Expectant Fatherhood

In the United States there has been increasingly more conversations about mental illnesses. In some cultural communities, it is a taboo to speak about mental illness. This needs to change. More discussion on mental illnesses can help people get the treatment they need. Discrimination against the mentally ill needs to stop as well. The more discrimination people with mental illnesses face, the less likely they will be to interact with society which can potentially worsen their mental state. The absences of fathers and father figures is an ongoing issue which some predict might not slow down any time soon. The research previously mentioned comes to a general consensus that the absence of fathers and father figures are taking a toll on the lives of young children which can affect them later on in life. With that being said, it is important that present fathers maintain the relationships they currently have with their children and that mothers find a well-equipped person to be a father figure in their children

Demographically, over 90% of the participants strongly agreed that fatherhood is crucial in our society. A little over 47% of fathers, that encouragement from the mothers of their children matters because of the obstacles they faced with finance, and their duties on the job. The final results of marital status statistics is over 80% married fathers, nine percent divorced, and six percent never married. One surprising statistic was 90% cohabitate with the mother and focal child (Glenn & Popenoe, 2006).

Jeffrey Cookston, the author, is a Professor of Psychology at San Francisco State University. The University of California at Berkeley trusted him to write this article. He offers tips to fathers in his article. He

The article “The Distinct, Positive Impact of a Good Dad” focuses a lot on the basic impact of how much of an influence a dad is to a child’s life. It explains the difference between how the father impacts the child’s life in a more “open arms” way whereas, a mother has a more “closed arms” impact. Having a good dad around in a child’s life is more likely to make for a better future for the kid, compared to a child who doesn’t have a good dad in their life or little to no dad at all they have a less likely chance for a better future as studies have shown. Studies have shown that mental health is a huge issue with both genders when they have a strong relationship with their father as to being in a household with a

It is during this time a father needs to be present to father, shape and mold his children (Jones, Kramer, Kim A., Teresa L., Armitage, Tracey, Williams, Keith, as cited in Wallerstein, 1980, 1987). On their 10 year follow up, Wallerstein and Kelley found that regardless of the time spent with a father or not, the father continued to be a significant presence psychologically to adolescents, particularly to boys (Jones et al., as cited in Wallerstein, Kelley, 1974). On Kelley and Wallerstein’s 25 year follow up of their now adult participants in their longitudinal study, they have found that the effects of fatherlessness and divorce during their adolescents were long lasting. The participants in the study by Wallerstein et al. (2000) noted that “The impact of divorce hits them most cruelly as they go in search of love, sexual intimacy, and commitment” (p. 299). These same participants also stated in an interview that they had anxiety issues about relationships and intimacy problems into adulthood (Jones et al., as cited in Wallerstein et al., 2000). Wallerstein et al. (2000) participants of the research also stated that they had resentment towards their parents, particularly the fathers who were seen “selfish and faithless” (p. 300).

Due to problems arising out of bitter divorces, custody, and support battles fathers are ostracize out of their children’s life. Fathers are often looked at as the bad person when things go wrong and being the blame. Fathers are just as responsible for the child being born as the mother. Over the years fathers continue to fight for equal rights, mothers are looked at as the victims and often make false statements about the fathers to suit their own selfish needs. Accusations of sexual and child abuse by mothers of the noncustodial fathers are often found to be untrue.

The introduction begins with quotes from people who mention that fathers get women pregnant and then leave the woman and the child; they mention that men need to realize their responsibilities do not end with conception. The book summarizes these quotes as unwed fatherhood is one of the leading social problems, and these men are irresponsible and “hit and run.” A CBS special report, The Vanishing Family, was an interview of McSeed, a father of six from four different women. In the interview, he says the responsibility of raising the child is on the mother, not him.

Lastly, Vogel, Bradley, Raikes, Boller, and Shears (2006) conducted a study to explore whether or not a fathers presence in their children’s

I have chosen the article, “Expectant Dad’s Get the Blues, Too”, an article published by Tanya Basu, a former economist and free lance writer for several magazines, in Time on October 6, 2015. According to the editorial, a recent study titled, Depressive Symptoms and Associated Factors in Expectant First-Time Fathers, was completed at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The results were published in the American Journal of Men’s Health on September 30, 2015. In this study, 622 men completed standardized online self-report questionnaires that measured depressed mood, physical activity, sleep quality, social support, marital adjustment, life events, financial stress, and demographics during their partner’s third trimester of pregnancy

There is no denial that fathers are integral members of our society. According to the US. Census Beurea, 1 in 4 children in the country live without fathers. This lack of domestic stability leaves them disproportionately susceptible to substance abuse, gang violence, premature parenthood, poverty, and suicide. The question then remains: “What defines a father?”.

In addition, this means family support has improved due to knowledgeable studies conducted on new mothers and the realization that fathers are also suffering from postpartum depression and family support groups. Where as in the past mother’s where the only ones treated. For instance in an health article “Studies have shown that most US adults, including parents, have limited health literacy [3]; that is, large proportions performed poorly on health-related literacy tasks such as filling out an insurance form.”(Smith) By these researcher conducting these studies have now led the thought of

One individual stated, “There were times I felt helpless; fearing that I could not and would not measure up to the expectations” (Gadsden, “How growing Up Fatherless Can Impact Current Relationships”). Since he did not grow up with a father, he felt like he did not know how to raise a child properly and thought the child could be better off without him. Not only do men feel unfit to raise a child, but some women do too base on certain habits or traits they do not want to pass on to their child. Whether the individual is a mother or father, feelings of doubt in themselves can cause them to give up their

Though they aim to cover the same content, the differences between an academic article and the popular press article written about it can include drastic differences.Sometimes, the difference is so drastic, the information found in the popular press article cannot be deemed credible because it leaves out a drastic amount of information that is included in the scientific article. In one case, the scientific article The Role of Boomerang Fathers in Adolescent Female Depression includes enough information for it to be deemed credible, where the popular press article written in summary of it, Even Sometimes Dads Confer Big Time Benefits on Kids, lacks the necessary information needed for it to be deemed credible. Both articles share the same claim, concluding that present fathers, even if only a litte, lead to a lower rate of depression symptoms in female adolescents when compared to fathers that are not present at all. While the overall claim is the same in both, the scientific article includes additional findings stating that biological parents that are also boomerang parents have a higher chance of being single when the child is born and concludes that boomerang parenting may be due

In Nazareth, Israel, a study was done on first time fathers and their personal experiences and feelings towards being present at birth of their children (Shibli-Kometiani, 2012). Traditionally, fathers are rarely or never present during childbirth in Israeli culture, so this is a relatively new cultural change. It seems that the presence of fear and uncertainty is a common theme in studies relating to fathers and childbirth, which is understandable, having a child is a monumental event in any person’s life. In this study especially, it was found that almost all of the men observed showed signs of fear and anxiety, which affected the support they

Fatherhood has rapidly evolved over the years. Before the mother of the child was the most important player in the game of pregnancy. Now, the fathers have taken on just as big of a role as the mothers (Fägerskiöld, 2008). One of the