident father at age 4?19 months according to fathers' duration of leave around the birth. Results showed that those infants whose fathers took 4 weeks' leave or longer spent no more time with their father than did infants whose fathers took a shorter leave or no leave. We observed a positive association between any leave and sole father care on weekend days but not weekdays. The findings suggest that…
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Journal Article This editorial article discusses various reports published within the special issue of Early Child Development and Care entitled Emerging Topics on Father Attachment: Considerations in Theory, Context and Development, which includes several articles on children's attachment to fathers.
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Journal Article This paper provides a brief history of attachment research on fathers as a backdrop against which the other contributions to this volume can be viewed. Empirical research on child-father attachment progressed in four phases and began before Bowlby in 1969 published the first volume of his attachment trilogy. During each phase a different set of questions emerged. Initially, researchers compared fathers to mothers as potential attachment figures. More recent studies emphasize the notion that mothers' and fathers' roles as attachment figures and their influences on child outcomes may be…
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Journal Article Sir Richard Bowlby, son of John Bowlby, has carried on his father's work by lecturing and writing on the topic of attachment theory. He has initiated and maintained international connections with researchers, practitioners and agencies in the field of child development, and has produced training videos to more widely disseminate information about attachment theory to professionals working with children and families. In this interview, conducted in London in February of 2009, Richard responded to questions regarding the father's role as an attachment figure, highlighting new theoretical…
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Journal Article Initial validation data are presented for the Risky Situation (RS), a 20-minute observational procedure designed to assess the father-child activation relationship with children aged 12-18 months. The coding grid, which is simple and easy to use, allows parent-child dyads to be classified into three categories and provides an activation score. By having the same parent-child dyads participate in the Strange Situation (SS) and in the RS, researchers were able to demonstrate that the RS appears to evoke specific relationship patterns. Moreover, parental stimulation of risk-taking, the central…
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Journal Article This longitudinal study of 125 families investigated whether negative child outcomes related to fathers' frightening (FR) behaviours with infants would be mitigated if fathers were also sensitive. Results indicated that children whose fathers were frightening and insensitive with them during infancy showed the highest emotional under-regulation at 24 months and highest teacher ratings of attention problems at age 7, whereas those whose fathers were frightening and sensitive did not differ from children whose fathers were sensitive but not frightening. Sensitive caregiving mitigated the…
