Information and implications for practice

Detections of father specific stress conditions–Advice for a better work-life balance for fathers

Expectations on masculinity, fatherhood and paternal role models–Advice for an adequate paternal/male acquaintance with children

Descriptions about the commerce of fathers by state institutions of welfare, and during education, preventive and therapeutic provisions for children–Advice for meaningful involvement of fathers regarding health, development and education of their children

Detections of father specific stress conditions–Advice for a better work-life balance for fathers

Men are often exposed to greater challenges/stress than women at work, i.e. they work longer, carry managerial responsibility more often, travel more frequently, or are even more often involved in physically hard work activities or shift work than women are. Thus, men are restricted in providing care for their children. No matter whether men are fathers or not, however, they are evaluated according to the same categories by their employers (Williams, 2000). Men are still considered ideal employees even though this idea is inconsistent with recent perspectives on the equality of men and women in modern societies as reflected in the increasing numbers of full-time mothers (Matzner, 1998; UNECE Statistical Division, 2011).

For a long time, these mothers have been expressing the problems associated with trying to realize a good work-life balance, to the fathers involved. Consequently, issues of work-life balance became critical for fathers, too, even though not only for white-color, but also blue-color male employees (Jacobshagen, Amstad, Semmer & Kuster, 2005). In order to advise on life satisfaction, Project II will investigate the kinds of resources which are used to establish the best work-life balance under diverse working conditions of fathers.

In its extreme: what if the fathers took over the childcare and carried out household duties while the mothers worked full-time? Studies on life satisfaction and health (e.g., Spruijt & Duindam, 2003; Stolzenberg, 2001) argue that the fathers’ self-esteem and the marital satisfaction might be jeopardized if HE is at home and SHE is at work (see also DAK, 2010; Kapella & Rille-Pfeiffer, 2011). The planned CENOF Research Study is advantageous, that it will be made possible to be able to analyze associations between paternal self-esteem and fathers’ relational time investment for children. These outcomes might be very fruitful for advice specifically in parent, partnership und family counseling. Furthermore, implications for custody laws are obvious. Perhaps men are already penalized simply because of the higher stress conditions at work when it comes to a divorce, and the children are most frequently assigned to the mothers.

The CENOF Research Study aims to empirically determine the relationships between high levels of stress at work, the amount of time which fathers invest in their children and father-child relationship qualities, in order to provide evidence-based arguments for or against established court decisions.

Expectations on masculinity, fatherhood and paternal role models–Advice for an adequate paternal/male acquaintance with children

The gap between the initial intention to invest in children and its later realization is somewhat large in men (e.g., Rhoads & Rhoads, 2012). Does it mean that fathers need more societal pressure than mothers in order to provide child care? Seligman (1970) assumed that men are not contra-prepared for raising children, though they are also not really prepared for it. Consequently, an active engagement of fathers in dealing with children might be questionable.

The paternal engagement, however, is central in all the CENOF projects but is especially explored in Project V where fatherhood must be maximized because of preterm babies and multiples who demand high levels of sensitive care. Increasing numbers of preterm babies and multiples are particularly challenging for pediatricians, public health and educational counseling centers that rely on advice which is specified for fathers in caring for these children.

Unfortunately, paternal role models and attachment figures are considered not to be as influential as maternal role models and attachment figures. That is because caring for children might be automatically rated according to female behaviors. Typical male behaviors such as risky encounters, tests of courage, and physical competition, for example, are seen as useless. Communicative turns with children including rude hoax, and fading out true problems and feelings are dismissed (Bornstein, 2002; Collins, Madsen & Susman-Stillman, 2002; Pope-Edwards & Liu, 2002).

On the other hand, men’s affectionate contact with children in public can be seen as problematic. Because sexual abuse of children is committed mostly by men (95.8% men; Bundeskriminalamt, 2011), men have a greater risk to be wrongfully suspected. Men are thus forced to avoid affectionate contact with children. In contrast stand campaigns such as More men in public child care (promoted by the European Social Fond and the German Ministry of Family) which stress the need for detailed research regarding male behaviors towards children in public. In Project V and VI of the CENOF Research Study, existing knowledge on the differences in behaviors of fathers and mothers are extended, specifically serving to enlighten the field of pedagogy.

Descriptions about the commerce of fathers by state institutions of welfare, and during education, preventive and therapeutic provisions for children - Advice for meaningful involvement of fathers regarding health, development and education

Training programs to improve parenting are focused on mothers and not specified for fathers (Tschöpe-Scheffler, 2003). In the recent practice of institutions of welfare and education, fathers are hardly addressed. Fathers’ involvement in child’s lives is ignored or subordinated under the term parents’ involvement. Even in disadvantaged families that live on welfare and receive support in child care, fathers are not considered important. This is surprising as social workers debate that fathers, especially in disadvantaged families, might be a significant source influencing a child’s socialization process, and that harmful influences can be controlled if not changed for the better, by involving these fathers (O´Donnell et al, 2005; Taylor & Daniel, 2000; Lupton & Barclay, 1997).

In all projects of the CENOF Research Study, fathers’ behaviors are captured in diverse contexts, such as Parental time investment, Father-child attachment (AQS) or Father-child interaction (Video codings). Furthermore, Project VI explores how fathers influence a child’s educational career from early on. Past research has discussed this topic controversially, perhaps because research on education has concentrated on cognitive- and language-related learning outcomes, and less on the learning processes themselves (e.g., Ahnert et al., in press; Ahnert & Harwardt, 2008). Implications based on the paternal behaviors, however, might be discovered during learning processes as they are explored in Project VI focusing on happiness to learn, and motivation.