A Cognitive Therapy Approach to Increasing Father Involvement by Changing Restrictive Masculine Schemas

Cognitive therapists may be able to help fathers increase their involvement with their children by identifying and changing restrictive masculine schemas that interfere with men's parenting roles. In this paper, we (a) discuss the development of restrictive masculine schemas, (b) explain how these schemas may affect men's involvement in fathering roles, (c) offer a cognitive therapy approach for enhancing father involvement, and (d) illustrate the approach with a case example.     

Beyond sex differences: Family and occupational roles' impact on women's and men's dreams

The question addressed is: do recent changes in the occupational roles of women, with their indirect influence on men's lives, have an impact on the dreams of women and men? Three groups of parents (N=96) including in equal numbers, mothers at home, wage-earning mothers and fathers, kept a dream diary from which two dreams per dreamer were content analyzed. Assuming continuity between daytime and dream experiences, it was hypothesized that differences in manifest dream content would be a function of single versus dual role enactment, rather than sex. Contrary to predictions, statistical analyses performed on selected dream variables did not yield significant differences between groups for pleasant and unpleasant emotions, friendly interactions and aggression. Dream characters, and the concerns they reflect, were found to vary, though, according to social roles. Commitment to their family was reflected above all in the mothers' at home dreams, while commitment to their profession took precedence in those of the wage-earning mothers. Comparable commitment to work and family was found among the fathers. Findings suggest that as gender differences in waking life decrease, so may differences in dreams.     

Invisible or Involved Fathers? A Content Analysis of Representations of Parenting in Young Children��s Picturebooks in the UK

Although gender-role stereotyping in children??s books is a consistent focus of research, the study of the gender role stereotyping of parenting in particular is less common, despite a developing academic interest in the changing social meanings of fathering and mothering in contemporary societies. Previous analysis has suggested that fathers are under-represented in children??s books and when present, are less likely than mothers to be featured expressing affection towards, or caring for, children. This paper reports the results of a content analysis of a sample of best-selling young children??s picturebooks in the UK which feature representations of parents. It was predicted that fathers would feature less often, particularly at home, and be less likely to be depicted sharing physical contact with other family members, involved in domestic chores or childcare activity, or expressing emotion. The results upheld a number of the hypotheses, indicating that fathers remain ??invisible?? in an important sense. However scenes featuring fathers with children, some forms of physical contact, or caring for children were not significantly less likely to feature in these picturebooks than equivalent scenes featuring mothers; perhaps reflecting a more progressive portrayal of ??involved?? fatherhood. The findings are discussed in terms of their methodological, social, and political implications.     

The impact of maternal postnatal depression on men and their ways of fathering: an interpretative phenomenological analysis

Objectives: Postnatal depression affects approximately 15% of women in Western countries. There are conflicting findings about the effects on fathers as well as the extent to which fathers buffer against the negative effects of depression on children. This study sought to understand the ways in which maternal postnatal depression affects men and their ways of fathering.

Design: Narrative interviews were conducted with 14 British fathers (mean age?=?33.9?years) whose (ex)partners had experienced at least one episode of postnatal depression. Interviews explored how their partner’s depression affected them, the partner relationship, their children and their ways of fathering. Data were analysed with interpretative phenomenological analysis.

Results and Conclusions: Men felt that their partner’s depression led to significant physical and/or psychological maternal absence as well as a fracturing of the family unit, which had been an important ideological foundation for men’s fathering. Unequal divisions of labour, unfulfilled expectations, a thwarting of preferred ways of fathering and preoccupation with their partner’s depression took some men away from fathering. Others reported adaptation by accepting the loss of shared parenting and investing in an exclusive father–child relationship. Fathering appears to be particularly affected by the loss of a close adult relationship.     

