Student Psychology Journal, 2013, 1-14

Student Psychology Journal, 2013, 1-14

Are Fathers Necessary For
Positive Child Development?

Alan Walsh
Trinity College, Dublin

Correspondence: [email protected]

“I am indebted to my father for living,
but to my teacher for living well.”
- Alexander the Great

Introduction of their gender. Fathers are restricted by
this definition, and just like mothers they
Origins and Methodological Criti- should be viewed in terms of parents – a
cisms of the Fathers’ Debate term that eliminates the confines of gen-
der. The essay will begin by first scruti-
Unlike mothers, popular opinions of fa- nising the methodological faults of the
thers appear to vary widely among pub- many studies that preach the necessity
lic consensus. From one extreme, Freud of fathers. It will then introduce several
(1930/1961a) notes “I cannot think of any studies that might be considered as more
need in childhood as strong as the need reliable to use in the debate about the ne-
for a father’s protection” (p32). But on cessity of fathers. The sociological impli-
the other hand, the very fact that we must cations of the discourse of “father” will
ask ourselves “Are fathers necessary?” also be a theme of this essay, highlighting
clearly testifies to the deprived position the need to deconstruct this.
they have in society in comparison to
mothers. The father’s role it seems is con- Pleck (2004) notes that popular and
sidered inferior to that of the mother’s. scholarly discussions of fatherhood have
There are those who of course will argue long focused and dwelled on the impor-
otherwise and indeed the urgency for in- tance of fathers’ “involvement”. This
volved fathering is a fundamental aspect involvement is often defined in terms of
to the protests of father’s rights activists. inadequate or absent fathers. When de-
What this essay will argue however, is bating over the necessity of fathers for
that fathers should not be viewed in terms child development, it may indeed first

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WALSH

appear logical to begin by analysing find- in a more logical and reasoned way. The
ings of studies that simply deal with levels assumption of these studies is, essentially,
of father involvement. In other words, by that it’s possible to compare the behaviour
comparing the behaviour of children with and personalities of children raised with or
or without fathers, we can then directly in- without fathers, and conclude that the dif-
vestigate the influence that fathers have on ferences these children display are due to
their offspring. Indeed an overwhelming their relative disparities in father involve-
volume of literature has consistently found ment.
that children who are raised with their fa-
thers are far better off than those who are The studies mentioned above all how-
raised without fathers. Studies have shown ever exhibit one common flaw that leads
that the positive involvement of fathers to the misrepresentation of their results.
can benefit children’s IQ/cognitive func- This flaw is that they, like so many studies
tioning (Pougnet et al, 2011), can lead to on fathers, compare a married two parent
less externalising and internalising child- family to a single one parent family. The
hood behavioural problems (Hofferth, studies may then conclude that fathers are
2006), can reduce later substance abuse vital because absence of them leads to so
in children (Goncya & Van Dulmena, many negative consequences. However, as
2010), reduce childhood obesity (Wake Biblarz & Stacey (2010) argue, our ideas
et al, 2007), reduce later criminal delin- of what fathers do and provide cannot be
quency (Coley & Medeiros, 2007) and based primarily on contrasts between mar-
even reduce maternal physical child abuse ried-coupled parents and single-female
(Guterman et al, 2009). From a socioeco- parents. This is largely an apples-to-or-
nomic standpoint it may also appear that anges exercise that conflates number of
fathers are vital, with the positive involve- parents, marital status, gender and sexual
ment of a father associated with better ac- orientations. Biblarz & Stacey (2010) con-
cess to health care (Gorman & Braverman, solidated the available data on the role of
2008), reduction in household poverty gender in child rearing and noted that most
(Edin & Kissane, 2010), and significantly of the data falls short of distinguishing
reducing the likelihood of a child repeat- between a father and the income a father
ing a year in school (Nord & West, 2001). provides, or distinguishing between the in-
At first glance, it may indeed appear that volvement of a father and the involvement
fathers are crucial to ensure the stability of a second parent.
of healthy child development - children
without a father do worse, children with Parent and Father: Examining the
a father do better. However, it takes much Difference
more than a glance to approach this debate

