A Picture Of The Modern Day Father Figure

In today’s society, most families consist of both parents working and with that comes the conflict of shared childcare, nurturing and shared household responsibility. Since the day of old, it was and always has been the mothers’ responsibility to care for the child and the home. To cook, clean, feed the children and attend to the husband's needs. Of course, this concept also depending on the culture of which the couple was brought up on (Kaakinen, Coehlo, Steele, Tabacco, & Harmon Hanson, 2015).

The differences between gender roles are not so apparent anymore. Men are not always the typical breadwinners and many women are not stay-at-home mothers. An article by Beaupré, Dryburgh, and Wendy (2010) described the transition that many men are going through. According to Beaupré, et al., (2010), fathers were once considered the forgotten parent. “Until recently studies on the family focused mainly on the mothers” (Beaupré, et al., 2010). Fortunately, both parents are now being focused on. Fathers today are much more involved in the pregnancy and birth of their child and their child’s life in general (Beaupré, et al., 2010). Beaupré, et al., (2010) explained that women’s involvement in the labour force could be a factor to this change. Women are more educated than they were in previous years. And while women want to work more, men want to be more involved in their children’s lives (Beaupré, et al., 2010). Fatherhood is occurring later in adulthood. Research stated that the majority of men are very satisfied with their involvement in their children’s lives. (Beaupré, et al., 2010).

Since post-war until now, the extended labour of women have been increasing; traditional family structures have been decreasing. Mothers are becoming breadwinners of the household and abandoning the traditional roles of stay-home mothers; the percentage of children with biological parents are declining. As a result, society have been conflicted about these changes, particularly the effects that working mothers have on their children. The more recent Pew Research poll of 2013 concluded that the

Women feel more obligated to stay at home or work part time if they have children. Even if they share household chores with their spouses, many women still prefer to work less in order to sustain the home. However, women who are single mothers do not have the luxury to stay at home, and working part time may be the only option they have. For single mothers working is imperative in order to keep the family afloat financially, but with all of the commitments they have, they cannot balance everything. Childcare is essential, because while single mothers are working they need a reliable place to send their young children; the same with single fathers as well. Most women in the work force have children to take care of, and families to provide for, which many take as a decrease of masculinity, and the increase of femininity. On the contrary, many studies show that although the labor force is divided, the household is not and do a lot to maintain the household as well. According to Hertz and Marshall (2001), “Men who participate in more companionate activities with their children (such as play, leisure activities, and TV watching) are no more likely to take on other household chores than less-involved fathers. It is only men who participate in nurturing, are more nearly partners in family work. Men are also more likely to

Fathers today spend more time taking care of their children compared to previous generations. Even with these gains, today's mothers devote almost double the time that fathers do for child care.[2] While every situation is different, in most families there

In our society, we carry an ideological assumption that a “normal” family consists of the man working to provide for the family and the women takes on the role of stay-at-home mom (Dow 1992).

Women’s role within the household has changed considerably over a period of time. In the later days in the United States women were to attend to the children and to the house and not do much more than that. Children are now being raised by stay at home dads instead of the stereotypical stay at home moms. According to Gardner, "Real-life families have changed considerably since 'Mr. Mom ' appeared, with more men sharing child-rearing and household chores." (Gardner 2010) This is occurring because women’s jobs are no longer labeled as being just for women. Men have gotten a lot of criticism for being stay at

During the 1920’s, the ideal family would be the dad would be the breadwinner and provide for the family, and the mother would be the housewife who would cook, clean, and watch the kids. There seems to be a similar pattern in today’s society. Men are less frequent to take a paternity leave than women, which results in a gender imbalance in employment (Pesonen). This defaults to sex stereotypes in the balance work and family demands between men and

The first reason stay at home fathers are becoming more common is due to the transformation of gender roles and more specifically breaking the breadwinner norm that men have traditionally been known for. The breadwinner notion defines a man’s identity, with a man’s work wage used to determine if they are deemed a successful father or a failing father

Being a stay at home father is very accepted as more fathers are deciding to stay at home to look after the house and children. It is becoming normal that women go out to work instead of staying home. The strong stereotype of ‘the housewife’ is not so common these days as it was then, ‘the breadwinner’ now can be the mother. ‘Leave it to Beaver’ was made in 1957 where the ‘housewife’ and ‘the breadwinner’ was clear stereotypes and was the way that families had to run to be a ‘perfect

Many fathers can very well balance their work life and life at home. Fathers see that they are not supposed to be able to handle both work and home but with many more women working they have to pick up the extra task in the house to make things work. Many fathers are fighting the stereotype when it is shown in commercials and various television shows. Saying that the times are different than in the 1950’s and 1960’s when the stereotype was maybe more true than it is today.

In addition, in the traditional families the mother usually bore the sole responsibility of the child caring. Modern parents now share this responsibility together because of social and work constraints. However, holidays which are not common in the traditional family, allow them to spend quality time with their children. Moreover in many modern families the father becomes a house worker, to provide for the needs of his children. As the statistics shown in the United Kingdom in 2001, 155 000 fathers were stay home husbands. All in all, the emphasis on nurturing children can be seen in traditional and modern families, alike.

Many key benefits have been discovered in the role reversal. Although it may be out of the norm for men to take a step back from their careers and care for a newborn, the men that are taking the role of becoming “Mr. mom” tend to be more nurturing fathers, while the women who choose to become the main breadwinner tend to be more confident not only in their careers, but also in other relationships. Growing up, children are leaned towards the idea that girls must play with dolls and tea sets, while boys are subjected to play with trucks and action figures. Even today, toymakers are making their toys to adapt to the way that people are being raised, making bow and arrows for little girls and Easy Bake Oven with masculine colors for little boys.

Last day before work start tomorrow and I enjoyed being out on the river and taking pictures on a climb. There is just something amazing about looking thru a camera. The details of color, reflection, a moment capture forever. What would we capture without a camera if we just focus during the day? A smile, beautiful clouds, people? Dad creates many moments for us every day, don’t miss them. Capture them in your mind’s eye and cherish them.

Stay at home fathers are most likely thought of as lazy fathers who do not want to do anything. According to studies stay at home fathers usually tend to get more things done and are very handy around homes. It is also better for children to spend more time with their fathers because they are normally attached more to the mother instead of the father at first. So, spending more time with the children will increase the comfort level of the children to be about equal for both parents while they are still young. The number of stay at home fathers has increased drastically since 1989 with there being 1 million more stay at home fathers than there were in 1989. The most current number of stay at home fathers was recorded in 2012 and it was up to two million. About a quarter of the stay at home fathers are at home because of the lack of finding a job. Another quarter of these stay at home fathers want to care for their home and family. The biggest reason for stay at home fathers is illness or disability. This category of the fathers is by far the biggest reason why there are stay at home fathers but it is not necessarily their choice to be home, it is more a more reasonable situation for it. Most fathers that stay home are older than their spouse and are over the age