Adult Fathers Research Articles

Bittersweet Metamorphosis: Lived Experiences of Emerging Adult Single Fathers on Parenting in a Rural Community

With the increasing number of single-father family households worldwide, there is a need to conduct substantial research to provide sufficient information about this understudied population. This qualitative phenomenological study seeks to describe, explore and interpret the lived experiences of emerging adult single fathers on parenting. It utilized the purposive and snowballing sampling techniques to select the participants. The data were gathered through face-to-face interviews guided by interview protocol. Lichtman's 3 C's of Data Analysis was employed to generate themes extracted from participants' verbatim transcripts. Five themes emerged from their lived experiences: Providing Care and Nurturance, Rearing One's Child Properly, Dealing with Drawbacks in Single Fatherhood, Receiving Relief from Empathic Hands, and Appreciating Blissful Moments in Solitary Parenting. The findings provided insights that a transformation is required to adjust to their current situation and, most significantly, to change for their children's sake. To conclude, single fathers can truly nurture and raise their children with tenderness, warmth, care, and affection like single mothers and dual-household families. Given the limitations of this qualitative research, quantitative research is suggested for further research to create a comprehensive intervention program for mental health professionals to promote single fathers' quality of life

105. Perceived COVID-19-Related Stress & Other Impacts Among Lower Income Expectant Young Adult Fathers

This study’s goal addresses a gap in our understanding of lower income young adult (18-29) and older adult (30 or older) expectant fathers’ experiences with COVID, including COVID-related perceived stress, impact on interacting with co-parent and other caregivers about infant care, on access to healthcare, and on financial concerns.

Communicating the diagnosis of Klinefelter syndrome to children and adolescents: when, how, and who?

Klinefelter syndrome (KS) is the most frequent sex chromosome aneuploidy in males. KS diagnosis disclosure has an important impact on diagnosis acceptance and the increase in prenatal diagnostic procedures raises questions regarding communication to children/adolescents. Limited data are currently available on this issue. The aim of the study was to investigate aspects like the best timing (when), topics (how), and healthcare professional (who), which, in the opinion of both KS patients and parents, may be considered the best for diagnosis communication to KS children/adolescents. We also analyzed how participants received the communication in real life and evaluated the differences between the responses given by parents who receive KS diagnosis before or after KS patient birth regarding disclosure of KS communication. KS adult patients, KS mothers, and KS fathers, not belonging to the same family, completed a questionnaire containing quantitative measures (5 points Likert scale), open-ended questions, and multiple choice questions. Parental responses were divided according to the timing at which the communication occurred: prenatal age diagnosis (PRE-D) or postnatal age diagnosis (POST-D). A total of 41 KS adults and 77 KS parents (53 PRE-D, 24 POST-D) were recruited. Most KS patients and most POST-D parents consider that communication should be provided before 14 years of age; most PRE-D parents consider 14–18 years of age the best period for communication. We suggest that communication should occur preferably before 18 years of age by a multidisciplinary team (endocrinologists, psychologists, geneticists, and parents) and that the information should deal not only fertility and hormonal aspects but also metabolic and cognitive features.

Paternal Part‐Time Employment and Fathers' Long‐Term Involvement in Child Care and Housework

AbstractObjectiveThis study examines whether paternal part‐time employment is related to greater involvement by fathers in child care and housework, both while fathers are working part‐time and after they return to full‐time employment.BackgroundThe study draws on four strands of theory—time availability, bargaining, gender ideology, and gender construction. It studies couples' division of labor in Germany, where policies increasingly support a dual‐earner, dual‐carer model.MethodThe study uses data from the German Socio‐Economic Panel from 1991 to 2015 on employed adult fathers living together with at least one child younger than age 17 and the mother. The analytic sample comprises 51,230 observations on 8,915 fathers. Fixed effects regression techniques are used to estimate the effect of (previous) part‐time employment on fathers' child‐care hours, housework hours, and share of child care and housework.ResultsFathers did more child care and housework while they worked part time. Yet, most fathers reverted to previous levels of involvement after returning to full‐time work. The only exception was fathers with partners in full‐time employment, who spent more time doing child care and took on a greater share of housework after part‐time employment than before.ConclusionThe findings are largely consistent with the time availability perspective, although the results for fathers with full‐time employed partners indicate that the relative resources and gender ideology perspectives have some explanatory power as well.

