Home Fathers: The Reasons For Stay At Home Fathers

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).

Men and women also have different opinions and reactions to leaving the house for work, Dorment says. Men today want to be better fathers than men in previous generations, men still feel like they have to provide for the family, even if they have wives that bring in forty-five percent of the family income (Dorment 709). This is why men feel as though they can work long hours away from home. They feel as though they are sacrificing time with their kids to provide for the family (even though they may still miss their kids). Women, Dorment points out, have a different reaction to leaving their kids to go to work. They feel guilty and experience

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).

Family is the first contact an infant experiences and the environment child is raised determines their behaviors and social development. Father figures just like mother figures are important in raising and socializing children in becoming responsible people as they grow. Numerous researches to determine importance of fathers in early child development have been carried out and majority of them found out that just like mothers, the role fathers play in early childhood development including mental, psychological and physical development are crucial. The studies show that, children raised by single mothers are likely to have problems such as drug abuse, engagement in early sexual behaviors and other unsocial behaviors as compared to those raised by both parents. The paper will explore the role of fathers in child rearing, discussing strategies in raising children and exploring pros and cons of such strategies.

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

Before we began to build our family, my husband and I were both working full time jobs at an upwards of 60 hours a week. This was practical at the time, but I knew I could not continue to do so with an infant. This led me to leave my job of 3 years just before giving birth. After a few months, I debated long and hard on returning to work. After very careful consideration, I decided the best thing to do for everyone would be for me to stay home. I knew that being a stay at home mom would be hard. More importantly, I also knew that my daughter needed me to be there for her. It helped me learn that the plan you may have for yourself may not be the best plan for everyone else; being able to compromise for loved ones is always important.

For various reasons, many children in the United States are living without their fathers in their homes or absent from their lives entirely. This is an issue all across the world and the children are having to deal with the disadvantages caused by the lack of support from their fathers. This issue has a significant effect on society and can be viewed and interpreted from the three sociological perspectives. As a result of many studies, it was found that children raised in father absent homes almost universally experience disadvantages such as: worse health, poorer academic achievement, and a less enjoyable educational experience. There are many variables that need to be taken into effect when considering

In Jennifer Hamer’s book of black fatherhood, she identifies a number of critical factors that contribute to the major increase in live-away fathers. First, there were men who were just not prepared to become a father. Scared with the thought of bringing another person into this world, they did not know what to do nor did they have a clue of how to care for a child. Some men fled immediately after knowing his partner was pregnant. Fatherhood was just something they did not want to be a part of and like all of their other problems in life, they continued to run from them. Unlike these men, some fathers actually stuck around during their partner’s pregnancy and even after the child’s birth. But it did not always last long. Many of these children were conceived while the parents were just dating and living in separate homes. Once they were pregnant, the couple decided to try living together for the birth of their offspring not doing so before. After a few months of having conflicts and commitment issues the relationship between the parents was eventually broken and the male decided that it was his time to leave his family, labeling him as a live-away father. Second, the education level of some black men prevented them from being able to obtain blue-collard employment causing them to struggle to provide not only for themselves, but for their child as well. This left the father feeling as if he were not financially stable to support a child and pushed him into parting ways from

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.

Growing up without a father or strong male role model in the United States is extremely difficult. Fatherless children are disadvantaged in American society and face a greater struggle to become successful in their personal, educational, and professional lives. The decline of fatherhood in one of the most unexpected and extraordinary trends of our time. Its dimensions can be captured in a single statistic: In just three decades, between 1960 and 1990, the percentage of children living apart from their

During the years, single parent families have become a more common thing. This is starting to become a problem, because family dynamics can really influence a child’s life. According to studies it affects not only the child but the parents too.

In some instances, one salary may not be sufficient to maintain the family needs. When a woman takes up maternity leave depending on the circumstance, her spouse may want to be there to assist. In taking up paternity leave the father can be present to lend his support in one way or another. Taking time off from work to be at home with the family for a few weeks does not take away a man’s role in the family. Fathers play an important role in child-rearing. A man who loves his family and has family values would see no fault in staying at home for a few weeks to lend support and assist his spouse with little things like change diapers, give baths, make meals and clean the house. While the “rest of the men” are doing “stuff”, men who are confident and value their family do “stuff” with them.

1. Hymowitz, , Kay S. (2014, February 8). How single motherhood hurts kids. The New York Times. Retrired from http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/.

Parents need to maintain the daily schedule. This is most difficult for the parent who does not have primary custody of the child. The non custodial parent must try to accomplish a schedule of their own that must include the needs and wants of the child. Depending on the work situation of this parent, it can be a quite difficult task. “The finding that decreased income was associated with higher divorce adjustment for men but not for women was inconsistent with findings that divorced women suffer financially to a greater extent than divorced men” (527 Plummer). With this fact, it is known that single-parenting affects a woman more heavily that it would a man. If the custodial parent is constantly trying to keep up with the demands of their job, this will affect how much time the parent and child will spend together. The attachment many children develop with their father by the preschool years makes them sensitive to changes in the amount of time they spend with him and interact with him. A younger child cannot always understand who their father really is. This leaves fathers feeling desperate for time with their child. When the father spends time with his children, he is liable to stretch the time they have together by taking the children home later, which causes stress for the mother because she has such negative feelings toward the father. This becomes “fuel” for confrontations with the father.

Having the father home will help with daycare cost when the mother goes back to work.