The role of the father

Definition:

 Father: anyone who takes the role of the main male caregiver; may or may not be the
biological father

Attachment to fathers:

 Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found that in 65% of infants the first specific
attachment was to the mother.

 Fathers were far less likely to be primary attachment figures (3%).

 75% of infants had formed an attachment to their father by 18 months. This is

determined by testing separation anxiety when the father walked away.

Distinctive role for fathers:

 Grossman (2002) carried out a longitudinal study following infants and their parents
until they were teenagers.

 They looked at each parent’s behaviour, the infant’s attachment to each parent and
attachments to other people in teenage years.

 They were looking for the relationship between attachment to each parent and
attachments later in life.

 Quality of a baby’s attachment with mothers but not fathers was related to
attachments in adolescence. This suggests that attachment to fathers is less important
than attachment to mothers.

 However, Grossmann et al. also found that the quality of fathers’ play with babies was
related to the quality of adolescent attachments. This suggests that fathers have a
different role from others – one that is more to do with play and stimulation, and less
to do with emotional development.

Fathers as primary attachment figures:

 Field (1978) filmed 4-month-old babies in face-to-face interaction with primary

caregiver mothers, secondary caregiver mothers, primary caregiver fathers and
secondary caregiver fathers.

 Primary caregiver fathers, as well as primary caregiver mothers, spent more time
smiling, imitating and holding babies than the secondary caregiver fathers.

 This suggests that fathers can be the more emotion-focused primary attachment figure
when they have the role of primary caregiver.
Evaluation

A limitation of this research is that it can’t be generalised to same sex parents. In studies like
Grossman’s the father takes a distinctive role where he acts as the person who does play and
stimulus. But for lesbian-parent families, children growing up wouldn’t have a parent who
takes the role of the father and therefore would be different to heterosexual families. Yet
studies have shown that these children do not develop differently.

A strength of the Grossman’s research is that there is supporting evidence. Geiger found that
fathers were exciting playmate whereas mothers were more conventional and tended to read
stories. Other research has also highlighted that fathers are more psychically active and are
generally better at providing challenging situations for their children. These findings suggest
that same as Grossman, that father have a different role to mothers. Their role is about play
and stimulation. These findings increase the reliability of Grossman’s findings, strengthening
their argument.

Another strength of research into the role of the father is that findings can be used to give
advice to parents. Parents and prospective parents can sometimes agonise over who is going
to take the role of the primary caregiver. This can sometimes defer people from having
children at all. Parents may feel obligated to take on stereotypical parenting roles; the mother
is the primary caregiver; the father works and provides for the family. Research can be used
to offer reassuring advice from parents. For example, in the cases of heterosexual parents, the
father can be reassured that they are more than capable of being a primary caregiver to their
infant. Also, same-sex female parents and single mothers can be reassured that the absence of
a father won’t negatively affect the child’s development. This therefore means that parental
anxiety about the roles of fathers can be reduced.

A further limitation of the researches into the role of the father is that it has low internal
validity. This is due to the fact that there is bias in this research. It is quite possible that
observers have preconceptions about how father do or should behave. These could be created
by stereotypical accounts and images of parenting roles and behaviour. Observers might have
been influenced by advertising or indeed by their own political or religious views. For
instance, a feminist might not expect to see something distinct in the role of the father. These
stereotypes (e.g. fathers are not primary caregivers, fathers are strict, etc), this risks observer
bias so that observers may ‘see’ what they expect to see rather than recording objective
reality. This suggests that we cannot be certain from observational research alone. Therefore,
the research has low internal validity.

An additional benefit of this research into the stages of attachment is that it has important
ethical implications for fathers. Now that research has shown that fathers of infants can be
primary caregivers, this can reduce the pressure on and the guilt of the mother about going
back to work before the father, as the infant can form an attachment to the father.
Furthermore, this means that the mother can then be back at work and contributing towards
the economy, which can aid their mental health.