Male nurturing is there such a thing, and does it matter?

SPECIAL REPORT Male Nurturing Is There Such a Thing, and Does It Matter?

Extensive annotated bibliographies of research, statistics and other readings with a summary and brief discussions. Makes the scientific data on fathering readily accessible to all. Indispensable for journalists, politicians, and any student of family or social policy and practice.

K.C. Wilson

About this Special Report Consider this the CliffsNotes® (or Coles Notes®) of male nurturing. It is the result of thousands of hours of research and will save you that plus hundreds of dollars. This Special Report takes the essence of hundreds of periodicals and dozens of the top books, and presents it in a comprehensive, usable form. It is both summary and reference. The annotated bibliographies of studies are its core, after a brief summary of what they reveal and the implications. If you are starting out and want to know what resources exist, this will give you a firm foundation and point to more detail. Or it could give you all you need for what is known about father-child nurturing, and the principle citations. Additional copies of this e-book are available at: http://harbpress.com Volume discounts start at 40% off for 4 or more.

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Your Participation Is Invited Harbinger Press and the author have made every effort to make this Report complete and accurate. However, errors can slip in; substance overlooked. If you discover any error of any sort, or the omission of a substantial aspect of male nurturing and the one or more studies that establish it, please e-mail or send the information to: [email protected] or: Special Reports Harbinger Press 2711 Buford Rd., PMB 383 Richmond, VA 23235

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Not Your Usual Copyright Notice Copyright © 2002 by K.C. Wilson All rights reserved. You may excerpt up to 20% of the total body of this Report at one time – and its entirety over time with 30 days between publication of each excerpt – so long as its source and author are properly cited, and the following website is given at which it may be purchased. If excerpted for use in electronic media, the URL must be a “hot link” where the technology for doing that exists. http://harbpress.com

Disclaimer The author and publisher of this Special Report cannot be held liable for error, omissions, or any actions that may be taken as a consequence of using it.

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Table of Contents About this Special Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii Your Participation Is Invited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii Not Your Usual Copyright Notice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv Disclaimer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv

Summary: What Is Known and Why It Matters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Introduction: Why It Matters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 The Evidence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Physical Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Annotated Bibliography of Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To Nurture is Human . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Social Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Moral Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Intellectual Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

14 15 17 21 23

Fatherlessness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Fatherless Girls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Father Freeze-Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Brief Bibliography of Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 I) On Male Nurturing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 II) On Fatherhood in Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Other Publications by K.C. Wilson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Other Books by Harbinger Press . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

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Summary: What Is Known and Why It Matters Introduction: Why It Matters We begin by acknowledging the two sensitive issues implicated when male nurturing is addressed: gender and divorce. They are the areas to which this information can most contribute. “I wish he’d have more to do with our children.” It is a common complaint about fathers from mothers, whether married or divorced. Two dynamics are in play and one is never sure which contributes how much to any one case. Certainly there are mothers who say this but mean, “. . . so long as he does what I want, when I want, and how I want it done,” and don’t understand why he backs off. They are unaware of their unwillingness to relinquish and the intrusion of their personal impact. But probably more true is that many men do not much value themselves as parents, do not see themselves being nearly as important to their children as mothers, and are even willing to sacrifice themselves to that end. I have a personal impression (with no studies to back it) that women have a better notion of male nurturing and its value than do men. An example is the New York state senator I dealt with while writing Where’s Daddy?, a book that advocates equality of parenthood. He chaired that state’s family law committee, and in response to my query about their policies, said, “. . . I do not believe it is wise to establish a legal presumption that joint custody is in the best interest of a child particularly where there is acrimony between estranged parents.” He seems to see the overriding issue to be the father’s presence in the mother’s life, not the children’s. He is saying he thinks his own children Harbinger Press

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are better off if he sacrifices himself so their mother is undisturbed. He does not see himself as nearly as important to his children as their mother, even as important as their mother’s peaceful existence without him as a distraction. (Irrespective of what else she may get into notwithstanding his presence.) That’s not much of a self-image as a parent. Is that what his children think? Are they happy to dispose of him, maybe trade him in for a new model or money, purely on the basis of acrimony between their parents? Would his children be happier if someone just separated those parents but made sure they still had both? That is to say, is this man’s chivalrous attitude toward women doing children any favours? Sacrifice-men-and-save-women irrespective of right or wrong worked well for us as a species when we were living in trees, which admittedly, for people of European origin, was not so long ago. While it will always form part of our mythology, how much does it belong in a 21st century society’s practices where divorce is almost as common as owning a house? Should a child’s stable, conflict-free (as is assumed) environment be protected at the expense of a father, or is this a cultural convention our children would do better without? Before we can judge that, we should be sure of what men normally contribute to childcare when given the chance. Divorce is not the only area in which the question of the existence and value of male nurturing occurs, it only becomes most obvious there. Professor John Guidubaldi of Kent State University found that, 2 years after divorce, 51% of fathers without joint custody saw their children less than 3 times a year, often never. Yet we all know children who show all the symptoms of father-absence but whose parents are fully committed to their marriage. (Which might indicate the relative importance of marriage versus parents.) So the question of what value there may be to father-care goes very deep, and may be important to the health of a society. At stake is whether society – both men and women – know its value and form our social processes and structures accordingly. Current attitudes and practices are easy enough to trace. Our society has been systematically eliminating fathers from the family for 300 years Harbinger Press