Literature Review 3

FATHERS AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT

It could be argued that it is not the lack Therefore we cannot assume that chil-
of a loving father that leads to the nega- dren’s behavioural problems are a result
tive outcomes for the child, but rather the of their now “non-residential father”. A
lack of a loving parent. It is this absence of hostile, tense environment is much more
a co-parent that should be viewed as the likely to be the reason for these problems.
bigger culprit for the problems found in Marital conflict leads to greater stress for
children raised by a single parent. Possible both partners, and as a result they may
benefits can clearly be seen from having become less capable of looking after their
a partner to help out with child care, per- children.
haps participate in tough decisions, and to
relieve the other of the regular demands of These detrimental effects of pre-di-
child care. The “absent father” must there- vorce and post-divorce conflict are well
fore not be viewed in terms of gender, but documented (Cummings & Davies, 2011;
rather with reference to the roles and du- Kelly, 2000). Once again it is not the ab-
ties of a parent that are left vacant due to sence of a father that is a direct cause of
this absence. Absence of one parent means childhood problems, but rather the under-
that all economic, social and emotional pa- lying factors that happened to lead to this
rental roles must now be filled by a single, absence, i.e. marital conflict and divorce.
strained parent. For example children in single parent fam-
ilies whose father has died previous can
Approaching comparative studies fare better than those in single parent fam-
of family structures in this way is crucial ilies directly following a divorce (Rutter,
to an informed understanding of how fa- 1971; Biblarz & Gottainer, 2000). Chil-
thers may influence child development. dren tend to suffer when fathers are unsup-
In another critique of comparative stud- portive during marital conflict (Cummings
ies, Lamb (2010) notes how most single & O’Reilly, 1997) and there is also a wide
parent families stem from divorce. Since body of marital conflict research that has
divorce is so frequently accompanied by outlined several possible adverse effects
periods of overt and covert spousal hos- on child development, such as increased
tility, parental conflict may play a major risk of substance abuse (Barrett & Turn-
role in explaining the apparent problems er, 2006), mental health problems (Ama-
of “fatherless” children. Substantial liter- to, 2001) and high-risk sexual behaviour
ature supports the links between interpa- (Hetherington, 1999). In addition to this,
rental processes, including marital quality the perceived and often actual abandon-
and interparental conflict, and also child ment by one of their parents emotionally
and adolescent adjustment (Cummings & affects children (Kelly & Lamb, 2000;
Davies, 1994; Grych & Fincham, 1990). Thompson & Laible, 1999).

4 Student Psychology Journal, Volume IV

WALSH

It appears that marital conflict is as- exclusively possess unique and essential
sociated with child maladjustment, while qualities that mothers do not. The idea
marital harmony is associated with child that fathers, by virtue of being male, make
adjustment. Perhaps we can reference an essential contribution to child devel-
Bandura’s (1977) influential Social Learn- opment has been present in the literature
ing Theory to note that if people, especial- since at least the 1940s (Pleck, 1981). Sil-
ly children, learn within a social context, verstein and Auerbach (1999, p.197) sum-
it is vital for their learning to be facilitated marise this “essentialist” notion in their
by positive influential models. The pos- critical analysis, “fathers are understood as
itive influence of a parent is somewhat having a unique and essential role to play
eroded by marital conflict. Behavioural in child development, especially for boys
problems arise from this conflict and it is who need a male role model to establish
this conflict that can be seen as an underly- a masculine gender identity”. This idea of
ing factor in the perceived developmental the essential father is certainly very topical
problems of children who do not live with among public discussion, and the idea has
their fathers. Once again, we must not use several scholarly advocates (Blankenhorn,
studies of divorce as a way of advocating 1995; Popenoe, 1996; Wilson, 2002).
the necessity for fathers. Instead we should These advocates claim that fathers are nec-
use them to demonstrate that children essary for children’s development due to
simply need a loving, nurturing and hos- their unique, and more importantly, male
tile-free environment, which is best easily qualities. The essentialist perspective ar-
facilitated through a healthy relationship gues that fathering and mothering are dis-
between two loving parents, regardless of tinct biological and social roles, ones that
gender. are not interchangeable.

Essential Father: Fact or Fiction To argue for or against this notion, we
must first eliminate the effects of having
Let us now approach this essay’s a male parent or not. Again keeping in
theme of “parent rather than father” mind the methodological need for reliable
through a different lens. We have seen how comparative studies, such comparisons
it is a flawed idea to compare children of can be made only between pairs of family
coupled-parents to children of single par- structures that hold constant the number of
ents, due to the fact that there are so many parents, but vary in whether they include
underlying differences at play (the absence a male parent. Adequate comparisons in-
of a father being just one of many). To ar- clude single fathers and single mothers,
gue that fathers are necessary for child male two-parent gay families and two-par-
development would suggest that fathers ent lesbian families, and two-parent het-