Program Mendengar Aktif untuk Ayah dengan Anak Usia 4 Hingga 6 Tahun

Today, fathers are more involved in children’s caretaking. This role has shifted the views about family. Fathers who had the function as breadwinners are now also taking the role as caregivers. Unfortunately there are still some inadequacy in caregiving by fathers, especially in communicating with children. This issue needs to be handled because father’s competence in caregiving affects the development of the children to produce positive behavior. Fathers need an intervention to increase their knowledge and skills to communicates with children. One intervention that gives maximum effect is by trained fathers to increase knowledge and skills on active listening. This research is a one group pretest and posttest design type which involved 5 young adult fathers with children aged 4-6 years old and was performed in Depok, West Java. The final result shows a significant differences in fathers’ active listening knowledge and skills before and after receiving the father active listening program

Designing Prison-Based Parenting Programs to Maximize Their Outcomes.

Parenting programs are increasingly being offered in prison as governments seek to reduce the negative consequences of parental imprisonment and encourage desistance from crime. However, little is known about the design and delivery of such programs and how this may shape program effectiveness. This article seeks to address this gap by examining how the design and delivery of the Families Matter program for imprisoned adult fathers in Northern Ireland affected its ability to achieve its goals of improving family relationships and fathers' parenting skills. Examples of good practice are offered, as well as challenges that remain to be overcome. It is argued that more attention needs to be paid to the design and delivery of these programs if their ability to achieve long-term improvements in family relationships and parenting skills are to be improved.

Contraception Attitudes, Intentions, and Knowledge of Teen and Young Adult Fathers

Contraception Attitudes, Intentions, and Knowledge of Teen and Young Adult Fathers

Doświadczanie rodzicielstwa i doświadczenia rodzicielskie. Propozycja konceptualizacji

The lack of terminological precision in relation to a category that is widely used in social sciences, i.e. experience, provided inspiration for reviewing the scientific approach to the concept. The role of experience in the psychological development of an individual was evidenced using Aristotle’s perspective, Locke’s theory of empiricism and the conceptions of Tomaszewski, Bruner, Piaget and Tyszkowa. Different types of experience present in human life were presented. The author also proposed an original conceptualisation of experiencing and experience in relation to parenthood, pointing to factors which determine the way of experiencing motherhood and fatherhood and which are essential in the process of operationalisation of the analysed categories. The 63 identified criteria that differentiate the experiences of adult mothers and fathers evidence the research potential that arises from parenthood.

Humorous communication, verbal aggressiveness, and father–son relational satisfaction

AbstractThis study examines the role of humor orientation and reported humorous communication behaviors during father–son conflict in predicting relational satisfaction. In addition, the main effect and interaction effect (with humor orientation) of verbal aggressiveness on relational satisfaction is investigated. A survey of adult father–son pairs pinpoints an interesting network of findings linking general humor orientations, verbal aggressiveness, reported use of humorous messages during conflict, and relational satisfaction within the father–son relationship. Key findings include: Sons’ relational satisfaction is predicted by lower fathers’ verbal aggressiveness for those with fathers who report a very high humor orientation. On the other hand, fathers’ relational satisfaction is predicted by lower levels of sons’ humor orientation, and not by verbal aggressiveness. Further, sons’ relational satisfaction is negatively related to the reported use of

Disrupted relationships: adult daughters and father absence.

Changes in family structures have resulted in many children growing up in non-traditional families, where their father is not resident in the family home. Father absence that occurs as a result of the breakdown of the parental relationship is associated with life adversity and less than optimal outcomes for children and adolescents. However, little research exists that explores this phenomenon from the perspective of the father absent young person. This phenomenological study was conducted in 2005 and aimed to explore women's perceptions about relationships with their fathers within the context of a father absent childhood. Nine women participated in this study. Findings revealed that growing up without their father present in the family home disrupted the relationship these daughters held with their fathers. Due to the perceived lack of interest these daughters felt from their fathers, they expressed feelings of hurt and diminished respect for their fathers. Furthermore, participants felt that their fathers were unable to provide them with the father-daughter relationship that they sought. The findings of this paper provide insights that can help nurses and other healthcare professionals to recognise the emotional impact that father absence can have on young women. Findings suggest a need for further research to gain greater insights into the experiences of family members who undergo disruption of relationships due to family breakdown.