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for a variety of reasons. Early industrialization took men from the household for their brawn for six days a week, and Victorian rigidity consolidated a strict division between male provider and female nurturer. Before the Industrial Revolution, home and work were indistinguishable, religion and philosophy were indistinguishable, school and home, social and business life, all were indistinguishable one from the other. In many ways, people were freer to find their personal niche while being part of a larger whole, whereas industrialization is characterized by extremes of specialization and whether you wind up in a box suitable to yourself may be more random, being overwhelmed with choices without the chance to try many out. Everything is fragmented. Today, many generations of men have grown up expecting to have little to do with their children, and equal numbers of women expecting to have children all to themselves at someone else’s expense. Our divorce practices reinforce this. The clearest remnant is the lust with which we chase child support while doing nothing to protect a father’s independent involvement with his children. Sacrifice men; save women. Is that what should be driving us, or what matters most to children? It feeds itself. Experiments with animals show that parents of either gender form weaker attachments to their children when they know those children can be taken from them on someone else’s whim. So when one hears complaints of men apparently ignoring their children, one might wonder how any one man would behave were we as a society to treat fathers differently. What if we took a different approach other than vilification? What is best for children? Not, what is the minimum a child needs, but on what will children most thrive, and what, if anything, need be sacrificed to provide it?

And then there is gender. Those who practice gender denial – that is, who believe that all gender differences are purely cultural indoctrination created by some external force seeking control, that men and women are really identical by nature and that any delineation of gender differences other than the physical ones is stereotyping – will be uncomfortable with this Report. Nurturing is basic to our animal selves, so studies of it are Harbinger Press

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highly informative about what (even why) is masculinity and femininity; what aspect of any stereotype is the product of natural forces not external controls. Studies about child rearing provide some of the strongest evidence of gender differences basic to our natures as the result of those biological differences, not as a result of social conditioning. This hardly means everyone must conform to any stereotype. Life works in holograms so every one of us carries at least some of all others’ potential. That, too, shows up in these studies. But the essences of each gender also displays, so be ready to create very different interpretations than those commonly offered by the researchers themselves should sameness be important to your concept of equality. One pivotal question is: should men be more involved in child rearing only to relieve women so women, too, can have careers in this commerceonly society. Should a father’s involvement therefore be subordinate to and governed by the mother’s? Or is there anything intrinsic to masculinity that is essential to child development on its own? Is mens’ independent involvement with their children the more fundamental issue, not serving women’s needs? What is the contribution of masculinity to child development?

For all the above reasons, it has probably never been more important that both men and women know the findings of the last 35 years of research so that if we decide to sacrifice things or assign different degrees of value, we at least know what they are.

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The Evidence All studies referenced here are fully cited in the bibliography which follows. In 1976, Ross Parke and Douglas Swain reported that fathers are as sensitive as mothers to their baby’s signals, and as competent as caregivers. This was confirmed by a 1978 study that found that even male college students responded as readily and accurately to baby crying patterns as do mothers. Yet Kyle Pruett tells of a 6-foot, 200-pound construction worker in the 1990s who discovered that his baby daughter could only handle one of: a bottle, conversation, or being held. His wife thought she should always hold the baby, yet feeding was a struggle for her while the baby fed happily for him. After months, he confessed his discovery. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” “Would you have listened?” “You’re probably right. I think I’m supposed to know this, and when I don’t it’s painful for me.” Despite lingering conventions, basic nurturing and tuning into your children’s needs is not a “woman thing,” but human. Indeed, a recent review of 100 studies performed in Europe and the US between 1949 and 2001 concluded that the degree of acceptance or rejection by either parent equally corresponds to depression and anxiety throughout life. There is not just a mommy-factor, but equally a daddy one. Co-author Dr. Ronald Rohner said, “Hopefully, this information will encourage fathers all over the country to become more involved with their kids.” Hopefully, it will mean changes to our practices to stop preventing it. Research into Parental Alienation Syndrome (a form of brainwashing children) strongly indicates that even infants need variety in their caregivers or they have difficulty discovering their own identity. Uniformity is unhealthy. One must see that different people respond Harbinger Press

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differently to different things and provide different things. This alone suggests our policies should seek to maximize a child’s caregivers, not minimize them. But however basic to being human nurturing may be, are there gender differences? Does each make their own inherent contribution? Culture may exaggerate or distort gender differences, but do they exist. The last 30 years of research confirms what we see in all nature: balance. Holism. In general, mothers emphasize comfort and safety, fathers, independence and exploration. The inward and outward, the yin and yang of life. Fathers do more physical play. It is the classic “play horsey” and roughhousing. While a mother will lift their child, a father is more likely to heave him over his head, even toss him or swing him around. (Since mother emphasizes safety, some men find they must be away from the mother for the freedom to be a father.) As a puritanical society, play has been considered that “non-essential” to which fatherhood has long been relegated. Many women find themselves resenting what they see as a Disney Dad. Take a closer look. Play is serious business. Dad rarely uses all his strength and the children know this. They learn give-and-take. It is where children learn to read other’s signals, to “play fair,” and deal with chaos. Children learn fundamental social skills physically, the way children learn anything. They learn to love adventure: to love seeking the outside world. Also, when mothers play with their children, they commonly lead, showing the way, taking care of things themselves. But fathers will let their child work on something on their own, only occasionally pointing things out. Fathers are more inclined to stand back and let their children find their own way and style. Female safety; male independence. Both are equally needed, and mentoring is a distinctly male form of teaching. Boys and girls learn they can do things themselves, and when to ask for help. Many studies have found the same thing: for both boys and girls, high father involvement corresponds strongly with high self-esteem, social confidence, and healthier, deeper relationships all through life. Richard Warshak reports that “Girls who have a warm relationship with their Harbinger Press

