The Role of the Father

The Role of the Father 

The role of the father has often been neglected as the focus tends to be on the role of the mother.

Attachment to Fathers

Most early theories such as Bowlby’s monotropic theory suggests that fathers are not as important as mothers to the child. Bowlby suggested that fathers are just an economic necessity, and the mother plays the more important role for the child in their emotional development.

Other research by Schaffer and Emerson found that the role of the father tends to be that of a secondary attachment figure. The 1964 study found that the majority of babies became attached to their mothers at around seven months of age (65%) and that only 3% of cases the father the first main attachment the child. They also found that in 27% of cases, children made babies made attachments with both the mother and the father at the same time. However, 75% of babies had made an attachment with their fathers by the age of 18 months.

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The Distinctive Role of the Father.

Other researchers have focused on whether fathers have very different tole to that of the mothers in the child’s development. In other words, does the man make a unique contribution to the early development of the child?

Grossman et al in 2002 carried out to longitudinal study studying a group of children from when they were babies to when they were teenagers. They looked at the relationship between the children and their parents and how this impacted on the child later attachments to other people. They found that the quality of a baby's attachment with mothers but not the fathers were related was related to attachments in adolescence. Grossman et al concluded that the child’s attachment to their fathers is less important than their attachment to their mothers. However, Grossman also found that the quality of the father’s play is with the babies was related to the quality of the children’s attachments in adolescence. Therefore, they concluded that fathers have a very different role from mothers. One which is more to do with play and stimulation and less to do with emotional development.

 

Fathers as Primary Attachment Figures

Other research has looked at whether fathers can be the primary attachment figure. There is some evidence to suggest that when fathers do take on the primary caregiving role they tend to adopt the emotional role more typically associated with the mothers. One study by Tiffany Field in 1978, involved filming four-month-old babies whilst they interacted with their primary caregiver mothers, secondary caregiver fathers, and primary caregiver fathers. She found that when the father took the primary caregiving role they showed behaviours very similar to the primary care mother. The primary caregiver mothers tend to spend more time holding the babies, imitating and smiling at the babies compared to the secondary caregiver fathers. All these types of behaviours are important in terms of social development, as they link to reciprocity and interactional synchrony. Field concluded that the father do have the potential to be more emotionally focused and the primary attachment figure, but only when they were given the role a primary caregiver.

 

Evaluation

1. One limitation of research into the role of the father appears to surround what question is being asked. The question what is the role of the father is rather complicated as some researchers try to answer this question by understanding the role of fathers as a secondary attachment figure, whereas other researchers are more concerned with the fathers role as a primary attachment figure. This makes it difficult to answer the question - what is the role of the father – because it depends on the specific role that is being discussed.

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2. Another limitation of research into the role of the father is in relation to the methodology that has been used in the research. The longitudinal study of Grossman suggests that father‘s play a secondary attachment role, and this is very different to the role of the mother, as it involves more play and stimulation. However, if fathers do have this distinctive role we would expect that children growing up in single mother and lesbian families would turn out differently to those in a two parent heterosexual family. Research by McCallum and Golombok in 2004 found that children do not develop differently when they come from a single mother and lesbian parent family compared to those brought up in a two parent heterosexual family. Therefore, this means what role the father plays is still unanswered.

It has been argued however that parents in single mother and lesbian parents families just simply adapt to accommodate the role played by the father. Therefore, this means that the question of the role of the father is clear after all. When present, fathers play a distinctive role, but families can adapt to not having a father.

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3. One strength of the research into the role of the father is that it can be used in a very practical way. Sometimes parents have to make difficult decisions over who is going to take the primary caregiver role when considering childcare and work. Mothers may sometimes feel pressured to stay at home because of gender stereotypes surrounding the woman’s role. Equally fathers might also feel pressured to focus on work rather than being a parent. Therefore, research into the role of the father can be used to offer reassuring advice to parents. If heterosexual parents know that fathers are capable of becoming attachment figures, they may feel less concerned about who plays the main nurturing role with the children. Furthermore, lesbian parents and single mother families can also feel reassured that not having a father around does not affect a child development.​​