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PubMed1983

["... being a father is difficult!" On the question of authority in the role of the father].

The terms "authoritarian" and "authority" are defined in the context of the process of education. Certain historic, cultural and anthropological aspects of father's role, some newer empirical results concerning the importance of the father for the psychic development of the child and the connection of father and authority are discussed under sociocultural and psychoanalytic viewpoints. Especially the relation between the father and the child in the preoedipal and oedipal phase is treated. This on the back-ground of the dialectic triangle of having a father, becoming father and being father.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

Interaction between mother's and father's affection as a risk factor for anxiety and depression symptoms--evidence for increased risk in adults who rate their father as having been more affectionate than their mother.

BACKGROUND: Retrospective reports of low care from either parent are found to be associated with increased risk for anxiety and depression in adulthood. Furthermore, fathers are generally reported as having been less caring than mothers, which raises the issue of whether greater care from fathers across the whole population would benefit mental health. METHODS: A community survey was carried out in Canberra, Australia, with 2404 adults aged 20-24 and 2530 aged 40-44. Respondents retrospectively reported on affection shown by their parents and on other aspects of family functioning. These data were analysed in relation to risk for anxiety and depressive symptoms and neuroticism. RESULTS: Retrospective reporting of greater affection from both fathers and mothers was generally associated with fewer anxiety and depression symptoms and lower neuroticism. However, there was a significant interaction effect, such that mental health was worse in families where the father was reported to show a higher level of affection but the mother a lower level. Such families were found to have a range of problems, including higher rates of emotional problems in the parents, conflict in the home, parental separation or divorce, and parental mistreatment. These family problems accounted for much of the interaction effect observed. CONCLUSIONS: Greater affection from the father is not always associated with lower risk for anxiety and depression. Where the father is more affectionate than the mother there tends to be increased family problems and increased risk. It is possible that family problems lead fathers to show increased affection to their children or mothers to show reduced affection.

Adult↗
PubMed1981

Finding one's father: the mother's contribution to early father representations.

The attachment of psychic meaning to relationships emerges in pre-oedipal life through the epigenesis of the representational world. The mother-child dyad is traditionally understood as the prototype of all subsequent one-to-one relationships, including to the father. However, developmental research data suggest that a child, even in optimal situations, has relatively little actual contact with the father in the first year of life. It is therefore suggested that father-representations derive from sources outside of the father-child dyad. The way a mother brings her youngster into contact with the father can catalyze or discolor the child's affective attachment to him. Mother can facilitate or retard the "other-directedness" of an infant in her husband's presence. During separation-individuation, the mother may affect father representations through her capacity to transitively vitalize or disenfranchise the father in his absence. Correlations from both clinical psychoanalytic work and infant-toddler observation are offered in support of these hypotheses.

Adult↗
PubMed1998

Father by law: effects of joint legal custody on nonresident fathers' involvement with children.

Family membership and household composition do not always coincide. Joint legal custody after divorce formalizes the relationship between fathers and children who live apart. Policymakers hope that explicit acknowledgment of nonresident fathers' rights and responsibilities will increase their involvement with their children. I use prospective data from the National Survey of Families and Households to examine the association between joint legal custody and two aspects of nonresident fathers' contributions to their children--the frequency of visits between fathers and children and child-support payments. The analysis examines approximately 160 families in which parents divorced between interviews conducted for Wave 1 (1987-1988) and Wave 2 (1992-1994) of the survey. I investigate the effects of joint legal custody holding constant physical custody or replacement by restricting the analysis to children who live with their mothers most of the year. Controlling for socioeconomic status and the quality of family relationships before separation, fathers with joint legal custody see their children more frequently and have more overnight visits than do other fathers. The positive effect of joint legal custody on frequency of visits persists once unobserved differences among families are taken into account. Although fathers with joint legal custody pay more child support than those without joint legal custody, this difference lacks statistical significance when other family characteristics are taken into account. These findings support the view that joint legal custody may encourage some aspects of paternal involvement after divorce.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Adult responses to child behavior and attitudes toward fathering: gay and nongay fathers.

This study examines gay and nongay fathers' responses to instruments measuring parenting style and orientation to the fathering role. Fifty-three respondents (24 gay and 29 nongay fathers) completed two surveys, and responses to each were analyzed. Both groups of fathers were found to have a developmental orientation toward their role as fathers, and no discernible parenting style could be found to distinguish one group from the other. Thus, gay and nongay fathers were found to be more similar than different with regard to parenting styles and attitudes toward fathering. This finding supports previous work (Bigner & Jacobsen, 1989a, 1989b) and expands the available knowledge based on the parenting styles of homosexual parents.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Becoming a father. First-time fathers' experience of labor and delivery.