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father and feel accepted by them are more likely to feel comfortable and confident when relating to the opposite sex.” It is not surprising, then, when we hear that 71% of unwed pregnant teens lack a father. They had less opportunity to experience unconditional male acceptance and learn self-reliance. Among strong, independent women who credit their father’s inspiration are Margaret Mead, Beverly Sills, Indira Gandhi, Shirley Chisholm, and Anna Freud. Dr. Milton Kotelchuck found that even at five months of age, boys who have more contact with their father are more sociable with strangers. All children grow up more secure, confident, and independent. This is not just by small degrees. The findings are consistently clear and profound. Involved fathers provide a sense of one’s own power, security, and independence, but equally respect for others. It’s a curious mix, but clearly there. The most comprehensive study is just being reported from the United Kingdom. Oxford University’s Centre for Research into Parenting and Children tracked 17,000 children born in 1958 for 40 years. Those with the closest relationship with their father had the most stable marriages in later life, and were most socially and scholastically accomplished. Daughter with strong father bonds were less likely to suffer mental health problems, and boys were less in trouble with police. [Currently there are 38 citations from this study.] But for me, the most powerful evidence of the importance of father-care came from two studies on moral development. A group of Montreal researchers were concerned that empathy was in decline in society, so they tracked 75 children for 26 years to see which showed the greatest amount of empathy as adults, and whether it correlated to anything in early childhood. [Started by Robert R. Sears, Eleanor Maccoby and Harry Levin; finished and reported by Koestner, Franz and Weinberger.] Something showed up rather clearly which they were not expecting: a strong correlation with father involvement during their early years. So when we see teens treating the attack on the World Trade Center as a keen computer game, we might wonder what happened to fatherhood. A Massachusetts study found that “Boys and girls with an involved father accept responsibility for their own behaviour, and behave more Harbinger Press

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responsibly. They are less likely to blame others or ‘bad luck,’ and have a greater sense of their own potency.” Think of the popularity of scapegoats. It’s practically “The American Way.” Think also of this incredibly wealthy and powerful society, yet the prevalence of feelings of powerlessness. Now consider the generations of father-elimination. This issue may be more broad. When I see the unreasoned rage of some feminists, I wonder if we are seeing a deep, universal father-wound: that the anger is a cover for the pain of feelings of abandonment by father, expressed as male-hatred. Men and women both need to feel fundamentally accepted by the other gender. If we are not, we feel powerless with half of society, and get angry in defence. Motherelimination would likely have as negative an impact. Dad doesn’t stop with social and moral development. He is also food for the mind. While femininity shows much of its vitality in emotion and relationships, maleness puts emotion aside to accomplish; to reach the world. Separate studies by people such as Clarke-Stewart, Pederse, and Blanchard all find that both girls’ and boys’ verbal and problem-solving skills are strongly stimulated by their fathers. There is a pronounced correspondence between high scholastic performance and an involved father. These were not just subtle differences you find if you beat your data hard enough. There is as much as a 30% difference in the average scholastic performance of fatherless and father-involved children. The same theme and balance appears: female inner life and intelligence; male outer. This does not mean one is the exclusive preserve of either gender (again, life works in holograms and each individual is its own mix), but points to essences, to archetypes fundamental to us all.

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Physical Protection Oddly, that for which masculinity is most thought of has apparently not been studied. I have found no efforts to delineate or measure the male inclination to physical protection. This might be for the better for two reasons:

C One could argue against spending money to prove the obvious. C Physical protection may be the only thing our society currently associates with masculinity, which can act against all its other expressions. So efforts on male nurturing are probably better spent broadening that understanding. This aspect of masculinity is easy enough to establish. Most women – however much a feminist – know that one of the quickest and surest ways to get something done is to play “helpless woman.” It is why women get fewer traffic tickets, half the sentenced jail time, and are ordered to pay half as much child support as men, half as often. Men will fall all over themselves for women, and women know this. Why would men do this, except that men, like anyone, need to be needed, and stand ready to offer whatever they can. The need to give defines nurturing. Physical comfort/protection is something men feel they can offer both women and children. Note that I am specifically referring to physical protection: Again, the outer or material sphere. For as Warren Farrell documents in many of his books, what woman has always given man is his emotional womb. This is equally easy to show. When a women feels hurt, upset, or wounded, she seeks other women for emotional and moral comfort and support. So do men. Men need women for their emotional support, even moral validation: that what they do with their lives is right, has meaning and validity. As one example, shortly after a divorce it is not uncommon to see the ex-husband with a young woman many perceive as inappropriate for him, as though he leapt at the first thing offered. She is a woman, and Harbinger Press

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gives him what he most needs, however different their social backgrounds. Men need the female strength and fountain: the inner life. They need it because masculinity’s specialization seems to be the physical world, which women correspondingly seek. Male-female relations seem to have always been based on what one might describe, in this commercial society, as equal exchange, or, more accurately, the complement of their natures and why there are two genders. That is, the emotional and material realms, equal parts of the same whole. The very existence of one as a specialization forces the other into existence. (I am increasingly slipping into the world of archetypes here, but that is important to understanding what drives social roles and structuring.) That inter-dependence can be exploited, as much by one as the other. Male physical protectiveness is why men go to war, not women; why men will always more populate the dangerous jobs; and is also what some women exploit to gain special treatment and privilege. Men will do almost anything to protect women from even imagined dangers, and especially from other men. Ergo the overtly gender-slanted Violence Against Women Act in the U.S and Bill 117 in Ontario, passed into law by men. (Where is the Violence Against Children Act, or Violence Against Men?) Protection is men’s chance to fulfill one of their most fundamental purposes as males, and may appropriately be classified as an instinct. Men will very happily sacrifice each other for it, which women know and can use to gain special treatment. This is female power. The males of almost every mammalian species will more readily sacrifice their lives to protect their children than will the females. Male physical protection is why Andrea Yates gained many supporters, all blaming her husband for her actions. Maleness is responsibility; saying women have none is exploiting it.1

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That references only one dynamic to that complex and awful case, a case I do not mean to trivialize. Let me balancing the reference a bit by observing that, once on the stand, we heard doctors saying they’d never seen such a severe case of mental illness. One might think, then, that the ones who should have been on trial for murder were those very doctors who left her unsupervised. But hardly her husband, who did all he was given to do.