Literature Review 5

FATHERS AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT

erosexual families and two-parent lesbian groups of adolescents. Furthermore, lat-
families. Comparisons of the latter provide er investigations (Wainright & Patterson,
little support that a male father is neces- 2008) showed that children of lesbian
sary for healthy development. Children couples actually exhibited less substance
raised by lesbian mothers do not tend to abuse and delinquency than the children
display a greater number of negative de- raised by a women and a man. A healthy
velopmental outcomes in comparison to adolescence clearly stems from a healthy
their heterosexual-parented counterparts childhood, and it seems that this is per-
(Patterson & Chan, 1999; Stacey & Bi- fectly possible without the presence of a
blarz, 2001; American Academy of Pedi- father.
atrics, 2002). Furthermore, boys raised by
lesbian couples do not possess fewer male As mentioned earlier, we can also
characteristics than others (MacCallum & use comparative studies of single parents
Golombok, 2004). because the number of parents remains
constant but the gender of the parent does
Seeing as the concept of lesbian moth- not. Again the results do not bode well for
ers raising a child is relatively new and proponents of the essential father debate.
possibly contentious in society, it could In comparison to single mothers, single
be argued by some that competent lesbian fathers display a greater difficulty in mon-
mothers tend to be extremely motivated to itoring their children’s school progress,
simply volunteer for such studies in order friends, and whereabouts ( Maccoby &
to prove their adequacy. Supporters of the Mnookin, 1992), display poorer involve-
essential father debate may therefore ar- ment, rule setting and closeness (Hawkins
gue that the results are biased. However, et al.,2006), and have lower education-
one set of studies (Wainright, Russell, & al expectations for their child (Downey,
Patterson, 2004; Wainright & Patterson, 1994). In addition to this, children of sin-
2006, 2008) rigorously drew out a large gle fathers display worse grades (Downey,
scale representative sample of adolescents 1994; Pike 2002), worse teacher ratings
and their families in the National Longitu- (Downey et al., 1998) and display a greater
dinal Survey of Adolescent Health. Chil- likelihood of substance abuse (Hoffmann,
dren of lesbian couples were contrasted 2002). These studies all hold possible vari-
with children of heterosexual couples on ances of socioeconomic attributes constant
many variables such as self-esteem, anx- that may exist between single mothers and
iety, trouble in school, school connect- single fathers.
edness, depression and neighbourhood
integration. Results showed absolutely no The findings above are quite cata-
significant differences between the two strophic for the essentialists, the studies do

6 Student Psychology Journal, Volume IV

WALSH

not even support popular claims that fa- more reasonable to use than essential.
thers are somehow better able to keep boys
in line or command respect from their chil- Deconstructing the Discourse of Father
dren. However, it must be repeated once
more that children of single mothers still Lesbian couples demonstrate that gen-
fare worse than children of coupled het- der does not play an essential role in child
erosexual parents. So even though studies development. In fact Biblarz & Stacey
of single parents appear to be detrimental (2010) point out that based strictly on the
to the essential father, there is still evi- published science, one could even argue
dence that fathers do play some role in that two women parent better on average
the healthy development of a child. This than a woman and a man. Less is known
role however is likely to not be grounded about male homosexual couples, and Bi-
in maleness, but rather on the father’s ca- blarz & Stacey acknowledge that this is a
pacity to act as a responsible, loving and slim body of research. Of the few studies
caring parent. that do focus on gay male parents, results
show that the children they raise do not
A more reasonable alternative to the tend to exhibit any significant behavioural
essential father hypothesis may be what problems as a result of having no moth-
Pleck (2010) suggests as an “important fa- er (Johnson & O’Connor, 2002; Stacey,
ther” hypothesis. Pleck’s view holds that 2006). By analysing the findings from
good fathering is simply one of many fac- studies of both lesbian mothers and gay
tors promoting positive child outcomes, fathers, we can demonstrate that the gen-
and these outcomes are not necessarily der of a parent is not a significant factor.
linked to the father’s masculinity. In a Two lesbian mothers should not be viewed
large-scaled study based on longitudinal in terms of their femininity, much like gay
evidence Sarkadi et al. (2008) reviewed fathers should not be viewed as a “double
24 publications of father involvement. 22 dose” of masculinity Stacey (2006) notes
of these described positive effects of fa- a “passion for parenthood” (p27) that is
ther involvement and the review went on seen among gay men, and indeed straight
to recommend that policy makers should men too. The discourse of a “father” is
strive for greater involved fathering. From therefore flawed because it restricts men to
this evidence we can indeed see how fa- their gender. Men and women alike should
thers might be deemed “necessary” by instead be viewed in terms of their desire
essentialists and father’s rights activists. to be parents, not their desire to be moth-
But perhaps the term “involved parenting” ers or fathers. This is summed up nicely
would be more suitable than involved fa- in Stacey’s (2006) aptly titled article, “Gay
thering. Likewise “important” might be Parenthood and the Decline of Paternity as

