Day-to-Day Childcare and Fathers' Conception of Fatherhood

Jade Yu Fang

Date of Award

2004

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Rosel, Natalie

Keywords

Fatherhood, Childcare, Parental Involvement

Area of Concentration

Sociology

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to study the factors that influence paternal involvement and consider how involvement affects ideas of fatherhood. I interviewed eighteen fathers for approximately an hour, including six stay-at-home fathers and twelve working fathers. The interview progressed from basic background questions to descriptions of their daily routines and ended with questions about their relationship to their children and their ideas about important qualities in a good father. I found some fathers were more involved in childcare because they believed in the intensive parenting ideology, but they were not as involved in the housework, because they did not believe it was as important. Mothers still do the majority of the housework and the planning, possibly because they still feel the burden of social norms. The significance of this study is that it helps to find ways to promote equal sharing in families. Fathers' involvement is directly related to how much they accept the intensive parenting ideology. The definition of fatherhood is tied to what a father actually does in the household. Whether a father participates depends on how important he believes getting involved is.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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