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It is documented that men will endure more abuse in their relationships than women for much longer periods, and are less likely to complain or seek assistance. I submit that this is not because they feel more ashamed about it, as is the popular lore, but because of being more ready to assume responsibility for their physical context. Military societies, such as Greece and Rome, will define masculinity exclusively as physical protection, so therein lies one of its dangers – one way a society may exploit it – making the above revelations about childcare and the below listed studies the more important. But on the other hand, European society adopted classical Materialism as its philosophy in the 1800s as part of overthrowing the influence of the Church and opening the material world for commercial exploitation. Materialism is the conviction that only what can be measured (exists in the physical world) is real. Things that cannot be measured cannot be scientifically proven, so must be discounted. This fuelled the technology behind Industrialization, but also meant that a purely male orientation (a purely material one) came to dominate European formal culture and all formal thinking. No wonder, by the 1960s, women felt they were in a “male-dominated society.” It was not a society dominated by men with no influence from women, but one in which maleness was dominant, in which female strengths were accorded little value. It is not surprising that women entrenched themselves in childcare, the one intangible still accorded great merit and the only mystery upon which science still dared not intrude. One can find ample evidence of “oppression” and exploitation of both genders — or more accurately, of both masculinity and femininity. What one cannot find is much evidence of conspiracy. Rather, these are things we have done to ourselves, only due to our own greed or other distortions of the spirit. Using scapegoats is counter-productive, distracting us from the real problem and real solutions. Yes, at a fundamental level for us all, Woman and Child rely on Man for their physical context, just as Man and Child rely on Woman for their emotional-moral one, two archetype facts rooted in biology. In a 21st century society this need hardly mean women be omitted from the Harbinger Press

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material world, nor that men be so willing to sacrifice all their other significance to their children and society when it comes to the family. The only relevant lesson from this section is that the differences between men and women make them equally important, both to their children and each other. And I submit that it is the blood tie that makes their children equally of value and importance, and equally loved, by both. I submit that this is fundamental human nature, not whatever stereotypes or social myths most convenience the gender-politics of the day.

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Conclusion Men do not have to become women to be nurturing parents or vital to their children. They already are, as much by their nature as are women. So when a man said to me, “I put women on a pedestal.” I replied, “That’s good, but don’t forget to put men on their own, equally as high.” Men should be aware of their value as men and as fathers, and do more to defend and assert it. For their children suffer when they consider themselves in some way subordinate or inferior, which most still do in Euro-rooted society. And what if our social policies reflected this? What if men knew their relationship with their children would be as valued and protected as any woman’s? Would we finally see a decline in, “I wish he’d have more to do with our children?”

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Annotated Bibliography of Studies This is not an exhaustive list. It is not intended to be, but to be representative. The below probably lists less than one-quarter of all related studies done in just the last 35 years, but includes almost all of the ones considered most reliable and most important. It is also heavily weighted toward the United States, whereas much important research has also been done in Germany, Australia, the United Kingdom and Scandinavian countries. It is organized by findings, followed by the one or more studies supporting it. [Publisher’s Note: Submissions of additional bibliographic citations are invited. We would like to see this grow, but not get unwieldy and diminish its nature as a handy summary.]

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To Nurture is Human C

Infants form close attachments to their fathers (bonding) as readily and deeply as, and at the same time as, their mothers. [Michael Lamb, Role of the Father, pp. 1 - 63. Michael Lamb, "Father-Infant and Mother-Infant Interaction in the First Year of Life," Child Development, Vol. 48 (1977), pp. 167 - 181.]

C

Men and women do not differ in the depth of the love relationship they feel for each of their children. [Sandra L. Ferketich & Ramona T. Mercer, “Parental-Infant Attachment of Experienced and In-experienced Fathers During Pregnancy,” Nursing Research 22(1), pp. 31 - 37, January 1995.]

C

“With the exception of lactation, there is no evidence that women are biologically predisposed to be better parents than men are.” [Michael Lamb, “The Development of Father-Infant Relationships,” Role of the Father in Child Development, 3rd ed., 1997, p. 120, Wiley, New York, NY.]

C

Men's hormone levels change on the birth of their children. [Gubenick, Worthman, & Stallings, "Hormonal Correlates of Fatherhood in Men: A Preliminary Study," unpublished paper, Emory University, 1994. Cited in Throwaway Dads, Ross Parke & Armin Brott, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1999.]

C

Fathers are as excited as mothers over their newborns, and bond with them at the same time and pace. Fathers hold and rock more than mothers, and equal mothers in talking, kissing and imitating. [Greenberg & Morris, "Engrossment: The Newborn's Impact upon the Father," American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, Vol. 44 (1974), p. 526.] [Parke & O'Leary, "Father-Mother-Infant Interaction in the Newborn Period," The Developing Individual in a Changing

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World, Vol. 2, Riegal & Meacham, eds. The Hague: Mounton, 1976, pp. 653 - 663.]

C

Fathers are as sensitive as mothers to their baby's signals, and as competent as caregivers. [Ross Parke and Douglas Sawin, "The Father's Role in Infancy: A Re-Evaluation," Family Coordinator, Vol. 25 (1976), pp. 365 371.]