In this study, ethnographic interviews were used to identify first-time fathers' experiences of the birth of their first child. Fourteen fathers were interviewed, and prenatal expectations of the experience are compared with the fathers' perceptions after the birth. Although the fathers expected to be treated as part of a laboring couple, they found that they were relegated to a supporting role. Initially the fathers were confident of their ability to support their wives, but they found that labor was more work than they had anticipated. They became fearful of the outcome, but hid these fears from their partners. Later, they found that their focus moved from their wives to their babies at the time of birth. The men all completed the experience with an enhanced respect for their wives. Fathers should be included in labor management plans and need support for their role as coach, particularly when their wives experience pain. They also need to be encouraged to eat and take a break from their wives' labor when appropriate.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Fathers have lower salivary testosterone levels than unmarried men and married non-fathers in Beijing, China.

A growing body of evidence, almost entirely from North America, has found that male testosterone levels are positively associated with mating effort (male-male competition and mate-seeking behaviour), while lower testosterone levels have been associated with affiliative pair bonding and paternal care. To expand the cross-cultural scope of this research, here we investigate variation in salivary testosterone levels among Chinese men in relation to marital and parenting variables. One hundred and twenty-six men drawn from a Beijing university setting between the ages of 21 and 38 completed a questionnaire and provided both morning and late afternoon saliva samples from which testosterone levels were measured. The 66 unmarried men had slightly higher levels of testosterone than the 30 married non-fathers, but this difference was not statistically significant. However, the 30 fathers exhibited significantly lower testosterone levels than both unmarried men and married non-fathers. Among married non-fathers, marital relationship quality was not significantly related to testosterone levels. Among married fathers, men with children aged less than 4 years of age did not have lower testosterone levels than men with older children. These data are the first outside of North America to show lower testosterone levels among fathers, and lend support to the theoretical view that male testosterone levels differ according to mating and parenting effort.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Are fathers prepared to encourage their partners to breast feed? A study about fathers' knowledge of breast feeding.

In order to study fathers' knowledge of breast feeding and its relationship with paternal factors, fathers of 92 breast feeding and 89 non-breast feeding newborns were compared. Paternal factors included previous children and the way they were fed, participation in prenatal care, attendance at prenatal classes, breast feeding information provided by health professionals, use of reading materials and interest in learning more about the subject. The results indicated that fathers had poor knowledge about breast feeding, especially those whose children were being bottle fed. After adjustments for confounders, fathers who had previous breast-fed child(ren), had attended prenatal classes and who received information about breast feeding from medical personnel had a significantly higher chance of having a better knowledge of breast feeding. It seems that fathers need to be better prepared to assume their new role as breast feeding supporters. Prenatal care was shown to be a good opportunity to improve fathers' knowledge of breast feeding.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Life with (or without) father: the benefits of living with two biological parents depend on the father's antisocial behavior.

The salutary effects of being raised by two married, biological parents depend on the quality of care parents can provide. Using data from an epidemiological sample of 1,116 5-year-old twin pairs and their parents, this study found that the less time fathers lived with their children, the more conduct problems their children had, but only if the fathers engaged in low levels of antisocial behavior. In contrast, when fathers engaged in high levels of antisocial behavior, the more time they lived with their children, the more conduct problems their children had. Behavioral genetic analyses showed that children who resided with antisocial fathers received a "double whammy" of genetic and environmental risk for conduct problems. Marriage may not be the answer to the problems faced by some children living in single-parent families unless their fathers can become reliable sources of emotional and economic support.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1999

Development of father-infant attachment in fathers of preterm infants.

PURPOSE: To investigate the development of feelings of attachment between fathers and their preterm infants and to identify factors that help or hinder this process. DESIGN: A longitudinal descriptive design was used to obtain fathers' perceptions of their infants, feelings for their infants, and other related factors. SAMPLE: A convenience sample of 27 fathers of preterm infants was recruited. MAIN OUTCOME VARIABLE: The main outcome variable was the time at which fathers first held their infants. RESULTS: The earlier fathers held their babies, the sooner they reported feelings of warmth and love for them.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Father-child teaching interactions: the relationship to father involvement in caregiving.

This study examined whether the amount of caregiving is related to the behavior of a father and his child during a structured teaching interaction. Healthy infants and toddlers (51 girls and 59 boys) and their fathers were observed in their homes. Fathers reported the frequency of involvement in caregiving during the previous week. Although fathers in higher and lower involvement groups were equally sensitive to the child's cues and responsive to the child's distress, fathers who were more involved in caregiving had higher scores in cognitive growth fostering as measured by the Nursing Child Assessment Teaching Scale.

Age Distribution↗
PubMed2001

The effect of fathers or father figures on child behavioral problems in families referred to child protective services.

This study examines some possible effects of the presence and quality of parent-child interaction of fathers and father figures on the behavior of young children in a sample of families reported to child protective services. Whereas the presence or absence of a father or father figure seemed to make little difference in child behavioral problems at age 4, lower levels of aggression and depression were observed for children by age 6 if an adult male in some form of father-like relationship was present in the child's life. When controlling for mother's ethnicity, child's gender, the number of referrals to child protective services, and the presence of domestic violence, the direct effect of a father/father figure was no longer significant but remained in the multivariate models as a significant interaction term.

