2.  The new conventional wisdom is that fathers don’t
matter.
 Hollywood Star Jennifer Aniston: “Women are
realizing it more and more knowing that they don’t
have to settle with a man just to have that child.”
 Cornell Psychologist Peggy Drexler: “[W]omen
possess the innate mompower that in itself is more
than sufficient to raise fine sons.”

3. 3

4. So, are fathers fungible?

5. We all know…..

6.  Parke (2013) argues that:
 “Both parents are capable of providing the basic
caregiving that infants and children need for
survival such as nurturance/affection, feeding, and
stimulation that are necessary to ensure
appropriate development and the
teaching/guidance need for infants and children to
become competent…” (p. 121)

7.  On average, fathers have a distinct approach to
parenting that benefits their children (Parke 2013;
Popenoe 1996; Wilcox & Kline 2013).
 “Evidence suggests that these differing styles of
maternal and paternal interaction may provide
unique opportunities to learn different kids of … skills
that are important for children’s intellectual and
social competence.” (Parke 2013: 150)

8.  Mothers’ distinctive talents
 Breastfeeding
 Understanding children
 Communicating with children
 Nurturing children
 Moms’ talents are linked to
 Nurture - Cultural factors (e.g., socialization)
 Nature - Biological factors (e.g., oxytocin)

9.  Providing
 Discipline
 Play
 Challenging children
 Loving Mom
 Dads’ talents are linked to
 Nurture - Cultural factors (e.g., socialization)
 Nature - Biological factors (e.g., testosterone)

10.  The sociological literature suggests that
 Marriage
 Work
 Family of Origin
 Education
 Pop culture
▪ Shape the nature & quality of paternal engagement with
children

11.  Nature also appears to play a role in paternal
engagement
 Testosterone falls in wake of residential
fatherhood (Wilcox & Kline 2013).
 But hormonal and other physiological differences
persist in mothers and fathers that influence
parental styles – High T is probably related to
dads’ distinctive style of play & discipline.

12.  “It is clear that hormonal, in combination
with social, factors are an important class of
factors to recognize” in parenting behavior.
(Parke 2013)

13.  Fathers excel in providing
 Only @120,000 stay-at-home dads out of 27 million married
fathers
 Approximately 9 million stay-at-home mothers
 After kids arrive, dads work more hours, wives work less
 @ 2/3rds of family income typically comes from Dad

14.  Fathers excel in disciplining children
 Strength, size, voice telegraph toughness
 More assertive, less willing to bend rules than
mothers
 Especially effective with teenage boys
 (Sources: Popenoe 1996; Powers et al 1994)

15.  Fathers excel in physical play
 More inclined to engage in rough play
 More likely to surprise or excite children
 Children more likely to be stimulated by father &
to learn how to deal with aggression from father
▪ Rough housing teaches boys how to control bodies and
emotions*
▪ (Sources: Parke 2013; Popenoe 1996)

16.  Fathers excel in pushing their children to embrace
challenges, difficulties, outside world
 Encourage kids to engage in novel activities & be
independent
 More likely to introduce children to work, sports, civil
society/politics
 Boys & girls who have active, engaged dads attain more,
more self-confident
 (Sources: Parke 2013; Popenoe 1996)

17.  One of most important influences Dad can have on
kids is indirect
 Loving Mom*
 Moms who are happily married are
 More involved, nurturing, better at monitoring
 Dads who treat mom with respect & affection
 More likely to teach boys to deal with girls/women in a
respectful manner
 More likely to teach girls to expect to be treated well by
boys/men in their life
 (Sources: Wilcox et al 2010; Amato and Booth )

18.  Children who grow up with involved and
authoritative fathers and warm, nurturing
mothers seem to turn out better

19.  “The complementarity of male and female parenting
styles is striking and of enormous importance to a child’s
overall development… [F]athers express more concern for
the child’s long-term development, while mothers focus
on the child’s immediate well-being… [T]he disciplinary
approach of fathers tends to be “firm” while that of
mothers tends to be “responsive.” … Both dimensions are
critical for an efficient, balanced, and humane
childrearing regime.” (1996)

20.  The research on fatherless households is
particularly powerful in this regard.

21.  Boys without fathers are less
likely to be disciplined & monitored
 Boys without fathers are more likely to fall prey
to “compensatory masculinity”
 Boys without fathers are significantly more likely
to be delinquent, violent, & end up in prison

22. Source: Harper and
McLanahan 2004 22

23.  Girls without fathers are more likely
to seek out inappropriate attention from boys
 Girls without fathers are significantly more likely to
be sexually active and become pregnant as
teenagers

24. Source: Ellis et al.,2003
24

25.  Good news: Married fathers more engaged
 1965: 2.8 hours per day
 1998: 3.8 hours per day
 Bad news: there is no overall increase in
father time with children
 Because of family structure shifts of last 40 years
 About half of children will spend time in a
fatherless home

26.  Fatherless America (1995: 2-3):
 “[I]n addition to losing fathers, we are losing
something larger: our idea of fatherhood…
we now face more than a physical loss
affecting some homes. We face a cultural loss
affecting every home… the most important
absence our society must confront is not the
absence of fathers but the absence of our
belief in fathers.”

27.  (Source: Bowman 2012)

28.  Best psychological, sociological, & biological
evidence suggests that dads bring distinctive talents
to the parenting enterprise, that marriage anchors
men in the home, and the idea of
fatherhood matters.
 We cannot shy away from the
message that fathers are not
fungible.