C

Even male college students are as sensitive as women to infant crying patterns. [Frodi, Lamb, Leavitt, Donovan, Neff, & Sherry, "Fathers' and Mothers' Responses to the Faces and Cries of Normal and Premature Infants," Developmental Psychology, Vol. 13 (1978), pp. 490-498. See also Ross Parke’s book, Fathers.]

C

"We know for certain that men can be competent, capable, creative caretakers of newborns. This is all the more remarkable given that most men are typically raised with an understanding that they are destined through some natural law to be ineffective nurturers. . . . The research on the subject, some of it now decades old, says this assumption is just not so. And it says it over and over again, in data from many different discipliners." [Pruett, Nurturing Father: Journey Toward the Complete Man, Warner Books, 1987, p. 30.]

C

Sons and daughters are equally effected by acceptance or rejection by either parent. Risk of emotional instability, withdrawal, depression and anxiety, and developing aggression, drug use, and delinquency is equally related to rejection or acceptance by mothers and fathers. [Ronald P. Rohner & Robert A. Veneziano, Review of General Psychology, Vol. 5, pp 382-405, 2001. A review of 100 US and European studies performed between 1949 and 2001.]

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Social Development C

". . . high paternal expectations derived from a context of a warm father-daughter relationship are conducive to the development of autonomy, independence, achievement, and creativity among females." [Biller & Shalter, Father Loss, p. 351. Cited in The Custody Revolution, Richard Warshak, Poseidon Press, 1992, p. 42.]

C

Fathers do more physical play. When two-and-a-half-year-olds want to play, more than two-thirds of the time they will choose their father over their mother. [Clarke-Stewart, "And Daddy Makes Three: The Father's Impact on Mother and Young Child," Child Development, Vol. 49 (1978), pp. 466 - 478.]

C

A lot of physical father play corresponds to better, deeper friendships with peers among children. Children learn self control, how to manage and express their emotions and recognize others' cues. [MacDonald & Ross Parke, "Bridging the Gap: Parent-Child Play Interaction and Peer Interactive Competence," Child Development Vol. 55 (1985), pp. 1265 - 1277.] [Youngblade & Jay Belsky, "Parent-Child Antecedent of 5-Year-Olds' Close Friendships: A Longitudinal Analysis," Developmental Psychology, Vol. 28 (1992), pp. 700 - 713.] [John Snarey, How Fathers Care for the Next Generation: A Four Decade Study (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), pp. 35 - 36.] [Gottman, The Heart of Parenting (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), p. 171.]

C

"In general, girls who have a warm relationship with their father and feel accepted by them are more likely to feel comfortable and confident when relating to the opposite sex. . . . During the teen years and later, a girl who has not had a rewarding relationship with her father is apt

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to feel insecure around males. She may feel unattractive as a woman, doubt that any man could love her for herself, and distrust men in general." [Richard Warshack, The Custody Revolution, Poseidon Press, 1992, pp. 44 - 45.]

C

Nearing age one, infants with an involved father show less protest over separation from either parent. [J. Herzog, “On Father and Hunger,” Father and Child, ed. S. Cath et al.. 1982, Little, Brown, Boston, MA.]

C

Even at five months, boys who have more contact with their father are more sociable with a stranger. [Milton Kotelchuck, "The Infant's Relationship to the Father: Experimental Evidence," Lamb, ed., Role of the Father, pp. 329 344.]

C

"When fathers are away for long periods of time, as in the case of sailors at sea, their boys are less popular with classmates and do not enjoy friendships as much as do boys who have more contact with their fathers." [Richard Warshack, The Custody Revolution, Poseidon Press, 1992, p. 41.]

C

Girls whose fathers play with them a lot tend to be more popular with peers and more assertive in their interpersonal relationships throughout their lives. [Parke et al., "Family-Peer Systems: In Search of the Linkages," Kreppner & Lerner, eds., Family Systems and Life Span Development (Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1989), pp. 65 - 92, as cited in Parke & Brott Throwaway Dads (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1999).]

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C

Men and women who have had warm paternal relationships have better, longer marriages and engage in more recreation. [Franz, McClelland, & Weinberger, "Childhood Antecedents of Conventional Social Accomplishments in Midlife Adults: A 36-Year Prospective Study," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Vol. 60 (1991), pp. 586 - 595.]

C

A father’s attitude toward and sensitivity to his child’s care has more positive impact on the child’s socio-emotional development than the total time spent interacting with him. [M.A. Easterbrooks & W.A. Goldberg, “Toddler Development in the Family: Impact of Father Involvement and Parenting Characteristics” Child Development, 1984, Vol. 53, pp. 740 752.]

C

Many studies showed that father-acceptance is the sole determining factor in a child’s problems with personality, conduct, delinquency and substance abuse. [Ronald P. Rohner & Robert A. Veneziano, Review of General Psychology, Vol. 5, pp 382-405, 2001. A review of 100 US and European studies performed between 1949 and 2001.]

C

Girls close to their father are less likely to suffer mental health problems; boys are less inclined to delinquency. Sons and daughters with strong father bonds had more successful social relationships and marriages, and were the top scholastic performers in the group. [The 40-years study of 17,000 children born in 1958, performed by Oxford University’s Centre for Research into Parenting and Children. At the time of writing, 38 citations can be credited to this study, including: Buchanan & Flouri, “‘Recovery’ After Age 7 from ‘Externalising’ Behaviour Problems,” Children and Youth Services Review, Vol. 23, pp 899 - 914, 2001. Buchanan, Hunt, Bretherton, & Bream, “Families in Conflict,” Family Law, Vol 31, pp 900 - 903, 2001.

