differenceblog, posts by tag: fathers - LiveJournal

The Daily Mail (UK, 2007) reports on research (publication pending) by Lynda Boothroyd of the University of Durham (UK) that indicates that women are attracted to men who resemble their fathers, mediated by their relationship with their father. Girls who like their fathers are more likely to be attracted to men who resemble them. Boothroyd was also a contributor on Cornwell (2006), which suggested that rate of sexual development played a role in the assortative mating choices.

The idea that people are attracted to mates who are like their parents is hardly a new one, going back at least to Sigmund Freud. However, most modern research has focused on the ways that people are attracted to mates that behave like their parents, rather than physically resemble them. For example, Olivetti et al (2002) found that men whose mothers had worked or were educated were more likely to marry educated, working women themselves.

[edit, 11:18am: See also Perrett et al (2002), who found that children born to older parents were less impressed by youth in rating attractiveness in potential mates.]

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Obviously I have been using the wrong keywords, because despite all of the times I've heard people say that men marry their mothers or women marry their fathers (metaphorically speaking), finding any research that addresses this issue from a non-Freudian perspective is proving nearly impossible, and there's only so much castration theory I can read before breakfast. This is another case where I'm putting it out to you folks. If you're aware of any other sources discussing physical resemblance between parents and mates, I'd love to see them.

Julie Henry reports in the Telegraph (UK) that by age four, "when left to their own devices, boys play pirates and girls play house." The article focuses largely on a research published in European Early Childhood Education Research Journal (not indexed online, apparently), by Sue Rogers. The Telegraph article quotes the study as warning against attempting to alter children's play patterns: "Adult intervention to move children on from gender stereotypical play might be counterproductive and inhibit the development of play."

However, it is likely that socialization into gender roles occurs prior to age four, and the Telegraph, to its credit, acknowledges this. Idle et al (1993) found that while parents rated toys for acceptability along generally gendered guidelines, when presented with a variety, parents spent the least amount of time with "feminine" toys, and children responded with equal enthusiasm regardless of the toy presented. Hagan and Kuebli (2006) found that fathers monitors 3-4 year old daughters more closely than they did sons of the same age, whereas mothers monitored children of both sexes similarly. There was a relationship between perception of the child's risk-taking behavior and maternal monitoring.

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I had both trucks and dolls when I was a kid. While I don't remember what influences I had that inspired my play, I'm often a little disturbed by the themes that came up in it. For example, I remember vividly the day when the dump truck driver stopped at the truck stop and the waitress, played by Barbie, decided to abandon her dull life and take off with him on a life of romantic adventure. The height difference (Barbie was 11 inches tall, whereas Tonka characters were only about 4 inches tall) was a source of frequent arguments, but it was Barbie's constant nagging that eventually split up my toys. I must have been 6 or 7 at the time.

Andrea Doucet's Do Men Mother?, released this week, makes the startling observation that stay-at-home dads are different from stay-at-home moms, according to a review in the Ottawa Citizen (11/10/06). While Doucet's interviews with 120 Canadian fathers did seem to reveal some patterns of behavior and attitude in men, it is unclear what female data she used for comparison. Bianchi (2000) suggests that women are not spending considerably less time with their children, while men are spending more time, leading to a net gain in parental-time.

The main difference that Doucet seems to be highlighting is the men's desire to retain their masculinity. "Some women revel in those social and networking aspects, whereas this is less the case for men. So I think for them they need to find interests that keep them in touch with their own sense of what it means to be a man" Doucet told the Ottawa Citizen. Sheldon (2002) suggests that parental social networks are predictors of parental involvement, but Sheldon's study specifically excluded fathers.

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Are there differences between fathers and mothers? Certainly. Are these more a factor of social pressures or differences in interests and desires? Can those be differentiated? The quotes given from Doucet's book point again and again to men carving out their own space -- being able to spend time with and nurture their kids without feeling that they're "giving up" their masculinity. It seems to me that the question itself puts men on the defensive. Questioning why a man would choose to stay at home is the opposite of progress.

The archetype of the single father is strongly overrepresented in popular media. Disney movies, in particular, have been attacked for their bias towards single fathers by feminists and scholars alike. Single-fatherhood is very uncommon in real life. In 1995, 15% of single-parent families in the U.S. were run by the father (about 4.6% of all families), although only about half of these had the father as the sole adult (the other households had cohabitating partners or other non-parent family members). The 2004 census estimated that 20% of single-parent families were headed by fathers.

It is widely believed that children living in single-parent households will do better if living with the parent of the same sex (e.g. sons living with fathers or daughters living with mothers.) This may explain why Lundberg and Rose (2003, pdf) found that women bearing sons are more likely to marry their child's biological father than women bearing daughters, although it would be a mistake to ignore the argument that a man is more likely to marry his son's mother than his daughter's mother, as in Dahl and Moretti (2004). However, proof of the "same sex benefit" is lacking. Downey and Powell's analysis of 1988 data found only 4 out of 35 measures where one sex benefited from living with a same-sex parent, and no measures that benefited both sexes.

There is also a perception that children will do better in single-mother households rather than in single-father households. Downey (1994) did not find a difference in school performance between these two groups. Flewelling and Bauman (1990) also failed to find an advantage to single mothers over single fathers in predicting substance use or sexual activity.

A popular argument in many of these studies is that the financial benefits of living with the father balance the emotional benefits of living with the mother. However, these same studies attempt to control for the financial factors, so either the controls are insufficient or the argument is flawed. Both mother's advocates and father's advocates claim that the court system is biased against them. Perhaps a gender-blind analysis of a child's "best interests" would yield better outcomes?

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I feel like my experience growing up was very atypical. Not only did I have both my biological parents raising me, but I didn't even know (or at least I was unaware) of children who were in divorced, mixed, or single-parent households until I was in my teens. The first family I knew with a single parent was headed by an out lesbian, who affected my view of homosexual parenting (in a very positive way) more than my view of single-parent households. I was struck by her devotion and involvement in her children's lives, and to this day, I've been sheltered and lucky enough not to meet any single parent who wasn't as much or more involved in their child's life than any two other custodial adults.