7 - Fathers and child rearing

Summary

There is still the widespread belief that a man does not belong at home taking care of children.

James A. Levine (1976, p. 153)

Fatherhood, long a neglected subject in scholarly and popular discussions of child rearing, has been treated to a substantial reevaluation during the past 15 years. The contributions of fathers to child development now seem more important and more varied than was assumed in the long heyday of maternalism. This reassessment has coincided with unquestionable new needs for changes in parental balance, given women's characteristic work commitments, and with some measurable shifts in parental procedures such as paternal presence at childbirth.

These varied developments have won an approving chorus from many family experts that may at points verge on the uncritical. They also carry interesting historical implications, as the undeniable reevaluations by experts may be extended to a larger scenario in which a century or more of paternal eclipse yields to revolutionary new patterns of fathering by the 1960s or 1970s. Assumptions about widespread change have not yet been subjected to extensive historical scrutiny, yet each scrutiny is essential to place the recent findings about fatherhood's potential into clearer perspective. The need for establishing historical trend and for situating current beliefs is to discover not only what fathers can or should do (or could or should have done) but what actually goes on and how current practice flows from past precedent.