Blog 11 - Fatherhood

Questions: (1.) According to Joseph Pleck, how did the role of fathers change in the United States over time? What are the expectations about fatherhood today, both according to the article and based on your own observations? (2.) According to Francine Deutsch, why do couples with children decide to work alternating shifts, and how is that decision related to their social class status? How does these families' division of labor compare to their gender ideologies? Would you select an alternating shift arrangement for your family? (3.) According to Dorothy Roberts, what are the societal forces that discourage family participation of Black fathers? What elements of Black fatherhood led to the creation of the myth of the Absent Black Father, and what patterns of Black men’s behavior contradict this myth?

In Joseph Pleck’s chapter, “American Fathering in Historical Perspective,” he clearly illustrates how the role of fathers changed in the Untied States.
In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the father was viewed as the moral overseer. The father was the main parent in the lives of his children. He was seen as the “ultimate source of moral teaching and worldly judgments” (352). The church, a major influential factor, believed that fathers “ought to concern themselves with the moral and religious education of the young and teach reading and writing” (352). Furthermore, the father played a key role in the courtship and marriage making of his children and usually was assigned custody in cases of marital separation.
In the early nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries the predominant role of father began to change. Gradually the role of the mother increased while the more direct role of father decreased. As a new gender ideology emerged, specifically the purity of the female sphere, “the interests of the child were interpreted as justifying if not requiring maternal custody” (353). The effect of industrialization also impacted the role of the father; instead of being the extremely involved in the lives of his children, “being fully a father [now] meant being separated from one’s children for a considerable part of each day” (354). Although the father continued to set the official standard of morality and to be the final arbiter of family discipline, on the whole the father’s authority was reduced significantly.
Today, the dominant model is the father as the bread-winner. However, the image of the “new father” is on the rise: “he is present at the birth, he is involved with his children as infants, not just when they are older; he participates in the actual day-to-day work of child care, and not just play; he is involved with his daughters as much as his sons” (358).
I think that the article emphasizes the “new father” model as an expectation for fathers to emulate today; a sort of balance between the extremely involved father of the colonial period and frequently absent bread-winner father of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I agree with Pleck’s “new father” model and the expectations of fathers today. The balance between the two extremes seems to be a happy medium.

Many couples with children decide to work alternating shifts for different reasons, but mainly because of monetary issues. In Francine Deutsch’s article, “Halving it All: The Mother and Mr. Mom,” the majority of couples attributed their decision to working alternate shifts because it is cheaper to avoid using paid child care. Deutsch even mentioned the tight financial situation of these couples, “the alternating shifters have the lowest incomes among the groups I interviewed” (117). Although many of these couples couldn’t afford child care and thus had to work alternating shifts, there were many couples who “reasoned that it was impractical to spend so much of their income on day care” (117).
Couples also chose to work alternating shifts because they believe that children should only be cared for by family. Many middle class parents avoid day care and opt to work alternating shifts because for psychological reasons; for example, “they believe it doesn’t promote the child’s optimal development or because they think it will damage the bond between parent and child” (118). Furthermore, they also believe that “terrible dangers await children who are cared for by strangers” (118).
Among the working class there is more support for traditional gender ideology than among the more highly educated groups in the United States. “Many blue-collar couples carry with them images of an ideal of traditional family life, featuring the men going to work while their wives stay at home to tend young children” (125). As a result, Deutsch found that among middle class couples, “an overwhelming majority emphasized that, though both parents are employed, the men are the breadwinners in their families” (125). Furthermore, “in almost all the alternating-shift families, the parents stressed men’s breadwinning roles by treating the father’s job as the more important job in the family” (126).
The reality of the mother who works alternating shifts contradicts the ideal of the mother without paid employment. Although many of these alternating-shift mothers work to maintain the family’s economic well-being, many of them stated that given the choice the majority of them preferred being in the paid labor force and wouldn’t chose to be home full time – “yet the prevailing myth in these families is that the mothers work only for financial reasons” (126).
Mothers in alternating-shift families are still regarded as the number-one parent, regardless of how much time fathers spend with their children; “being there when children arrive home from a day at school is part of their image of being a good mother” (129).
Alternating-shift families are breaking grounds by developing new parenting techniques however there is an emphasis on traditional gender identities that there couples tend to hang on to. “They manage marked difference between their behavior and their ideology by maintaining core aspects of parental gender identity. Despite their nontraditional arrangements, they still regard the father as the breadwinner and the mother as the central parent” (132).
I am not sure what I would do in terms of selecting an alternating-shift arrangement for my family. It is extremely economically beneficial and also allows both parents to spend time with their children; however I would imagine that it might put a strain on the relationship between husband and wife. It seems that the time they would have together would be limited and when they find the time to be together either one or both are probably going to be exhausted. The pros and cons seem to be equal so I guess it would depend on the specific situation I found myself to be in at the time.

In Dorothy Roberts’ chapter, “The Absent Black Father,” she notes while black fathers are disparaged for their absence in the family, there are a number of societal factors that discourage family participation of black fathers. First, she points to a Black cultural tradition that is more accepting of unmarried mothers. Along similar lines, people tend to view Black single mothers as resistors against patriarchy. Roberts also indicates that joblessness and incarceration are also strong societal factors that discourage participation of black fathers. The unemployment rates for Black men “are more than double those of White men, and in 1988, there were more Black women in the labor force than Black men” (150). Black men’s declining ability to contribute financially to their households is a major cause of fatherlessness in Black homes. Additionally, Black fathers are also separated from their families by imprisonment; “Blacks, mostly men, make up over half of the one million inmates in American jails” (150). These incarceration rates “not only result from the disproportionate poverty and desperation that plagues Black communities but also from federal and state sentencing policies that are tougher on Black drug offenders” (150). When these Black men are finally let out of prison, ex-convicts have a hard time finding a decent job, which makes it difficult for them ever to become the ideal father.
An important element of Black fatherhood that led to the creation of the myth of the Absent Black Father is that Blacks were not included in the separate spheres ideology; “black men fail to fit the patriarchal model of the husband who sustains his family economically” (151). Furthermore, the term ‘fatherlessness’ is often used interchangeably with ‘single motherhood’ and ‘illegitimacy’ demonstrating that people seem to be far more concerned with castigating unmarried fathers than with examining the actual contributions of married fathers to their children’s well being.
"Many presumably “absent” Black fathers actually play an important role in child rearing. Many Black men stay closely tied to their children even when they are not married to the mother or are unable to provide financial support” (153). Stephanie Coontz even points out that in one national study, “poor African-American, officially absent fathers actually had more contact with their children and gave them informal support than did White, middle-class absent fathers” (153).