Notions Of Fatherhood Research Articles

Becoming a Good Chinese Father – Reality TV in China and its Reception

In 2013, Hunan Television, one of China’s most successful provincial satellite television stations, debuted a reality TV series featuring celebrity fathers and their children. A localized version of a Korean-developed format, Where Are We Going, Dad ( baba quna’er) brought dads and kids together to different locations in the countryside, usually very remote and exotic, to complete certain assignments. This inquiry takes Where Are We Going, Dad as its focus; it seeks to understand how and how far notions of fatherhood are being constructed and circulated in contemporary China. It does so by way of audiences. While the show was evidently configuring and promoting their versions of fatherhood, we wanted to find out what viewers thought of the show, and of fatherhood. Located in the juncture of fatherhood and reality show studies, this exploratory inquiry identifies three themes from the conversations of four families in urban China. First, they articulate the difficulty of being a good father in a rapidly changing China and the concomitant longing to a return of traditional Chinese fatherhood. A second recurring theme concerns the ways in which they accept this tension between tradition and modernity. Finally, they demonstrate savviness in their viewing of the show. We build on the three themes to argue that such reality shows do impact on Chinese families’ understanding of fatherhood, but their savvy viewership points to the limit of such media impact.

Culture and conduct of fatherhood in India

The paper aims to add to the scant fatherhood literature in Asia and focuses on the link between culture and conduct of fatherhood in India. The specific objectives of the research are to: (1) explore men’s perception of an ideal father (culture), (2) study men’s participation in parenting (conduct), and (3) examine whether men’s behaviour is in accordance with the beliefs. Using data gathered through semi-structured interviews with 350 fathers of children aged zero to 10 years in Mumbai, India, the results indicate that although the notion of fatherhood is changing, a sizeable proportion of men still see ‘ideal’ fathers in the traditional role of surety, economic provider and/or role model. The actual role performance of fathers is not always consistent with their perception of ideal fatherhood. Identifying the gap between fatherhood ideology and practice and, its correlates may help motivate fathers for increased involvement in day-to-day family work.

The fathers of Destiny: Representations of fatherhood in a popular South African magazine

This study utilised textual analysis to characterise the representation of fatherhood in the eight issues of Destiny Man magazine published in 2014. Stories that pertained to fatherhood and that were related to aspects of contemporary family construction, work, and identity formation were included for detailed text analysis. Our findings suggest that fatherhood is defined by access to wealth, and is inextricably linked to features of modern-day neoliberal capitalism with its bias towards wealth accumulation and economic standards of identity. Additionally, matters such as race and origin seem to be the primary classification criteria when it comes to self-identification as a father figure. From these data, we conclude that the notion of fatherhood is fluid; it changes continuously depending on the social class position of the incumbent male.

Boys’ construction of fatherhood when their fathers are absent

In this article, we address the question of how boys whose fathers are absent construct an image of fatherhood. Drawing on the stories told by three boys whose fathers are absent, we explore how the boys, in the relation with their mothers, siblings and others, construct and negotiate an image of fatherhood, including how they envisage themselves to be as fathers in the future. The data material consists of life-mode interviews with the boys and their mothers. Theoretically, we are inspired by social constructionism and cultural psychology. We find that the boys aspire to become fathers who engage in close and mutual relations within the family, who are emotionally and practically available, who are consistent and predictable, and who participate in activities with their children. This image of fatherhood is in line with the contemporary expectations to fathers in our culture. In developing this notion of fatherhood, the role of the mothers is crucial, and we find that they – in their repertoire of motherhood – propose to their sons a cultural orientation that affirms their sons’ identity as men and future fathers.

Fathers and fatherhood: Changing trends and cultural factors

There has been a recent drive for increased father involvement in the policy context. The Healthy Child Programme puts a strong emphasis on parenting support, specifically concentrating on supporting strong couple relationships, engaging with fathers, and supporting the transition to parenthood for first-time parents. Health visitors are ideally placed to support fathers as well as mothers, and should therefore have a strong understanding of the notion of fatherhood and the changing trends, in order to provide appropriate support and deliver effective services to fathers. This paper is the first part of a two-part series, which examines the notion of fatherhood, the changing trends and fatherhood in relation to culture, religion and children.

