Role of the Father

• Define 'father'

  Anyone who takes on the role of the primary male caregiver. This can be, but isn't always, the biological father.
• Attachment to fathers

  - Schaffer and Emerson's (1964) research found that the majority of babies attached to their mothers first at around 7 months.

  - Only 3% of cases had the father as the first primary attachment figure.

  - In 27% of the cases, the father was the joint first object of attachment with the mother.

  - Despite rarely being the primary attachment figure, most fathers go on to become important attachment figures; 75% of babies in Schaffer and Emerson's research formed an attachment with their father by 18 months. This was measured/characterised by separation anxiety.
• The distinctive role of fathers

  - Grossman et al. (2002) carried out a longitudinal study where babies' attachments were studied up to their teenage years.

  - The researchers looked at both parents' behaviour and investigated the relationship with the quality of the baby's later attachments.

  - They found that the quality of a baby's attachment with mothers (but not fathers) was related to attachments formed in adolescence. This suggests that the mother's attachment is more important than attachment to the father.

  - However, Grossman et al. also found that the quality of a father's play with their baby was related to the quality of their adolescent attachments.

  - This suggests that fathers do not have a nurturing role like mothers, rather, they have a role of play and stimulation, with less to do with emotional development.
• Fathers a primary attachment figures

  - The primary attachment that a baby forms has emotional significance, as a baby's primary attachment forms the basis of all future attachments.

  - Field (1978) shows that when fathers are the primary attachment, they are able to adopt the emotional, nurturing role typically associated with mothers.

  - In her study, Field filmed 4 month old babies in face-to-face interaction with their primary caregiver mothers (PCMs), secondary caregiver fathers (SCFs) and primary caregiver fathers (PCFs).

  - PCFs, like PCMs, spent more time smiling, imitating, interacting with and holding their babies than the SCFs. These behaviours are all a part of caregiver-infant interactions of reciprocity and synchrony which help form attachments.

  - This suggests that fathers have the potential to be a more nurturing PAF, who is able to provide the responsiveness required for a close emotional attachment, but perhaps this can only be expressed when given the role of primary caregiver.
• What is heteronormativity?

  A line of research focusing on the father's role in infant development, assumes that babies have two opposite-sex parents. While the research of Field (1978) for example concerns fathers in two-parent heterosexual relationships, there is no suggestion that having a single parent or same-sex parents has any negative development on child development.
• Evaluating the role of the father: Confusion over research questions


  - A limitation is that there is a lack of clarity over the research question being asked when investigating the role of the father.

  - Some researchers look at fathers as a secondary attachment figure, and others look at them as a primary attachment figure

  - The former tend to see fathers as behaving differently from mothers, and having a distinct role, while the latter have found that fathers are able to adopt a maternal role.

  - This means that it is difficult to give a simple answer to what the role of the father as it depends on what role is being discussed.
• Evaluating the role of the father: Conflicting evidence (with counterpoint)

  - Another limitation is that results vary based on the methodology used.

  - Longitudinal studies such as Grossman et al. have suggested that fathers as SAFs have a distinct role in a child's development involving play and stimulation.

  - However, if they have a distinctive role, we would expect children growing up in single-mother and lesbian families to develop differently to a two-parent heterosexual family.

  - Studies such as McCallum and Golombok (2004) consistently show that children growing up in heterosexual and homosexual families do not develop differently.

  - This means that the question of if fathers have a distinctive role remains unanswered.

  
  

  - Counterpoint: The two lines of research may not be in conflict. Fathers may have distinctive roles in two-parent heterosexual families, but parents in single-mother and lesbian families may simply adapt to take on the role of fathers.

  - This suggests that when present, fathers tend to adopt a distinctive role, but families can adapt to not having a father.
• Real-world application


  - A strength of research into the role of the father is that it can be used to offer advice to parents.

  - Parents or prospective parents sometimes worry about decisions like who should take up the primary caregiver role, and may lead to them not even wanting to have children.

  - Mothers may feel pressured to stay at home and look after the children due to stereotypes, while the father goes out to work, however, this set-up may not work best financially.

  - To counter this, research into the role of the father can be explained to parents. E.g. heterosexual parents can be informed that the father is capable of taking up the role of the PAF, and lesbian/single-mother parents can be assured that the absence of the father doesn't negatively impact a child's development.

  - This means that parental anxiety around the role of the father can be reduced.
• Evaluating the role of the father: Bias in research

  - Preconceptions about the role of the father can be created via stereotypical accounts and images of parenting roles and behaviour, e.g. in advertising.

  - These stereotypes may cause unintentional observer bias where observers see what they expect rather than recording objective reality.