Imagen de los padres en la comparación con el otro, el género y la jerarquía familiar

El objetivo del presente estudio fue describir la imagen de las figuras parentales en sus agentes (padres y madres) y receptores directos (hijos e hijas), considerando el sexo, la posición de los actores sociales y la función de la comparación social. Se administró un cuestionario de preguntas abiertas a 258 participantes voluntarios: 64 madres y 64 padres adultos, además de 65 adolescentes varones y 65 mujeres adolescentes (hijos). Asimismo, se realizó un análisis de contenido. La descripción de sí mismos dada por los padres y la aportada por sus hijos coincidieron, proporcionando una imagen positiva; en contraste, hubo un equilibrio de cualidades positivas y negativas en la imagen de los otros padres. Las madres se definieron y fueron reconocidas como más exigentes e irritables que los padres. Se discuten los datos considerando las teorías de la identidad social, aspectos de género y jerarquía familiar.

Habilidades comunicativas verbais no desenvolvimento típico de linguagem: relato de caso

The aim of the current study was to investigate verbal communication skills in children with typical language development and ages between 6 and 8 years. Participants were 10 children of both genders in this age range without language alterations. A 30-minute video of each child's interaction with an adult (father and/or mother) was recorded, fully transcribed, and analyzed by two trained researchers in order to determine reliability. The recordings were analyzed according to a protocol that categorizes verbal communicative abilities, including dialogic, regulatory, narrative-discursive, and non-interactive skills. The frequency of use of each category of verbal communicative ability was analyzed (in percentage) for each subject. All subjects used more dialogical and regulatory skills, followed by narrative-discursive and non-interactive skills. This suggests that children in this age range are committed to continue dialog, which shows that children with typical language development have more dialogic interactions during spontaneous interactions with a familiar adult.

Fatherhood and the non-propertied classes in Renaissance and early modern Italian towns

The relationship between father and son in the early modern period has been conceptualised exclusively in terms of submission of the latter to the authority of the former and as implying a one-way flow of obligations and resources running from the father to the son. This study reverses this usual perspective by showing that the legal institution of patria potestas also entailed a son's economic obligation to his father, for it gave fathers full rights over the earnings of their grown-up sons. It was to escape this burden that many adult men, sometimes married and fathers in their own right, resorted to the legal deed of emancipation, which freed them from the patria potestas of their living father and hence from any economic obligations to his family. The analysis of a sample of over a hundred deeds from the last quarter of the 17th century reveals that emancipations were particularly frequent among those urban classes which largely lived of their work and participated in the labour market from an early age. The arguments used by sons to justify their request for emancipation throw light on the specific nature of the father-son relationship among these groups. Fathers are often portrayed as too poor to comply with the duty of settling all male children in a trade and paying for the dowries of the daughters, and as obliged to rely on older sons to fulfil these essential paternal and masculine roles. They are implicitly depicted as failed patriarchs and their legal prerogatives over the son thus appear illegitimate. The analysis of these narratives, together with a brief examination of representations of fatherhood in earlier artisans' diaries exposes the gulf between shared expectations about fatherly roles and practice that made the position of the paternal figure particularly vulnerable among the non-propertied classes. Here paternal roles were often shared by a range of male figures, rather than being entirely fulfilled by the biological father. Tensions or simply emotional and physical distance characterised the father-son relationship, in sheer contrast with the rhetoric of the time, which depicted such bond as ‘the greatest love there is’.

Examining HIV-Positive Parents' Disclosure to Their Children: A Biopsychosocial Approach

In the post HAART era, the biopsychosocial issues now facing HIV-positive parents concerning disclosure of their status to their children need to be understood in the context of chronic disease. This article describes the experiences of 101 adult HIV-positive urban in-treatment mothers and fathers of school-age children on disclosure, psychological distress, social support, and symptom severity. Key variables associated with parents' HIV disclosure were the age of parent and of children in the household, parents' HIV-related symptoms, and parent ethnicity. Cultural and maturational, rather than psychological or social factors were significantly related to parents' HIV disclosure.

Do Coparenting and Social Support Have a Greater Effect on Adolescent Fathers Than Adult Fathers?

This study examined whether coparenting support and social support had a stronger effect on father engagement with 3-year-olds among adolescent fathers compared with adult fathers. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 1,540), we found that coparenting support and paternal social support had a significantly stronger positive effect on adolescent fathers than adult fathers. The associations among coparenting, social support, and adolescent father engagement did not depend on whether the father and mother were romantically involved with each other. The results support the idea that programs for adolescent parents should focus on coparenting and social support as a way to help fathers to stay involved with their children.