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Buchanan & Flouri, “Emotional and Behavioural Problems in Childhood and Distress in Adult Life,” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 2002. Flouri & Buchanan, “What predicts Traditional Attitudes to Marriage?” Children & Society, Vol 15, pp 263 - 271, 2001. Buchanan & Flouri, “Parental Family Structure and Adult Expectations of Familial Support in Times of Emotional Need, British Journal of Social Work, vol. 31, No. 1, pp 133 - 139. Buchannan, Brinke & Flouri, “Parental Background, Social Disadvantage, Public ‘Care,’ and Psychological Prlems in Adolescence and Adulthood,” Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Vol. 39, No. 11, pp 1415 - 1423, 2000.

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Moral Development C

The best predictor of empathy in adult men and women is the amount of time spent with their father while growing up. [R. Koestner, C. Franz, & J. Weinberger, "The Family Origins of Empathic Concern: A 26-year Longitudinal Study," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 58 (1990), pp. 709 - 717.]

C

When a father is involved with setting limits and helping with personal problems and schoolwork, their sons have significantly higher scores on empathy tests. [Susan Bernadette-Shapiro, Diane Ehrensaft, Jerrold Lee Shapiro, “Father Participation in Childcare and the Development of Empathy in Sons: An Empirical Study.” Family Therapy, 1996, Vol. 23(2), pp. 77 - 93. A study of 47 first-grade boys.]

C

For boys, there is a very strong positive co-relation between moral development (sense of right and wrong) and a positive father relationship comprised of validating feelings and encouragement. [Santrock, "Father Absence, Perceived Maternal Behaviour, and Moral Development in Boys," Child Development, Vol. 43 (1975), pp. 455 - 469.] [Hoffman, "Father Absence and Conscience Development," Developmental Psychology, vol. 4 (1971), pp. 400 - 404.] [Hoffman, "Identification and Conscience Development," Child Development, Vol. 42 (1971), pp. 1071 - 1082.]

C

Boys and girls with an involved father accept responsibility for their own behaviour, and behave more responsibly. They are less likely to blame others or "bad luck," and have a greater sense of their own potency. [Henry Biller, Paternal Deprivation: Family, School, Sexuality and Society, Lexington Books, Lexington, MA, 1974.]

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[Biller & Solomon, “Child Maltreatment and Paternal Deprivation: A Manifesto for Research,” Treatment and Prevention, Lexington Books, Lexington, MA, 1986.]

C

Boys with strong father identification measure for higher levels of internal control. Those with weaker paternal attachment had more trouble with moral judgment and nonconformity. [Martin L. Hoffman, “Identification and Conscience Development” Child Development, 1971, Vol. 42, pp. 1071 1082. A study of seventh-grade boys.]

C

High, positive father engagement for both boys and girls corresponds with: less acting out, disruptive behaviour, depression, and lying; getting along with others and being responsible; boys showing less school misbehaviour and girls having more positive friendships and being more willing to try new things. [Mosley & Thompson, “Fathering Behaviour and Child Outcome.”]

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Intellectual Development C

Children whose fathers spend the most time with them consistently score higher on SAT, verbal skills, and problem-solving tests, and perform above their grade level in school. [Blanchard & Henry Biller, "Father Availability and Academic Performance Among Third-Grade Boys," Developmental Psychology, Vol. 4 (1971), pp. 301 - 305.] [Norma Radin, "The Influence of Fathers upon Sons and Daughters and Implications for School Social Work," Social Work in Education, Vol. 8 (1986), pp 77 - 92.] [Norma Radin, "Primary Caregiving Fathers in Intact Families," Gottfried & Gottfried eds., Redefining Family (New York: Plenum Press, 1994), pp. 11 - 54.] [Norma Radin, “Observed Paternal Behaviour and the Intellectual Functioning of Preschool Boys and Girls,” paper delivered to the Denver, 1974 annual meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development.] [Michael E. Lamb, “Introduction: The Emergent American Father,” The Father’s Role: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, pp. 3-25, Hillsdale, NJ.] [K. Nugent, “Cultural and Psychological Influences on the Father’s Role in Infant Development,” Journal of Marriage and the Family, 1991, Vol. 53, pp. 475-485.]

C

Baby boys who have frequent father contact have more precocious mental skills and curiosity than those with less contact. [Pederse, Rubinstein, & Yarrow, "Infant Development in Father-absent Families," Journal of Genetic Psychology, Vol. 135 (1979), pp. 51 - 61.]

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C

Girls' intellectual development is enhanced if their father provides much verbal stimulation and responds to her overtures for social contact. [Clarke-Stewart, "And Daddy Makes Three. The Father's Impact on Mother and Young Child," Child Development, Vol. 49 (1978), pp. 466 - 478.]

C

A strong father-child relationship, even in infancy, facilitates intellectual competence. [Henry Biller & Salter, "Father Loss, Cognitive and Personality Functioning," The Problem of Loss in Mourning: Psychoanalytic Perspectives, Dietrich & Shabad, eds., 1989, Madison, CT: International Universities Press, 1989, p. 347.]

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Fatherlessness Liberals get defensive when presented with the following, as though they were a criticism of single parenthood. But then, that is what conservatives often use them for. Both are making the same mistake. In these figures is clear evidence that the greatest advantage to any child is in the maximum number of blood-related caregivers (fathers, grandparents) irrespective of marriage, not the minimum as forced by our divorce customs. It is not a matter of absolutes, but degrees. The same pattern is clear in child abuse statistics: minimize the number of blood caregivers, increase the physical, emotional and mental risks for a child. Neither set of statistics makes a statement about being married or single, but our disregard for blood-ties, our worshipping of marriage (a man-made social tie) above family. According to the Bureau of Census, 25% of American children live without their father. However,

C 90% of homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes. [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Bureau of the Census.]

C 80% of rapists motivated with displaced anger come from fatherless homes. [Criminal Justice and Behaviour, Vol. 14, pp. 403-26, 1978.]

