Role of the Father

• Schaffer and Emerson found that the majority of babies first became attached to their mother at around 7 months. In only 3% of cases the father was the first sole object of attachment. In 27% of cases the father was the first joint first object of attachment with the mother.
• 75% of the babies studied by Schaffer and Emerson formed an attachment with their father by the age of 18 months.
• Grossmann et al. :


  He carried out a longitudinal study where babies’ attachments were studied until they were into their teens. The researchers looked at both parents’ behaviour and its relationship to the quality of their baby’s later attachments to other people.
• Grossmann found that quality of a baby’s attachment with mothers but not fathers was related to attachments in adolescence. This suggests attachment to fathers is less important than attachment to mothers.
• However, Grossmann also found that the quality of fathers’ play with babies was related to the quality of adolescent attachments. This suggests fathers have a different role to mothers- one is more to do with play and stimulation, and less to do with emotional development.
• Some evidence suggests that when fathers do take on the role of primary caregiver they are able to adopt the emotional role more typically associated with mothers.
• Tiffany Field:


  Filmed 4-month-old babies in face-to-face interactions with primary caregiver mothers, secondary caregiver fathers and primary caregiver fathers. Primary caregiver fathers, like primary caregiver mothers, spent more time smiling, imitating and holding babies than secondary caregiver fathers (Smiling and imitating are all part of reciprocity and synchrony which is part of the process of attachment formation).
• Field found that fathers have the potential to be the more emotion-focused primary attachment figure- they can provide the responsiveness required for a close emotional attachment but perhaps they only express this when given the role of primary caregiver.
• A limitation of research into the role of the father is the question “what is the role of the father?” in the context of attachment is much more complicated than it sounds. Some researchers want to understand the role of fathers as secondary attachment figures but others are more concerned with fathers as a primary attachment figure. The former have found fathers have a different and distinctive role to mothers and the latter have found fathers can take on a ‘maternal’ role.
• Another limitation is findings vary according to the methodology used. Longitudinal studies have suggested that fathers as secondary attachment figures have an important distinctive role in a child’s development in play and stimulation. However if fathers have a distinctive/important role we would expect children growing up in single-mother or lesbian-parent families would turn out different. Studies consistently show that these children do not develop differently. This means the question do fathers have a distinctive role remains unanswered.
• However, this may be because that parents in single-mother and lesbian-parent families simply adapt to accommodate the role played by fathers.
• A strength is research into the role of the father can be used to offer advice to parents (e.g. who should take on the primary caregiver role). Heterosexual parents can be informed that fathers are are quite capable of becoming primary attachment figures. Also single-mother families can be informed that not having a father around does not affect a child’s development. This means parental anxiety about the role of fathers can be reduced.
• A distinction is made between primary and secondary attachment figures. A baby's relationship with their primary attachment figure forms the basis of all later close emotional relationships.
• There is some evidence to suggest that when fathers take on the role of primary caregiver they are able to adopt the emotional role more typically associated with mothers (Tiffany Field).