Fathers Faring Poorly

Fathers of young children may face health challenges. In this article, the authors sought to characterize health-related challenges among fathers of young children (aged 4 years or younger) through the use of an Internet survey. Questions covered an unusually large battery of outcomes related to men's health, including general health, affect, and sexual function. A total of 126 adult fathers provided usable data. The most notable findings were that scores on the General Health Questionnaire, Kessler Psychological Distress Scale, and negative affect indicated poor general health and high levels of distress and negative affect compared with normative data. Relationship satisfaction, sexual desire, and sexual activity were similar to normative data, although sexual enjoyment with and without a partner were lower among fathers participating in this study. Some variables were associated with each other (e.g., relationship satisfaction and affect) but most were not. This study also indicates that fathers can be successfully recruited through Internet-based survey research.

How Teenage Fathers Matter for Children: Evidence From the ECLS-B.

Much is known about how having a teenage mother influences children's outcomes, but the relationship between teenage fatherhood and children's health and development is less well documented. Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort, the authors investigated how teenage fathers matter for children. They expected teenage fathers' influence on children to differ from adult fathers' in three domains: the household context, the father-mother relationship, and the father-child relationship. Teenage fathers were less often married and more often cohabiting or nonresident, and their children experienced a variety of social disadvantages in their household contexts. The quality of the father-child relationship did not often differ between adolescent and adult fathers. Fathers' marital status and children's household contexts each fully explained the negative relationship between having a teen father and children's cognitive and behavior scores at age 2. These findings suggest that policy interventions could possibly reduce these children's developmental gaps in the critical preschool years.

Reasons for Ineffective Contraceptive Use Antedating Adolescent Pregnancies Part 1: An Indicator of Gaps in Family Planning Services

Identify new ways to increase the impact of pregnancy prevention interventions on the number of children born to adolescents. The study participants, a racially/ethnically diverse group of 1,568, pregnant 13-18 year olds, reported why they had not used contraception at the time of conception. Their explanations were sorted into categories. The frequency with which each category was endorsed, the stability of these endorsements (Kappa statistic), and differences between adolescents who endorsed each category (stepwise logistic regression) were examined at two points in gestation. "Not ready to prevent pregnancy" was the most frequently endorsed category; it was often the only category endorsed. Logistical barriers and misperceptions about the need for contraception were the least frequently endorsed categories. The reasons individual patients gave for not using contraception changed (K < or = 0.4) during gestation. Yet, adolescents who were not ready to prevent conception consistently differed from those who were; they were more apt to be Hispanic, to live in non-chaotic environments with an adult father of the child rather than their parents, and to have goals compatible with adolescent childbearing. The most expedient way to strengthen the impact of pregnancy prevention programs on adolescent childbearing is to shift the focus of intervention from overcoming logistical barriers and misperceptions about the need for contraception, to helping young women develop goals that make adolescent childbearing a threat to what they want in life. This means intervening actively enough to ensure that goal setting translates into an internal desire to postpone childbearing beyond adolescence.

"Just Like His Dad": Family Background and Residency with Children among Young Adult Fathers

Drawing upon a conceptual framework proposed by Doherty and colleagues (1998), we examine the association between father residence during adolescence and early paternity and residency for a sample of young adult men. Our data are from the National Survey of Adolescent Males (Waves I, III)—a representative sample of young adult men in the U.S., aged 21 to 27 in 1995. Using multinomial logistic techniques, we find that living with a father during adolescence reduces the odds that young men experience fatherhood at an early age. In addition, living with a biological father as a teen, increases the odds that young adult fathers reside with their children. The association between living with a father as a teen and early paternity and child residency is attenuated by background characteristics and current education and work status.

Disrupted relationships: Adult daughters and father absence

Changes in family structures have resulted in many children growing up in non-traditional families, where their father is not resident in the family home. Father absence that occurs as a result of the breakdown of the parental relationship is associated with life adversity and less than optimal outcomes for children and adolescents. However, little research exists that explores this phenomenon from the perspective of the father absent young person. This phenomenological study was conducted in 2005 and aimed to explore women’s perceptions about relationships with their fathers within the context of a father absent childhood. Nine women participated in this study. Findings revealed that growing up without their father present in the family home disrupted the relationship these daughters held with their fathers. Due to the perceived lack of interest these daughters felt from their fathers, they expressed feelings of hurt and diminished respect for their fathers. Furthermore, participants felt that their fathers were unable to provide them with the father–daughter relationship that they sought. The findings of this paper provide insights that can help nurses and other healthcare professionals to recognise the emotional impact that father absence can have on young women. Findings suggest a need for further research to gain greater insights into the experiences of family members who undergo disruption of relationships due to family breakdown.