C 60% of repeat rapists grew up without a father. [Raymond A. Knight and Robert A. Prentky, "The Developmental Antecedents of Adult Adaptations of Rapist Sub-Types," Criminal Justice and Behavior, Vol. 14, December 1987, pp. 403-426.] Harbinger Press

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C 71% of pregnant teenagers lack a father. [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services press release, Friday, March 26, 1999.]

C 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes. [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Bureau of the Census.]

C 85% of children who exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes. [Center for Disease Control.]

C 90% of adolescent repeat arsonists live with just their mother. [Wray Herbert, "Dousing the Kindlers," Psychology Today, January 1985, p. 28.]

C 71% of high school dropouts come from fatherless homes. [National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools.]

C 75% of adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes. [Rainbows for all God`s Children.]

C 70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions have no father. [U.S. Department of Justice, Special Report, September 1988.]

C 85% of youths in prisons grew up in a fatherless home. [Fulton County Georgia jail populations, Texas Dept. of Corrections, 1992.]

C Fatherless boys and girls are: twice as likely to drop out of high school, twice as likely to end up in jail, four times more likely to need help for emotional or behavioral problems. [U.S. Department of Health and Human Services news release, March 26, 1999.]

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Fatherless Girls Jonetta Rose Barras is a Washington, D.C. columnist. In her 2000 book,

Whatever Happened to Daddy's Little Girl?: The Impact of Fatherlessness on Black Women [One World Ballantine], she describes the lasting impact of fatherlessness on her and other women. Promiscuous fatherless women are desperately seeking love. Or we are terrified that if we give love, it will not be returned. So we pull away from it, refusing to permit it to enter our houses, our beds, or our hearts. To fill the void that our fathers created, we only make the hole larger and deeper. If it is true that a father helps to develop his daughter's confidence in herself and in her femininity; that he helps her to shape her style and understanding of male-female bonding; and that he introduces her to the external world, plotting navigational courses for her success, then surely it is an indisputable conclusion that the absence of these lessons can produce a severely wounded and disabled woman. Her book is a desperate plea to men to realize their importance as nurturers. Children have far less of a disregard for their fathers than do men who are often too willing to sacrifice themselves and each other to keep the mother happy.

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Conclusions If those who claim to care about the best interests of children truly did, one would expect to see them scrambling for any way to ensure children always have both parents equally involved in their lives.

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Father Freeze-Out C 67% of married mothers “seemed threatened by the idea of [their husband’s] equal [parenting] participation.” [Genevie & Margolies, The Motherhood Report, pp. 358 - 359. Cited by Cathy Young in Ceasefire!, New York: Free Press, New York City, 1999, p. 56.]

C 50% of divorced mothers do not value the father’s continued contact with his children. 20% actively sabotage meetings. [Joan Kelly & Judith Wallerstein, Surviving the Breakup, Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-08345-5, p. 125]

C Two years after divorce, 51% of children in sole mother custody homes only see their father once or twice a year, or never. [Guidubaldi, 1989; Guidubaldi, 1988; Guidubaldi, Perry, & Nastasi, 1987.]

C 42% of fathers fail to see their children at all after divorce. [Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr. & Christine Winguist Nord, "Parenting Apart," Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 47, No. 4, November 1985.]

C 90% of father disengagement is caused by obstruction of access by a custodial parent anxious to break the father-child ties. [Kruk, 1992, cited by Prof. John Guidubaldi in his Minority

Report and Policy Recommendations of the US Commission on Child & Family Welfare, US Code Citation: 42 USC 12301, 1996. The same cause had been identified by Braver, Wolchik, & Sandler, 1985, but without an incidence rate.]

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C 70% of fathers felt that they had too little time with their children. Very few of the children were satisfied with the amount of contact with their fathers after divorce. [Mary Ann Kock & Carol Lowery, “Visitation and the Noncustodial Father,” Journal of Divorce, Vol. 8, No. 2, p. 54.]

C 42% of adult children of divorce report their mother tried to keep them from seeing their father, 25% to 40% of mothers admit to this, up to 75% of fathers report it. Twice the non-compliance with court-ordered child support. [Cathy Young, Ceasefire!, Free Press, New York, NY, 1999, p. 209, cites five studies for these figures.]

C 40% of custodial mothers self-report interfering with visitation to punish the father. [Braver et al. p. 449, “Frequency of Visitation by Divorced Fathers; Differences in Reports by Fathers and Mothers,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 1991. col. II, lines 3-6.]

C Mothers may prevent visits to retaliate against fathers for problems in their marital or post-marital relationship. [Seltzer, Shaeffer & Charing, Journal of Marriage & the Family, Vol. 51, p. 1015, November 1989.]

C The former spouse (mother) was the greatest obstacle to more frequent contact with the children. [James Dudley, “Increasing Our Understanding of Fathers Who Have Infrequent Contact With Their Children,” Family Relations, Vol. 4, p. 281, July 1991.]

C For every $340 million spent on child support enforcement, $1 is spent enforcing visitation. [Cited by Warren Farrell, Father and Child Reunion, 2001, Tarcher/Putnam (Penguin), New York, NY, p. 8.]

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The above is why so many men who have been denied their children via divorce – easily 25% of the fathers in the United States – either do become women-haters, or, more commonly, scapegoat the judicial system. They thus fall prey to the same Hatred Cult as those who scapegoat men for all the world’s evil. American’s in particular love to cry “individual responsibility.” Nobody wants to accept social responsibility: that we, society, are responsible for our social processes, including or divorce ones, and their results; that we have an obligation to respect and protect each member of society, equally. During the last 250 years, women came to expect to have children to themselves at someone else’s expense. This is hardly their fault, nor the courts’ or social workers’ when they implement it. Rather, just as women have had to struggle to return to participation in society’s economic life from which industrialization removed them, so are men faced with the struggle to return to the family from which the same forces took them. The single most important force for that to happen is women.