Literature Review 7

FATHERS AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT

We Knew It”. Without ‘masculine’ contri- and a home-making, child-rearing mother.
butions of boisterous play and ‘feminine’ Society had indeed once viewed fathers as
yearnings for nurture and care, paternity, all-powerful patriarchs who are entitled
but certainly not male parenthood, might to yield unconditional dominance over
become obsolete. In their analysis of chil- their families (Knibiehler, 1995), but these
dren’s cognitive outcomes, Martin, Ryan roles have since changed. In line with
& Brooks-Gunn (2007) also concluded this change, researchers began to realise
that “among children with one support- the newly found potential of the father as
ive parent, the sex of that parent was in- a parent. In such a context, it must have
consequential” (p423). Findings like this been easy for Michael Lamb to entitle his
heavily erode Popenoe’s (1996) argument first essay on the subject, “Fathers: Forgot-
that two married, biological parents are the ten Contributions to Child Development”
gold standard for childrearing. (Lamb, 1975). Nowadays researchers do
not constrict fathers to their uni-dimen-
Therefore the lack of a female parent sional role of breadwinning. Instead they
is not important for gay fathers, much like are recognised in terms of care providers,
the lack of a male parent is not important companions, protectors, moral guides,
for lesbian mothers. Mallon (2004) notes models, teachers – as well as breadwin-
how gay fathers can sometimes consider ners. Mothers play identical roles to those
themselves more similar to mothers than to listed above and so it should be important
fathers – “As a gay dad, I’m not a mom, but to identify that these are the roles of a par-
sometimes I think I have more in common ent. Certain roles are no longer exclusive
with moms than I do with straight dads” to a mother or to a father and therefore the
(p138). Statements such as this testify to gender of a parent is a trivial characteristic.
the notion that we must deconstruct the In a much more recent essay, Lamb (2010)
societal discourses that define “fathers”. notes “the differences between mothers
Articles and arguments about “Are Fa- and fathers appear much less important
thers Necessary?” are unfair because they than the similarities” (p10).
put men into the same trap that women
have been clambering out for years. They Conclusion
reduce us to our biology, and relevant ste-
reotypes are fortified by branding fathers Taking into consideration the societal
and mothers as opposite entities. Of course forces that may surround and define fa-
in the past, decades ago, the differences thers, the question of “Are Fathers Neces-
between fathers and mothers were more sary for Positive Child Development” can
blatant with the traditional nuclear family be viewed as similar to the question of “Is
being dominated by a breadwinning father Gender Necessary for Positive Child De-

8 Student Psychology Journal, Volume IV

WALSH

velopment”. The extensive volume of re- the Amato and Keith (1991)
search outlined above would argue that meta-analysis. Journal of Family
the answer to both of these questions ap- Psychology, 15, 355–370.
pears to be a resounding no. There is an
oversimplified obsession with a masculine American Academy of Pediatrics. (2002).
rolemodel among public consensus. We Coparent or second-parent adoption
should however be looking for good par- by same-sex parents. Pediatrics, 109,
ents, not fathers. Parental warmth, close- 339–344.
ness, and nurture are associated with posi-
tive child outcomes regardless of whether Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning
the parent involved is a mother or a father. Theory. New York: General Learning
Even some past proponents of the neces- Press.
sity of fathers have begun to realise the
insignificance of gender. Pruett (2000), a Barrett, A. E., & Turner, R. J. (2006).
prominent advocate of involved fathering, Family structure and substance abuse
writes “I also now realise that most of the problems in adolescence and early
enduring parental skills are probably, in adulthood: Examining explanations
the end, not dependent on gender” (p18). for the relationship. Addiction, 101,
Perhaps others will follow suit, and maybe 109–120.
in the future the support of the traditional
nuclear family will be unanimously con- Biblarz, T. J., & Gottainer, G. (2000).
sidered as an out-dated cultural artefact. At Family Structure and Children’s
this point no research supports the widely Success: A Comparison of Widowed
held conviction that the gender of parents and Divorced Single Mother
matters for children’s well-being. Are fa- Families. Journal of Marriage and
thers necessary for positive child devel- Family, 62(2), 533-548.
opment? Probably not. Are parents? Most
definitely. Biblarz, T. J., & Stacey, J. (2010). How
  does the gender of parents matter.
Journal of Marriage and the Family,
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