Editorial: Father Connections

South Africa celebrated twenty years of democracy in 2014 following more than 100 years of colonization and institutionalized discrimination through Apartheid. A ‘broken’ family structure is one of the pathetic legacies left by political instability in post-colonial and post war countries globally. This phenomenon of broken families is evident in South Africa following the period of discrimination against Black people and the systematic migrant labor system that was sponsored by and for the Apartheid government. The migrant labor system separated fathers from their families and men left their families in the rural communities to work in the burgeoning mines and factories in urban areas. The current democratic State has a responsibility to strengthen broken families through policies and intervention informed by research evidence. There is an emerging body of research on Father Connections in post-war and post-colonial settings. This special issue brings together eight articles on Father Connections in South Africa. The articles present data from diverse but interesting research; for example the piece by Nduna M and Taulela M focuses on the experiences of ‘discovering’ biological fathers for youth who grew up with absent and unknown fathers. The participants that the article draws from are young women from a small town, in Mpumalanga. Through narrative analysis, the article explores how young people deal with finding out who their biological fathers are. In the article by Selebano N and Khunou G, the experiences of young fathers from Soweto are explored. It is illustrated in this article that, there are strong ties between young men’s experiences and the community values, history and culture where they experience fatherhood. The article by Langa M interestingly looks at narratives and meaning makings of young boys who grew up without fathers. Langa looks at how young boys can adopt alternative ideas of what it means to be a man in contexts that would otherwise be assumed to automatically lead to an embrace of hegemonic notions of masculinities. On a similar note the article by Nduna M focuses on experiences of young people who grow up without a father entering into endeavours to find and use their father’s surname. The article looks at how the signifying paternal ancestry is developed and maintained in contexts of father absence, through pursuing an absent father’s surname as the ‘right surname’. The article by Lesch E and Ismail A focuses on the significant question of the father daughter relationship and examines constraining constructions of fatherhood for daughters with a specific focus on the Cape Winelands community in South Africa. In Chauke P and Khunou G‘s contribution on the media’s influence on societal notions of fatherhood in relation to the maintenance system is examined. The article looks at how cases of maintenance are dealt with in print media. Franklin A & Makiwane M’s article provides a significant examination of male attitudes of family and children. This article begins to speak to the transformations of expectations of men in families. This transformation is addressed through a look at racially disaggregated quantitative data. Mthombeni A reviews a book, Good Morning Mr. Mandela by Zelda Le Grange where she examines some of the challenges of fatherhood in South Africa’s past and present.

Fictions of uncertainty: The crisis of masculinity and fatherhood in ‘ladlit’

Cultural studies has always been indebted to the analysis of how everyday experience can be made sense of in cultural texts. While during the past decades the focus has been increasingly shifted to media texts, the book has not been given much attention. This article argues for a reintegration of popular fiction into the research agenda of cultural studies, claiming that the genre of ‘ladlit’ may serve as a challenging cultural locus where gendered identity scripts are negotiated, constructed and deconstructed. Based on the premise that popular fiction both shapes and reflects on changing conceptualizations of gender, fatherhood and family life, the article analyses how the masculinity scripts of the New Man and the New Lad are drawn upon in the construction of identity, and how these two scripts are rearticulated and deconstructed with a specific focus on the notion of fatherhood.

Any One Parent Will Do: Negotiations of Fatherhood among South Korean "Wild Geese" Fathers in Singapore

This article explores the interplay between transnational migration and notions of fatherhood by examining South Korean "wild geese" (kirŏgi) fathers in Singapore, who, unlike typical wild geese fathers who remain in South Korea to support their wives and children abroad, are directly involved in their children's educational migration to Singapore as primary caregivers. Most particularly, I identify two primary strategies by which these exceptional fathers enact a new image of fatherhood:(1) redefining caregiving as a more situational and gender-neutral activity and (2) retaining their close associations with conventional masculine domains while differentiating their care work from their wives' micromanagement of the children. These two strategies point to a stalled revolution in which the fathers' changing roles have not sufficiently challenged the dominant gender ideology. At the level of practice, however, these migrant fathers exemplify another form of family flexibility, one in which the conventional gendered household arrangement can be modified and even trespassed upon. Yet at the same time, at the level of ideology, these fathers need to secure their masculinity, something that remains limited by the dominant gender ideology of father as breadwinner. Hence, this ethnography of Korean migrant fathers illustrates the ongoing processes by which these men negotiate and justify their unconventional gender roles and practices in an attempt to reconcile the gap between their changing fathering practices and the conventional gender ideology.