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Brief Bibliography of Further Reading I personally recommend all the following books. This is a select few, and most representative. Except where noted, they are written for the consumer market. Some have to do with divorce because our divorce practices have provided such a rich source of information about what fathers give.

I) On Male Nurturing The following are written by some of the above cited researchers and specialists and give details on male nurturing and its universal need by children. Kyle Pruett, M.D., Father Need : Why Father Care Is as Essential as Mother Need for Your Child, 2000, Broadway Books (Random House), New York, NY. Kyle Pruett, M.D., The Nurturing Father, 1987, Warner Books, New York, NY. Ross D. Parke, Fathers, 1981, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Ross D. Parke, Fatherhood (Developing Child), 1996, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Richard Warshak, The Custody Revolution : The Father Factor and the Motherhood Mystique, 1992, Poseidon Press (Simon & Schuster Inc.), New York, NY.

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Ross Parke & Armin Brott, Throwaway Dads : The Myths and Barriers That Keep Men from Being the Fathers They Want to Be, 1999, Houghton Mifflin Co., New York, NY. Michael E. Lamb, editor, The Role of the Father in Child Development, 1996, John Wiley & Sons. [This is one of the granddaddies at around $100. For the serious student.]

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II) On Fatherhood in Society These are recommended for understanding the social context for fatherhood in contemporary Western society. The best for the socio-political context fathers face today is Father and Child Reunion, by Warren Farrell, Ph.D. [2001, Tarcher/Putman, (Penguin Putnam Inc.), New York, NY.] I highly recommend any of Dr. Farrell’s books for understanding gender inter-play. They are a far cry from the Mars / Venus series. Why Men Are the Way they Are; The Myth of Male Power; Women Can’t Hear What Men Don’t Say. Both women and men have a crying need to understand both maleness and femaleness. Kyle Pruett’s, Father Need : Why Father Care Is as Essential as Mother Care for Your Child is listed again in this section because it cites studies which shatter the stereotypes about African-American fathers, other ethnic and sub-culture groups, and teen fathers. (pp. 120 - 144.) Eg: “Black men are more likely to share household work and child care than their white counterparts.” and “One of the most misunderstood aspects of AfricanAmerican paternal influence is the confusion between nonresident fathering and nonexistent fathering.” The best book addressing the urban myths surrounding divorced fathers is Sanford Braver’s Divorced Dads : Shattering the Myths. He and Diane O’Connell describe the findings from the largest integrated study of divorce ever performed in America. [1998, Tarcher/Putman (Penguin Putnam Inc.), New York, NY.] Another fine book on fatherhood in general – notwithstanding divorce – and the barriers men face in today’s society is Throwaway Dads, by Ross D. Parke and Armin A. Brott. [1999, Houghton Mifflin Co., New York, NY.] Ross Parke is one of the premier researchers into male nurturing, and Armin Brott has written three other books for expectant and new fathers. Harbinger Press

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For from where our social conventions come with respect to fathers and families and their distortions, I immodestly recommend my own book: Where’s Daddy? : The Mythologies behind Custody-Access-Support. [2000, Harbinger Press, Richmond, VA.]

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Other Publications by K.C. Wilson Where’s Daddy? The Mythologies behind Custody-Access-Support Hardcover. 6 x 9, 256 pages. PDF http://wheres-daddy.com What really underlies our divorce practices, and how to fix them. The Multiple Scandals of Child Support. PDF only. http://harbpress.com Comprehensive examination of all issues and initiatives involved in child support. Most will be shocked at the lack of substance behind what is being done. Co-parenting for Everyone: Context Definition Co-parenting. E-book and Workbook. PDF only. http://harbpress.com Separate the parents and keep the child’s family intact. Men, Women, and Violence: The Secrets Behind Domestic Violence Myths PDF only. http://harbpress.com Since women commit more domestic violence than men, why has everyone been anxious to believe the opposite? Harbinger Press

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Other Books by Harbinger Press The Ultimate Survival Guide for the Single Father By Thomas Hoerner Guy-talk on running a household and raising your children. Paperback, 5½ x 8½, 220 pages. PDF http://single-father.com This Child of Mine : A Therapist’s Journey. By Martha Wakenshaw A child therapist recounts her 15 years of treating neglected and abused children. Paperback, 5½ x 8½, 220 pages. PDF http://thischildofmine.com The Multiple Scandals of Child Support. By K.C. Wilson Comprehensive examination of all issues and initiatives involved in child support. Many will be shocked at the lack of substance behind what is being done. PDF only. http://harbpress.com Co-parenting for Everyone: Context Definition Co-parenting. By K.C. Wilson Separate the parents and keep the child’s family intact. E-book and Workbook. PDF only. http://harbpress.com

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About the Author K.C. Wilson is a reclusive social scientist living in Toronto, Canada with his cat, Fur. While his background is in cultural anthropology, he has spent the last 14 years studying our divorce practices and everything surrounding them. He and members of his family either went through divorce, or came too close, and it was life-altering for all. He found it astonishing the gaps between expressed convictions about care of children and equality among adults, and actual practice. Such gaps beg many questions about rationales, “group think,” and children’s needs, upon which he set to work. Where’s Daddy? : The Mythologies behind Custody-Access-Support is one of the results, as are Delusions of Violence, Co-parenting for Everyone, and The Multiple Scandals of Child Support. K.C.’s articles on male nurturing, co-parenting and gender have appeared in parenting magazines and newspapers throughout North America.

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