Fathers Today - A Profile of Canadian Fathers

• Traditionally, a father's role in child care has been indirect because of his role as financial provider. Men's jobs generally bring more income into the family than women's do.
• Today, both men and women are questioning this traditional father role, and most people express support for equality between men and women.
• As more women have become wage earners, men's financial contributions are no longer the only source of income, and fathers' emotional involvement with their families has become more important.
• 40 years ago almost no fathers were present in the delivery room when their children were born.
• Today it is generally expected that the father will attend childbirth classes and be there for the delivery.
• Since the mid-1960s, the numbers of fathers getting involved in child care has been increasing but the pace of change is slow.
• Most fathers still take very little responsibility for child care, especially when their children are young.
• Fathers spend more time with their sons and care for them more actively than they do for their daughters.
• Fathers are more likely to play with their children than they are to care for them in other ways, such as preparing meals or bathing them.
• Fathers in two income families spend twice as much time caring for their children as fathers in single-income families do.

The importance of fathers

• Fathers contribute to their children's healthy development by being actively involved in their daily lives.
• Being actively involved means:
• • Showing affection to their children
  • Treating their children's mother with respect
  • Talking and listening to their children and encouraging them to express themselves
  • Reading to them and taking an interest in their school work
  • Being consistent at setting limits for behaviour.

• Both the quality and quantity of fathers' involvement are important to their children's healthy development.
• Fathers who are emotionally detached can be as damaging as fathers who are physically absent.
• Many boys report feeling distant from their fathers and say they long to have a connection with them.
• Fathers serve as role models for their children in attitudes and behaviour.
• The children of fathers actively involved in child-rearing have better language skills and self control.

Factors which support fathers' involvement with their children

• Being present at the birth of their children.
• No set ideas by either mother or father about her or his role.
• Mothers who support their partners' participation in taking care of their children.
• Fathers who already know something about taking care of children.
• Fathers who were not satisfied with the parenting they received as children are more likely to be actively involved parents.
• Flexible hours or part-time work for at least one parent.
• In a two-income family, if the mother works less than 25 hours a week, the father is more likely to be involved in looking after the children. Couples are more able to share child care responsibilities when one parent works part-time, but they often need outside care when both work full-time.

How work demands affect fathers' involvement

• Losing a job or fear of losing a job generally decreases fathers' involvement with their children.
• Society does not sanction men putting their families equal to or ahead of their careers.
• Traditional workplace policies assume that women with children leave the workplace and that fathers have no responsibility for parenting.
• Work demands often reinforce the traditional role of men as the breadwinner and prevent their becoming more involved parents.
• Men who work long hours – and many companies are now laying off staff and insisting that executives and highly skilled employees work many overtime hours – have less time and energy for parenting and other family responsibilities.
• Most companies are less tolerant of men taking time off work for child care than for women doing so.
• If a man turns down a job, assignment, promotion or transfer for family reasons, he is commonly looked down on by management and fellow workers.

Fathering after divorce or separation

• Following separation or divorce, children do better if they continue to have contact and emotional involvement with both parents.
• The payment of child support is closely linked to fathers' contact with their children.
• Men with fewer resources are less likely to remain in contact with their children.
• Fathers with resources who financially and emotionally abandon their children have been growing in number.
• Fathers who are divorced are more likely to remarry than divorced mothers are. When they do so, they are likely to take on child-rearing responsibilities in the new household, while decreasing or ending their involvement with their own children.
• If the connection and contact between fathers and their children breaks down, financial support is likely to be decreased or stopped, and the children are severely affected.
• After parents separate or divorce, children remain with their fathers only 12% of the time.
• Most single fathers, like single and stay-at-home mothers, experience social isolation, income loss and career restrictions because of their involvement in child care.

TO THINK ABOUT

"The supreme test of any civilization is whether it can socialize men by teaching them to be fathers."

Margaret Meade, anthropologist

"The dramatic movement into the work force by women of childbearing years, the softening of sexual stereotypes subsequent to the women's movement, and the expressed longing among men for deeper relationships in their lives than those provided by the workplace have all conspired to bring men into closer contact with their babies."

Kyle D. Pruett, M.D.
Clinical Professor of Psychiatry
Yale Study Centre

"Men are starting to suspect that they are missing something by carrying on the tradition of guarding the cave while their children are inside growing up without them."

J. Keating
from: "Fathers Know Better"
Canadian Living

This Article courtesy of Voices for Children