University of MarylandThe papers by West, Mitchell, and colleagues, andby Roy and Kwon address which aspects offathers and fathering are important to exploreand how to conduct research on them. I wouldlike, first, to reiterate why it is that we are inter-ested in devoting time to examining fathers andfathering. I believe that it is because men whoare in close contact with children make contribu-tions to their well being, for good or bad, and thatthe more we know about the contributions menmake to children, the better we understand theirchildren’s own transitions to fatherhood andsubsequent fathering behavior.Jerry West identifies four key challenges: (1)defining fathers, (2) identifying appropriate mento interview, (3) locating and gaining cooperation,and (4) developing appropriate measures of father-ing to use. I agree that these are the key issues toaddress.Defining FathersThe answer to the question Jerry West asksabout which fathers to include and which not toinclude is simple. Include those men with whomchildren have either a biological or a residentialassociation. This would mean the biological father(residential or nonresidential) and the residentialstepfather or father figure, if any. Recent researchsuggests that stepfathers are important men inchildren’s lives and should be included (Marsiglio,2004). Many biological fathers leave and have noor minimal contact with children; including suchdads would not add information about fathering.Most research also includes adoptive parents asparents; they have agreed to act as natural parentsand should be treated as such. Foster parentsshould probably not be included, but only a verysmall fraction of children are in such settings.Identifying Appropriate Men to InterviewJerry West’s second question is how to deter-mine which men should be studied. To do so weneed to make sure to obtain sufficient data on bio-logical and marital relationships and contact=involvement. By asking questions about amountof contact of the biological father, any residentialfather, and other possible father figures with thechild, we can determine which men are involvedin children’s lives. Collect data from all relevantmen and let the researcher determine how to usethe data. Researchers with an interest in biologicalfatherhood will focus on biological fathers, resi-dent or not, and those with an interest in residen-tial fatherhood will focus on residential fathers,stepfathers, and other father figures. Asking aboutboth, as was done in the National LongitudinalSurvey of Youth (1979), provides more flexibilityfor researchers. Another important considerationis from whom to ask the questions. It seems thatobtaining reports from mothers, fathers, and chil-dren is critical. These different family membershave different points of view that contribute tothe overall picture. The NLSY-79 asked childrenabout their fathers, asked mothers about chil-dren’s fathers, and recently began asking fathersthemselves about their relations with children.Locating and Obtaining CooperationLocating and obtaining cooperation fromfathers is a very tough task at the moment. TheMitchell et al. paper provides a sobering descrip-tion of the difficulties of obtaining cooperation.Many of the fathers in whom we are interestedare working several jobs and juggling one or sev-eral families. They have little time to talk withresearchers. We need to think harder and morecreatively about the types of incentives that wouldencourage fathers to participate. Providing struc-tured time with children, paid babysitting, learningopportunities for fathers and child, and substantialfinancial incentives are some ideas.