Parent Characteristics as Antecedents of Maternal Gatekeeping and Fathering Behavior

The present study examined the role of prebirth parent characteristics as predictors of maternal gatekeeping (mothers' attempts to encourage or discourage fathers' interaction with their infant) and fathering behavior. Parents' idealization of their relationships within their families of origin, beliefs about the roles of fathers, and personality attributes (negative emotionality and communion) were assessed before their infant's birth. At 3.5 months postpartum, maternal gatekeeping behaviors (negative control, facilitation) and fathers' involvement and competence with their infants were assessed during observation of triadic play and child care. Results suggest reciprocal relations between maternal gatekeeping and fathering behavior. Furthermore, greater paternal communion was associated with greater paternal competence during play, whereas greater maternal communion was associated with lower paternal competence during child care. Greater maternal communion and greater maternal idealization related to fathers' lower relative involvement during play. As for maternal gatekeeping behavior, high negative emotionality in 1 parent was only accompanied by high levels of inhibitory maternal gatekeeping when the other parent had less progressive beliefs about the father's role. The implications of these findings for clinicians and practitioners are discussed.     

Do Promise Keepers Dream of Feminist Sheep?

This article describes a qualitative researchstudy of Promise Keeper fathers. Twenty-two middleclass, primarily White suburban fathers were interviewedin focus groups abouttheir fathering experiences. The grounded theory analysis found that the menwere experiencing gender role strain as they tried toconform to traditional masculine role norms. The PromiseKeeper movement provided them with an ideology and social supportsystem that facilitated theirbecoming more involved fathers, while simultaneouslyreassuring them that they were the leaders of theirfamilies. Using these supports, the men were able to construct a more personally gratifyingfatherhood identity. These results suggest a possibleinterpretation of why the Promise Keeper movement hasappealed to more men than has the pro-feminist men's movement.     

Stereotype‐based judgments of child welfare issues in cases of parent criminality

Approximately 2.5 million children in the European Union and the United States have incarcerated parents, the vast majority of which are fathers. Three experiments modeled on real legal cases (total N = 881) investigated how parent gender affects decisions regarding contact between incarcerated parents and their children. Results showed that measures facilitating relationship maintenance in relevant domains (sentence length, visitation rights, and alleviating postsentencing conditions) were supported less when they involved a father despite identical prior information about the legal case. Mediation analyses suggest two distinct processes explaining these disparities: participants' crime‐related attributions, and their stereotypical expectations about the different familial roles of mothers and fathers. Practical implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.     

Influences on Father Involvement: Testing for Unique Contributions of Religion

Models that incorporate environmental and contextual influences on parenting offer a promising perspective for understanding fathering. The goal of the present study was to examine the influences of religion on fathers’ roles in the family system, and it addressed two questions: Do specific measures of religion better predict father involvement than global measures? Does religiosity predict levels of father involvement and/or the quality of father–child relationships after accounting for their personality and marital quality? One hundred seventy-four fathers and their 8–14 year old children completed measures of the quantity and quality of fathers’ parenting, religious lives, personality and marital quality. Results indicated that more specific measures of religion were better predictors of father–child relationships than global measures. Fathers who viewed parenting as a sanctified role and identified religion as a source of support were more involved in their children’s lives, even after accounting for their personality and marital quality. These findings call for further research to better understand the interrelations among individual, family, and contextual factors that shape fathers’ involvement in parenting.     

Organizational commitment and job performance: Examining the moderating roles of occupational commitment and transformational leadership

To address why the relationship between affective organizational commitment and job performance varies, we draw on the theorization of Meyer, Becker, and Vandenberghe to propose moderation of affective occupational commitment and transformational leadership, separately and interactively. Data collected from 398 employees and their supervisors supported our hypotheses. Specifically, affective organizational commitment was more strongly associated with job performance for employees with high occupational commitment, or when a supervisor's transformational leadership was high. Importantly, in a moderated mediation relationship, we found the effect of transformational leadership on the relationship between affective organizational commitment and job performance for employees with high occupational commitment was contrary to its effect on employees with low occupational commitment. Given the significant roles of both commitments as discussed in the present study, we offer suggestions on how to consider these factors during the assessment and selection of personnel and role assignment.     

Love,Loss, and Learning: The Experiences of Fathers who have Children Diagnosed with Schizophrenia

The purpose of the present study was to give voice to fathers of young adult children diagnosed with schizophrenia within the past 10 years. A qualitative, phenomenological method was used to explore and describe the fathering experiences of the 6 volunteer participants. The findings suggest that mental health professionals should recognize the needs and important role of fathers in the lives of their children who have schizophrenia. Suggestions are provided for counselors working with this population.     