Adult↗
PubMed2000

Father-child separation, retrospective and current views of attachment relationship with father, and self-esteem in late adolescence.

Relationships between paternal separation in childhood and adult measures of self-esteem, paternal acceptance and independence-encouragement were investigated with 236 nonparent college students as subjects. Current relationship with father was measured by a modified version of Epstein's Mother-Father-Peer Scale. Self-esteem was measured by Coopersmith's Self-esteem Inventory. Individuals who experienced separation for all reasons from their fathers during childhood recounted less acceptance by their fathers in late adolescence but not less independence-encouragement. Individuals whose parents had divorced (whether or not they had experienced a significant separation) reported lower acceptance by their fathers in both childhood and in late adolescence, and they attained lower scores on self-esteem.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Aggressivity among sons of substance-abusing fathers: association with psychiatric disorder in the father and son, paternal personality, pubertal development, and socioeconomic status.

An association between childhood aggression and risk for subsequent development of a substance abuse disorder is now well-accepted. In order to better understand the relationship between the presence of paternal substance abuse and aggression among their offspring, 10-12 year old sons of fathers with (n = 34) and without (n = 39) a history of a substance abuse disorder were contrasted on demographics, aggressivity, biological indices of reproductive maturation, and the presence of psychiatric diagnoses. In addition, personality factors, the potential for physical abuse, and psychiatric diagnoses were also ascertained among their fathers. Sons of substance-abusing fathers were found to be significantly more aggressive than sons of nonsubstance abusers. However, they also differed from comparison boys on the basis of SES and school grade attained, as well as the proportion with specific psychiatric disorders. Substance-abusing fathers differed from nonsubstance-abusing men in terms of personality factors and the presence of specific psychiatric disorders, including antisocial personality. They also showed significantly higher child abuse potential scores. A multiple regression analysis of factors contributing to aggression in the boys revealed that a paternal personality factor characterized by stress reactivity, alienation, and aggression was the most robust contributor to aggression among the boys. The boys' diagnoses of attention deficit disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, and lower household socioeconomic status were also significant predictors of aggressivity. Contrary to expectations, paternal, psychiatric diagnoses, substance abuse status, and potential for physical abuse were noncontributory. The results suggest potential mechanisms by which both aggression and risk for substance abuse may be transmitted from father to son.

Aggression↗
PubMed1999

Migrant labor in South Africa: a comparative analysis of the academic achievement of father-present and father-absent adolescents.

This study was designed to determine whether there are significant differences in academic achievement between father-present and father-absent (due to migrant labor) adolescents. Data were collected from 276 high school students in South Africa. Academic achievement was measured by the Human Sciences Research Council's (HSRC) Scholastic Achievement Test, covering biology, English (second language), and mathematics. Father-present students were found to score significantly higher than father-absent students. The findings suggest that a father's absence due to work conditions has deleterious effects on the scholastic performance of young people.

Achievement↗
PubMed1990

Fathers' hospital visits to their preterm infants as a predictor of father-infant relationship and infant development.

This short-term longitudinal study assessed the degree to which the frequency of fathers' visits with their preterm infants in the hospital was associated with the quality of ongoing and long-term fathering and infant development. Data on fathering and infant development were collected during the hospital stay, at discharge, at 8 months of age, and at 18 months of age, using both questionnaires and observational schedules. The frequency of visits was significantly correlated with more extensive and positive patterns of fathering at discharge and later periods. It was also associated with more positive perceptions of the infant, as well as with weight gain during hospitalization and psychosocial aspects of later infant development during the first 18 months. The discussion emphasized possible ways in which early paternal contact in the hospital might influence fathers, mothers, and infants. The frequency of paternal visits was high-lighted as a variable useful in predicting high-risk parenting.

Body Weight↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Paternity probability when a relative of the father is an alleged father.

When scientists use DNA evidence in court, coancestry effects such as population structure and relatedness are usually ignored. In paternity cases, only if a particular man has the child's paternal allele at a certain locus, can he not be excluded in the paternity dispute. However, it is certainly true that close relatives will be far more likely to have the child's paternal allele than will random members of the reference population. In particular, the probability that the true father's brother has the paternal allele is very much greater than that for any other relationship. In this paper, the authors describe a method for inference in a case where the true father may be a relative of the alleged father. This paper also reports that most current methods overstate the probability that the alleged father is the father.

Alleles↗
PubMed1991

A comparison of stress and coping by fathers of adolescents with mental retardation and fathers of adolescents without mental retardation.

This investigation was an attempt to provide comparative information regarding stress and coping in fathers of adolescents with mental retardation and fathers of adolescents without mental retardation. Subjects for the study were 40 fathers of adolescents with mental retardation and 31 fathers of adolescents without mental retardation.

Adaptation, Psychological↗