Pater Rules Best: Political Kinship and Party Politics in Tanzania's Presidential Elections

In 2005 Tanzanians elected Jakaya Kikwete to the presidency with 80 percent of the popular vote. Like his predecessors, Kikwete emerged from the ranks of the Chama Cha Mapinduzi party (CCM). CCM also secured 96 percent of mainland parliamentary constituencies. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Singida region between 2004 and 2006, I examine the production and performance of a political rhetoric in Tanzania that centers on notions of fatherhood and filial obedience. I explore how, in the realm of contemporary Tanzanian multiparty politics, paternal metaphors offer a discursive medium for weaving a seemingly unified narrative from the strands of competing and contradictory structures of authority – structures that turn on local conceptions of age, lineage, and kinship. This narrative serves to gloss over political and socioeconomic disparities, to confirm rural Tanzanians’ sense of themselves as citizens of a gerontocracy, and to produce a sense of historical continuity in a time of radical political and economic transformation – even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Old Obligations in the Modern World: The Father as Provider before and after Divorce

The article draws on empirical qualitative research to identify the var- ious ways in which separated or divorced fathers in the Czech Republic relate to the norm of father-provider. It offers an analysis of the plurality of men's ap- proaches to the traditional provider norm of fatherhood, and the changes that occur in their attitudes and approaches as a result of divorce. The results show that although for Czech men the 'provider' dimension is the strongest dimension in their notion of fatherhood even after marital separation, their understanding of what material support for the children means is transformed by the fact of separation. In the father's view, the child, along with the family, ceases to be a joint enterprise, and the child often becomes identified with the ex-wife. Ac- cording to their notions and practices concerning child support, the men in this study can be divided into three groups: nurturing fathers who reject the provider/caregiver division and thus refuse to pay; helping fathers who consid- er their children to be primarily the ex-wife's responsibility, and thus only pay small amounts of money, and the fathers-providers who are willing to fully support their children, but only if this support is voluntary and under their con- trol.

Adolescent boys’ and girls’ views of fatherhood in the context of the changing women’s position

The present study aims at exploring how Greek adolescents understand the notion of fatherhood. One hundred and ten pupils (64 boys and 46 girls), who attended four high schools of the area of Thessaloniki, Greece, participated in the study; they were aged from 14‐ to 16‐years. A combination of quantitative and qualitative data were selected through two instruments: (a) a semi‐structured questionnaire; and (b) ‘Helen’s and George’s dilemma’, in which pupils were asked to end a story offering a solution. According to the findings from both parts of the study, adolescents seem to maintain traditional views of fatherhood in the sense that fatherhood and motherhood are associated with different characteristics, behaviours and values. In some cases, however, a different view of fatherhood emerged through the pupils’ descriptions: this involved the idea of shared rather than gender specific roles for both spouses. Results are further discussed in relation to their implications in the school context.

Motherhood, Fatherhood and Law: Child Custody and Visitation in Israel

This article analyses the ways notions of fatherhood and motherhood are constructed, negotiated and articulated during divorce proceedings in Israel. The analysis is based on in-depth interviews with divorced parents, lawyers, judges and therapeutic professionals, and on a wide sample of divorce court files involving child custody arrangements. The main finding of the study is that while motherhood is ordinarily perceived as a taken-for-granted caring essence, fatherhood is a vague concept that has yet to acquire concrete meaning. Treating the law as an overwhelming arena of conceptual negotiations and practical applications, the study also finds that legal professionals have a significant role in shaping how both women and men grasp and act upon their parental rights and duties. By and large, I find that the impact of legal professionals to that effect, combined with a rather conservative family law system in the shadow of which the parties operate, impedes innovation and discourages men from assuming expansive parental roles after divorce. Hence this study provides a rich example of the contribution of law to the gendered social expectations and coercions determining women and men’s ability to shape their parental roles and identities.