Male callers to an Australian perinatal depression and anxiety help line—Understanding issues and concerns

There is increasing recognition of the issues facing men in the perinatal period. Vulnerability factors and issues in the partner relationship contribute to mental health risk and can impact the quality of the father–infant relationship. Yet, there is limited understanding of fathers’ help-seeking when they or their partner are experiencing mental health issues in the context of caring for a new baby. The present study examines fathers’ contacts with the Perinatal Anxiety and Depression Australia (PANDA) National Helpline. The study reviewed contacts from fathers and their identified needs for assistance, relationship issues, and support needs; 70% of male callers (N = 129) reported concerns about the mother's mental health, and 57% were concerned about relationship breakdown. Significant numbers of men raised issues about their own mental health (43%) and many were concerned about the impact of maternal mental state on the relationship with the infant. When compared to community data, there were elevated rates of concerns about depression and anxiety. Men also described difficulties with the fathering role and with regulating their own feelings of guilt and frustration. These findings highlight the needs of men for support when a mother experiences perinatal problems and also the risk for distress in fathers.     

Distress,Loss, and Adjustment Following the Birth of a Baby: A Qualitative Exploration of One New Father's Experiences

In contrast with the vast literature on the postnatal psychological difficulties experienced by some mothers, there have been few attempts to study the mental health of fathers in and around the time of the birth of a baby. Using an interpretive phenomenological analysis, this study attempts to map the experience of fathers following the birth of a child. A male consultation group was employed to guide the study, and the results feature an in-depth analysis of one new father. The findings were consistent with Kelly's notion of constructs of transition in revealing powerful emotional themes regarding loss and difficulties with adjustment. These are explored within the context of contemporary fathering, relational patterns, and male identity. The findings suggest that men's experience of distress may be linked to prevalent yet contradictory discourse directly linked to expectations about their roles following childbirth. They also suggest the clinical importance of this area, as men's well-being appears to impact that of the mother and baby.     

Waiting for Paternity: Interpersonal and Contextual Implications of the Timing of Fatherhood

The aim of this study was to examine the effects of life-span contextual variation on father-child relationships. Sixty families in which both parents were either younger than 26 or older than 29 when they began childbearing, and whose child was between the ages of 3 and 5 at the time of the study participated. Videotaped observations of father-child play were collected. Questionnaires were also administered to fathers, assessing their marital satisfaction, work-home compatibility, and social network attributes. Older fathers established stronger connections to extra-familial contexts and displayed greater reliance on verbal mechanisms to engage children during play. Younger fathers maintained a more traditional style of fathering and engaged their children through physical stimulation. The implications of these findings for models of father-child relationships were explored.     

"Like an uncle but more, but less than a father"-Irish children's relationships with nonresident fathers

Although previous research has highlighted the importance of the quality of nonresident father-child relationships for children's well-being, little is known about children's perspectives on what underpins feelings of closeness to their nonresident fathers. This qualitative study explored the processes that facilitate or constrain children's feelings of closeness to their nonresident fathers. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 27 children (ages 8 to 17) who had grown up in a single-mother household, where fathers were nonresident from early in the child's life. Findings revealed the fragility of children's ties with their nonresident fathers and the risk that nonresidence from the outset placed upon these relationships. Children's experiences of closeness to fathers were related to perceptions of their fathers' commitment to their relationship and his obligation to his parenting role, and to a sense of connection to and familiarity with their fathers. It was a challenge for children to feel connected to their fathers when contact arrangements were detached from caregiving activities and precluded immersion in each other's daily lives. Lack of effort on the part of fathers to maintain contact or failure to keep arrangements constrained children's feelings of closeness and gave rise to feelings of disappointment and anger. Children demonstrated their capacity to act as agents within their families as they made sense of these relationships for themselves and accepted or rejected their father as a person who could play a meaningful role in their lives. The implications of the findings for promoting positive relationships with nonresident fathers are discussed.     

Roles and Role Conflict of Women in Infertile Couples

This study explored the experience of role conflict for women in infertile couples. The infertile group consisted of 29 women who, with their husbands, were beginning an infertility program; comparison group subjects were 29 married women with no history of inability to conceive. Each subject completed self-report instruments measuring role conceptions and expectations, the experience of role conflict, and occupational commitment. Each husband also reported his role expectations for his ideal woman. Also, a semi-structured interview was conducted with each infertile subject. Compared to the control group, the infertile group's role conceptions were more traditional; they reported less role conflict of various kinds, and they showed greater occupational commitment. They did not differ significantly on degree of wife-husband role discrepancy, or on mother's occupational commitment. These findings lead to an understanding of infertility as part of an interactional system for dealing with potentially intolerable sources of role conflict.     

