Fathering

Pleck begins by describing that the focus on the role of fathers has increased in the past decade and a half, and though on average fathers are performing more (helping with housework and caring for children), but the progress has been slow. In the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth centuries, Pleck describes the relationship between father and child as the most prominent. Though mothers did the care work, men were responsible for the moral quality of the children and they taught them everything. They counseled on all accounts, and the mother was often regarded to in very formal ways. The father was the principal overseer of the children, though he did not contribute to the housework or the actual child work, nonetheless after marital separation custody would go to the father. In the Nineteenth and Mid-Twentieth centuries, the focues shifted from the relationship between father and child to mother and child.Now the mothers were seen to be cultivating an emotional relationship with their chldren and they were responsible for the outcome of their children. They were more inclined to participate in the events of the children's adult lives as well. As a result, the role of the father declined. In this era, custody of the children after divorce would go to the mother. The father's direct involvement with the children declined because he actually had to leave the home to go to work. He was still the authority and the final moral teacher, but his relationship was more removed. Then Pleck describes the 1940-1965. During this time the focus of society was on the absence of the father, or their passivity while present. In this way people were interested in the effects of the absence of the father on the children. It was often considered to be linked with delinquency, which can refer back to the absence of the moral figure, as well as a loss of masculinity. They said it was difficult for the boys to develop a personal male identity without a present father. The father's role was supposed to be to indicate male and female roles. For this reason there was a greater call for father involvement. Presently the view of the father is that he is to be present at birth, involved in the entire life of the child, not just adulthood, he's involved in child work as well as play and equally involved with females as with males. This is Pleck's view of the father in the present time, but realistically the involvement of both parents, mother and father has declined. There is more focus on work and economic gain that has taken away a focus on the family and children. Men are working longer hours, and now even women are working very long hours. Though there might be more of an attempt to actually spend quality time with children, this time is so limited that how involved can each parent actually be?
Alternate-shift families are usually working class families, because working class jobs are usually shift based. Both parents work jobs (or shifts) and they usually can't afford an employed caretaker, so they alternate shifts. Another reason, other than the economical concern of child care, is that many families believe family is best suited to care for their children, and thus they opt out of hiring help, whether they can afford it or not. They fear any harm that can come to their children from child care, they want them to have their own values, not those of outsiders. The men of alternating shift families are resistent to change, but change nonetheless. They confess that their view of the male role (the father's limited involvement and less emotional relationship) is what they once harbored, but they learned to take on more of a "motherly" role. They not only do more housework and child care, but they also cultivate a closer relationship with their children. Also these men have agreed that they now respect the work that traditional mothers do much more than they used to. Within these families it is also common for the men to completely believe in the traditional breadwinner role of the man, but because they are physically incapapble of provided the traditional mother/housewife role for their wives, they have to contribute more in the housework. THus there is more division of labor.Personally I would not like to choose an alternating shift set up for my family because I do believe that it is very important to spend time with your spouse. It means nothing if you can actually raise your children without outside help if your marriage is falling apart. If I absolutely had to, which would only be if my parents were dead, I still wouldn't choose it because I am more inclined to have the middle class mentality that you can harvest your family morals on your children in the time they are not with the hired child care.
According to Roberts, there are several societal forces that contribute to the absent Black father. First off, some argue that the promise of welfare checks makes it more prominent for Black women to have children out of wedlock, and also the Black women's resistence to patriarchy. Also poverty does not make a favorable situation for a stable marriage, and women are less likely to marry a man if they are not in a good economic condition to do so. Another huge contributor is the joblessness that is rampant among Black males. There is also an increased incident of incarceration of Black males that inhibits a stable family setting and contributes to fatherlessness. Roberts says how many Black men stay very closely tied to their children even though they are not married to the mothers or unable to provide financial support. This goes in direct contradiction against the myth of the absent Black father which means that the father can not provide economic stability for their children or the mother of their children, and the term fatherlessness refers to fathers who are not married to the mother of their children, but that does not necessarily mean that they are not present in the lives of their children. Roberts sites Stephanie Coontz saying that "poor African-American, officially absent fathers actually had more contact with their children and gave them more informal support than did White, middle class absent fathers." The argument Roberts is making is that Black absent fathers are reportedly actually very good fathers, and can be used as an example of how to care for children, if you take away the common notion that the father is supposed to provide economically for his family.