Graham Greene's Childless Fathers (review)

Reviewed by: Graham Greene's Childless Fathers A. A. DeVitis Daphna Erdinast-Vulcan . Graham Greene's Childless Fathers. New York: St. Martin's, 1988. 115 pp. $29.95. Daphna Erdinast-Vulcan's study of seven of Graham Greene's major novels addresses Greene's notion of fatherhood as it applies to his religious views. She sees the father-to-child relationship as biological, metaphorical, and religious, arising from "a deeply, rooted need for a metaphysical framework serving as an ideal reflection of human relationships . . . the ultimate source of grace, pity and love . . . behind human realities. . . ." Erdinast-Vulcan's sensible and scholarly approach to Greene's fictional universe addresses the ethical and moral concerns that the works adumbrate, sometimes in mysterious and bewildering ways. She is fully aware of the fact that in the novels once called "entertainments" but now called "novels" by their author, the theme of parental responsibility glances at and indeed sometimes centers on the relationship of the protagonist to the God he refuses either to believe in or to dismiss, as is the case with Raven in A Gun for Sale. She has, however, chosen for specific analysis several representative novels of Greene's maturity that indicate both the constants in his thinking as well as the shifts of emphasis necessitated by the nature of the particular fable. Occasionally her approach leads her to startling conclusions, as in her analysis of Brighton Rock, where her emphasis diminishes the dramatic tensions of the novel occasioned by Greene's dialectical, allegorical exploration of good and evil. To Erdinast-Vulcan, Rose is at once a mother, representative in some ways of the Virgin, as well as "the prototype of Greene's father figures" in her willingness both to love and to suffer damnation with and for Pinkie. The study, however, deals more persuasively with the presentation of the priest in The Power and the Glory, Major Scobie in The Heart of the Matter, the Fowler-Pyle relationship in The Quiet American, Querry's quest in A Burnt-Out Case, Brown's relationship to the Smiths and Papa Doc in The Comedians, Maurice Castle, a "priest without a church" in The Human Factor, and Eduardo Plarr, whose search [End Page 704] for a father crowds almost every page of The Honorary Consul. Erdinast-Vulcan examines these characters in the complex of human relationships yet never neglects the priest figures who also function as norms, usually ineptly, within the narratives. Her approach, needless to say, works best in those novels in which the three levels of responsibility are clearly evident, as in The Heart of the Matter and The Honorary Consul, but her insights into the nature of the childless parent in all the fictions that she deals with are always challenging. In discussing The Heart of the Matter she accepts the notion that the novel's framework is necessarily religious and then explores Scobie's relationship to his dead daughter Caroline, to the child-woman Helen he grows to love, to the wife for whose welfare he feels responsible, to the children he compassionately tends once the torpedoed ship places them in his orbit. Erdinast-Vulcan is correct when she points out that in the love affairs portrayed in The Heart of the Matter and in other Greene novels, there is seldom any joy, that sadness is the chief emotion. Perhaps this sadness is occasioned by the hint of incest that these relationships suggest, for the woman is almost inevitably younger than her lover (even in such a light-hearted entertainment as Loser Takes All), the major exceptions, of course, being The End of the Affair and The Human Factor. In The Heart of the Matter the father-child relationship emerges forcefully once the journey to the interior sequence has occurred and lends poignancy to the tale of adventure Scobie concocts for the shipwrecked boy about the exploits of Bishop among the Bantus. Scobie becomes to Erdinast-Vulcan a tragic hero when Christ becomes for him "a real suffering being"; the character becomes a father on earth without a father in heaven to support him: "Scobie is a twentieth-century hero in that he has lost his metaphysical reference—there is...

Franz Kafka's "Elf Sohne": A New Look at the Puzzle

Franz Kafka knew his children well. In Elf S6hne, he described their various strengths and weaknesses in some detail. The fact that Kafka's sons were actually stories he had written does not negate the significance of the metaphor he employed.' On the contrary, Elf Sahne both illuminates Kafka's attitude toward his own literary works, and offers a valuable insight into his notion of fatherhood itself.