The Changing Role of Fatherhood: The Father as a Provider of Selfobject Functions

Fatherhood is evolving. The way that men carry out their paternal role is reflective of the historical time era in which they live, social and cultural forces, both the mother and the father's expectations for fathering behaviors, as well as the father's own innate capabilities, wishes, and desires. Fatherhood is also greatly influenced by men's relationships with their own fathers, the quality of that relationship, and the extent to which the father was emotionally available. The ever-changing role of fathers has been a challenge for the psychoanalytic literature. There is no comprehensive theoretical body of knowledge about fatherhood that takes into account the changing nature of fathering, especially considering men's desires to be emotionally responsive and nurturing parents. This article examines the changing role of the father and suggests a model of paternal involvement that expands the nurturing and available father role to include the father as a selfobject. It discusses the importance of understanding men's relationships with their fathers, a central dynamic in shaping fathers’ involvement with their children. The residual impact of paternal deprivation is explored, followed by two clinical vignettes that symbolize the search for missing selfobject functions. This article concludes by outlining clinical implications and questions to pose to assess the selfobject relationship with one's father.     

Cooperation,Conflict, or Disengagement? Coparenting Styles and Father Involvement in Fragile Families

This paper draws on information from the Fragile Families Study (N = 2,695) to examine how different coparenting styles emerge and are related to fathers' involvement with young children in a representative sample of unmarried parents. The results show that the quantity and quality of paternal involvement is significantly higher when unmarried parents establish a cooperative as opposed to a disengaged or conflicted coparenting style. Cooperative coparenting is less likely, however, when unmarried parents have separated after the birth or were never together as a couple, when fathers are unemployed or have other risk factors, when the child has a more difficult temperament, and when parents have fewer children together. This analysis also helps clarify previously equivocal findings concerning the relationship between coparenting conflict and paternal involvement. Regression results show that paternal involvement is not significantly different among parents with cooperative and mixed coparenting styles, indicating that when unmarried parents can work together and support each other's parenting efforts, even if they argue frequently while doing so, fathers remain more involved. At the same time, conflicted coparenting leads to a larger decrease in father involvement than disengaged coparenting. In the context of poorer‐quality coparenting relationships, it was conflict that mattered for fathering, not just parents' inability to cooperate. Implications of these findings for parenting education programs are discussed.     

A Recess Evaluation with the Players: Taking Steps Toward Participatory Action Research

This qualitative study, part of a Canadian national study of fathers’ involvement, opened up First Nations and Métis fathering as a new area of inquiry. Conversational interviews with 80 Indigenous fathers illuminated the socio-historical conditions that have shaped Indigenous men’s experiences of learning to be a father and becoming a man in the context of changing gender relationships and the regeneration of circles of care. Indigenous fathers’ experiences unfold in a socio-historical context fraught with difficulties. However, the study findings suggest cultural strengths and sources of resilience unseen in research and community programs driven by Euro-western perspectives. This research can inform efforts to reduce systemic barriers and reconstitute positive father involvement following disrupted intergenerational transmission of fathering in Canada and elsewhere.     

Effects of the Interaction Between Reaction Component of Personal Need for Structure and Role Perceptions on Employee Attitudes in Long‐Term Care for Elderly People1

This study examined the interaction of reaction component of personal need for structure (reaction to lack of structure, RLS) and role perceptions in predicting job satisfaction, job involvement, affective commitment, and occupational identity among employees working in long‐term care for elderly people. High‐RLS employees experienced more role conflict, had less job satisfaction, and experienced lower levels of occupational identity than did low‐RLS employees. We found individual differences in how problems in roles affected employees' job attitudes. High‐RLS employees experienced lower levels of job satisfaction, job involvement, and affective commitment, irrespective of role‐conflict levels. Low‐RLS employees experienced detrimental job attitudes only if role‐conflict levels were high. Our results suggest that high‐RLS people benefit less from low levels of experienced role conflicts.