UF Researcher: Value Fathers For Nurturing, Not Genes Or Dollars

June 13, 2000

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Father’s Day may spotlight fatherhood, but dads are invisible men the rest of the year when it comes to being recognized as nurturers and caregivers for their children, says a University of Florida researcher.

Too often the legal system appreciates fathers only for their genetic input and economic contributions, said Nancy Dowd, a UF law professor and expert in family law.

In her new book “Redefining Fatherhood,” scheduled for publication by New York University Press in August, Dowd argues that parenthood for men should be redefined as nurturing rather than being thought of in biological or economic terms.

“Fatherhood means doing,” she said. “It doesn’t mean paying, it doesn’t mean begetting. Yet society’s notion of what it means to be a father in terms of what we legally require and support conforms with the classic definition of the father as breadwinner, not the father as caregiver.”

One of the biggest barriers to male nurturing is society’s work structure, which makes it difficult for all parents to parent but is particularly biased in favor of men working more and women parenting more, Dowd said.

Traditionally men have been employed in a different range of jobs that pay more than women’s work, and they may be reluctant to spend more time with their children if it means jeopardizing the family’s income, she said.

“To change that would require rethinking every single workplace to try to determine what an appropriate balance is between being a good worker and being a good parent,” Dowd said.

“Unless we resolve some of the economic issues, we will never be able to open the door to thinking in more significant ways about nurturing, because caregiving will always be overridden by the need for additional family income,” she said.

To assure that all families have sufficient income while they parent, some sort of family support system must be implemented, possibly modeled after Social Security benefits for widowers, which permits a combination of part-time work and family care, Dowd said.

Instead, society has headed toward having every parent employed full time, she said.

Other improvements Dowd suggests include expanding parental leave policies to allow fathers and mothers to take time off work to care for sick children, attend school conferences or be present at well-child doctor visits.

“It would require imagining that both men and women could be significantly involved with their children,” she said. “We do not currently have a work structure that functions that way.”

Also necessary is a cultural overhaul in our ideas about fatherhood, she said.

Such a social change must be propelled by intensive public education of the kind that changed attitudes about drinking, smoking and safe sex, Dowd said. Educating men about fatherhood is essential to change the pattern of men’s involvement in child care, she said.

More is expected of fathers today, but the proportion who split child care responsibilities 50-50 with their wives or are the primary caregivers is minuscule, Dowd said. “Involved” fathers often turn out to be still secondary parents, with true 50-50 equal sharing quite rare, she said.

“It’s certainly not because men can’t parent as well as women,” she said. “When men are put in the position of being the sole or primary caregiver, they parent just as well as women do.”

Men who have the strongest connection to children live in the same household as their children and have a positive relationship with the children’s mother, Dowd said.

“Although social expectations have changed and we speak of equality, our practice is that fathers are secondary and back-up nurturers,” she said.