ganize themselves. These changes have led to
different family structures and different expectations
and beliefs about the roles of fathers and mothers.
The ‘‘ideal’’ father had undergone an evolution from
the colonial father, to the distant breadwinner, to the
modern involved dad, to the father as co-parent. For
example, in the second half of the nineteenth centu-
ry, fathers in the United States left their small farms
and businesses to seek employment away from home
in an emerging industrial economy. While fathers
were away from home, mothers were solely responsi-
ble for rearing their children. This breadwinning and
nurturing dichotomy of parental roles defined paren-
tal involvement and was associated with fathers’ ab-
sence and mothers’ caretaking. Thus, father-child
interactions were considered unimportant for chil-
dren’s development.
These changes in parental roles and expectations
can be linked to four trends: women’s increasing
labor force participation, the absence of many men
from some families, the increased involvement of
other fathers in their children’s lives, and the in-
creased cultural diversity of American families. At the
dawn of the twenty-first century, a new ideal of ‘‘co-
parent’’ is emerging in which the gender division of
labor in domestic and breadwinning responsibilities
is less clear. Co-parents must share financial and car-
egiving tasks and responsibilities equally, and their
roles are gender-free.
Father Involvement: What Is It and How
Is It Measured?
Attempts to broaden the conceptualization of fa-
therhood have stimulated considerable debate
among researchers, theorists, policymakers, and the
public at large regarding the diversity of family types
and parental roles. The ecology of family life is con-
tinuing to change and thus many children will grow
up in the twenty-first century without their biological
fathers and/or with stepfathers. It is estimated that
one-third of children will spend some time in a non-
marital or stepfamily before they reach the age of
eighteen. Dissolutions of stepfamilies are also increas-
ing. This complicated family structuring will expose
children to situations that demand adjustment to
novel and complex relationships with sets of parents
and siblings. Different father types—biological, ‘‘so-
cial,’’ stepfather—will increasingly shape children’s
attachments, social-emotional competencies, linguis-
tic and cognitive attainments, and orientation to fam-
ily and work. Theoretical models of parenting must
be reformulated to accommodate new family struc-
tures as well as culturally diverse conceptions of fa-
therhood.
Investigators of father involvement have strug-
gled with definitions of what it means to be an
‘‘involved father.’’ Father involvement is a multidi-
mensional, continually evolving concept—both at the
level of scholarship and at the level of cultural aware-
ness. Although cultural ideals of fatherhood have
evolved over time, much of what is understood about
parenting (and particularly what is thought of as good
parenting) stems from research and theory developed
on mothers—the maternal template. In effect, it is a
struggle against generational, gender, class, and eth-
nic biases.
The unidimensional focus of father involvement
research (i.e., on the amount of fathering) in the
1970s and 1980s yielded to broader and more inclu-
sive definitions. For example, Michael Lamb and his
colleagues, in a 1987 article, distinguished among ac-
cessibility—a father’s presence and availability to the
child, regardless of the actual interactions between fa-
ther and child; engagement—a father’s experience of
direct contact, caregiving, and shared interactions
with his child; and responsibility—a father’s participa-
tion in such tasks as selecting a pediatrician and mak-
ing appointments, selecting child-care settings or
babysitters, arranging after-school care and the care
of sick children, talking with teachers, and monitor-
ing children’s whereabouts and activities. Others have
distinguished among the types of activities in which
fathers and their children engage (e.g., play, direct
care) or between the quantity and quality of care.
Multidimensional constructions of father involve-
ment, however, have not yet been integrated into a
comprehensive conceptual framework. The challenge
for researchers is to strike a balance between sensitivi-
ty to multiple dimensions of father involvement and
explanatory parsimony. Questions need to be asked
about relations among dimensions of father involve-
ment and how changes to one dimension (e.g.,
responsibility) affect others (e.g., availability). In ad-
dition, it is unclear whether these models capture
variation across types of family structure and ethnic/
cultural groups. Likewise, researchers must consider
father involvement as it operates within a family sys-
tem that gives it a particular meaning and signifi-
cance.What Does Research Say about Father
Involvement?
Much of the previous research on fatherhood was
motivated by the notion that fatherless families were
becoming the norm in the United States. By 1999, al-
most a quarter of children lived with only their moth-
ers, 4 percent lived with only their fathers, and 4
percent lived with neither of their parents, accordingFATHERS 149