Fathers generally took part in all aspects of care of the child (including, preparing bottles, cooking, bathing children, nappy changing, reading and playing) though usually to a lesser degree than mothers. The most disliked childcare task among fathers was nappy changing and in a small number of families fathers refused to change nappies.
In two-parent households the amount of time each parent spent caring for children varied from week to week, often dependent on the different working patterns of each partner. According to fathers’ and mothers’ accounts, in these families fathers were typically involved in direct child-related activities for between 30 minutes and 2 hours of childcare per day, Monday to Friday, (two hours daily contact time being average for UK men with children of this age, O’Brien and Shemilt, 2003).
While mothers tended to take on the bulk of the responsibility for childcare- related tasks, in a minority of cases (N=5) fathers were the primary carers. Of these, two were also carers for their wives; two were lone fathers, and one was a main carer as he worked part-time and his female partner worked full- time. In couple households, unemployed fathers and fathers who worked part-time tended to spend greater amounts of time with their children during the week than those who worked full-time. As this father of two who is employed part-time explained:
“Each day is different in our house… This week Monday my wife was working. She went away Sunday night so I woke up Monday morning and I had Harvey and Sally, got them up, made their breakfast and got them ready, got Harvey ready for playschool, dropped him off. Came home with Sally, we played, I did a bit of tidying and things. Then I got her ready for nursery, took her to nursery at half eleven, picked Harvey up at half eleven and I spent all day with him until my wife got home. Tuesday, which was yesterday, I worked all day… I never saw them at all really, yesterday, save for half an hour… Today I’ve had him since he woke up this morning to come in here and I’ve had Sally this morning as well but she’s off to nursery this afternoon.” (Father).
According to parents, long working hours had a constraining effect on fathers’ participation in childcare, confirming other research showing the difficulties
fathers often face balancing work and family life (see for example, Warin et al, 1999)4. In some of these cases, mothers stated that their male partners had to work long hours in order to make ends meet. For these fathers, work commitments meant that they saw their children for as little as 20 minutes per day during the week. As one mother, when asked how long her partner spent looking after their 8-month-old child on an average weekday, stated:
“Probably about half an hour. But he doesn’t get home till about 6 at night. If he’s not going to his second job because otherwise he doesn’t get home till eleven at night so then he doesn’t really see him that much at all… He works on weekends as well… Half the time when he is at home he’s tired because of working.” (Mother).
Although a number of the fathers in dual-parent families worked weekends and/or variable shift patterns, in general the level of father involvement in children’s lives and in childcare tended to increase greatly at weekends. Giving children more time and attention at weekends is a compensation strategy used by many working parents, especially fathers (O’Brien and Shemilt, 2003).
A recurring theme within parental interviews was that fathers tended to spend less time caring for and engaging with very young babies. The reason given for this by both father and mothers were typically that young babies were more dependent on their mothers (for example, for feeding) and that fathers felt that there was little they could ‘do’ with a young baby. In addition, there were indications that some fathers saw the nurturing of small babies as a mother’s role. These fathers commented that they envisaged spending more time with their children as they got older. One father of a ten-month-old baby said:
“I think when they’re small and they’re completely dependent on the mother it is sort of a more motherly thing. Because they need to be fed all the time or changed or held. But now he’s nearly walking and taking in more stuff. As he gets older it’s getting better and better really.” (Father).
Another father of a 10-week-old boy commented:
“Well I can’t really do a lot with him at that age. I mean, I take him to my mum’s all the time to see her but that’s about it really. I mean you can’t really do much with a 10-week-old baby can you? When he gets to about one then you can start doing more things with him. When they start toddling then you can do more with them but up until that point what can you do really? You can make funny faces at him and all that, but that’s about it.” (Father).
One mother of a three-week-old boy and a 21-month-old girl said about her husband’s involvement with daughter:
4
Of the 17 dual-parent family dads interviewed, five worked full-time, three worked part-time, five were unemployed, three were full-time parents and one was a full-time student. Please see Appendix A for further details of participants’ employment characteristics.
“He’s been more involved now she’s more communicative and responds to him. He prefers that sort of age anyway. I don’t know whether that’s him maturing into the role or if it’s just because he prefers the toddler stage because they’re a bit more fun.” (Mother).
These early patterns of paternal involvement replicate studies of men’s adaptation to parenthood in non-Sure Start areas (e.g. Lewis 1986). However, as discussed in Chapter 3, since the quality of father-child interaction has some stability over time, deferring active engagement and caring until infants ‘get older’ may establish a degree of unnecessary distance between fathers and infants. Indeed, Flouri and Buchanan suggest that:
‘engaging fathers in their children’s lives from an early age should guarantee that they remain involved throughout their children’s childhood.’ (Flouri and Buchanan, 2003: 95)