Low-Income Black Men’s Kin Work: Social Fatherhood in Cohabiting Stepfamilies

Abstract

We apply family systems theory and the kinscripts framework to advance understanding of cohabiting stepfather involvement and kin work in low-income Black families raising children, from men’s own perspectives. Analysis of in-depth interviews with 15 cohabiting stepfathers revealed three central kin work domains: involvement in child discipline, taking on financial responsibilities for the child, and developing and maintaining a paternal relationship to the child in the context of a complex family. In each domain, participants described processes of negotiating their involvement with their partners. They also described often negotiating with their stepchildren and sometimes also with the child’s biological father. In multifather family systems, cohabiting stepfathers reported acknowledging, accepting, and adapting their involvement to the reality that there was more than one father to the child. Our analysis provides a theoretical advance in understanding men’s kin work, social fatherhood, and complex families.

Keywords

Black families cohabitation kin work low-income families social fathers stepfathers.

Low-income Black cohabiting stepfathers parent in a social and political context in which such men (and fathers of color more generally) face scrutiny and stereotypes about their investment and involvement in family life, and in which all fathers face shifting expectations about what makes a “good” father or father figure (Marsiglio & Roy, 2012). Despite facing numerous barriers and challenges, a growing body of research demonstrates that many low-income and Black men are involved in parenting (Coles & Green, 2010; Connor & White, 2006; Forste, Bartkowski, & Jackson, 2009). Such men often seek fathering roles throughout their lifetime and aspire to be good fathers, despite difficult circumstances such as estrangement from prior children (Edin & Nelson, 2013; Edin, Tach, & Nelson, 2015; Marsiglio & Roy, 2012; Roy, 2004a), sometimes serving as “social fathers” to their friends’ children, the children of extended family members, and/or the children of their romantic partners.

In this article, we focus on the latter category, and specifically on the fathering involvement of low-income Black men who are cohabitating partners to women with resident children (at least one adolescent) from previous relationships, but who do not have a legal relationship with the mother or child, or a biological relationship to the child. We call these men cohabiting stepfathers. Understanding the roles and perspectives of cohabiting stepfathers is increasingly central to understanding Black families, as researchers estimate that almost half of Black children in the United States will experience maternal cohabitation with a partner other than the child’s biological father by age 12 (Kennedy & Bumpass, 2008). Research on fathering in cohabiting families is limited in scope and focused primarily on families with joint–biological and younger children (McHale, Waller, & Pearson, 2012; Waller, 2012).

Prior research shows that mother’s partners’ relationships with her children can range from harmful such as bringing instability and violence (Dunlap, Golub, & Johnson, 2003; Manning, 2015) to uninvolved as polite strangers or spectators (Hetherington & Henderson, 1997) to involved and effective as parental figures (DeGarmo & Forgatch, 2007). Additionally, cultural shifts in expectations for fathering have focused on not only financially providing for one’s children but also serving as an involved and nurturing parent (Marsiglio & Roy, 2012; Milkie & Denny, 2014). Low-income men of color’s positive experiences of and contributions to parenting are often rendered invisible or ignored in the context of racist and classist stereotypes about such men being uncaring “deadbeats” or “thugs” (Coles & Green, 2010; Dow, 2016). In light of this complexity, we take a combined family systems theory and kinscripts perspective, described below, to understand low-income Black men’s self-described negotiation of involvement in their partners’ children’s lives.

Work on stepfathering in general provides a starting point for investigating low-income Black cohabiting stepfather involvement, but most such research is based on married stepfathers and on predominately nonpoor White samples. Family scholars highlight a need for research that goes beyond current stepfamily research when investigating the family dynamics of unmarried partners with children from prior relationships, and further suggests the need to investigate such dynamics by subgroup, especially those understudied in this area (Burton & Hardaway, 2012; Cancian, Meyer, & Cook, 2011; Reid & Golub, 2015; Sassler & Miller, 2011). Jayakody and Kalil (2002) argue that work on social fathering should advance a theoretical framework of what social fathers do. We contribute to the growing body of work on men’s own accounts of their fathering (Coles & Green, 2010; Doyle et al., 2015; Edin & Nelson, 2013; Madhavan & Roy, 2012; Marsiglio & Hinojosa, 2007; Roy, 2004a, 2004b, 2006), and to research and theory on both cohabiting stepfamilies and social fathering by analyzing interview data collected from 15 low-income Black cohabiting stepfathers through the lenses of family systems theory and the kinscripts framework, focusing on such men’s paternal kin work.

Background

Stepfathers and Family Systems

Family systems theory posits that individuals and families are embedded in a network of social systems (Cox & Paley, 1997). These systems comprises multiple subsystems, including each dyadic relationship between family members, which are greater than the sum of the collection of subsystems. Of importance for this study, family systems theory concerns itself with the adaptation of systems in the face of disruption, and resolution into new arrangements resulting in eventual adaptive stabilization. Most centrally, the roles and behaviors of family members cannot be understood in isolation from one another, and must be examined relationally in their larger family context and as they change over time.

Stepfathers face the challenge of constructing and maintaining their roles within the preexisting family system they are joining (Marsiglio & Hinojosa, 2007). Their partner’s children already have a mother who likely single-parented for a period of time and sometimes also have an involved nonresident father, in addition to possible parental relationships with others such as grandmothers and aunts, which may affect their relationship with the stepfather (King, 2009). In light of this, Marsiglio (2004) finds that “claiming” children, or considering a stepchild to one’s own child, is a complex negotiated process.

One family systems concept especially pertinent to the process of stepfather integration into the family is maternal gatekeeping. While initially conceptualized as a mother’s collection of beliefs and behaviors that inhibit men’s involvement in parenting and family work (Allen & Hawkins, 1999; Coleman, Ganong, & Weaver, 2002), more recent work on maternal gatekeeping also examines facilitative gatekeeping such as encouraging fathers to interact with the child and be involved in parenting activities (Cannon, Schoppe-Sullivan, Mangelsdorf, Brown, & Sokolowski, 2008). Both nonresident and resident fathers and stepfathers can experience maternal gatekeeping (Fagan & Barnett, 2003), and it can occur in many domains.

Relatedly, although biological fathers are traditionally expected to be the family disciplinarian, stepfathers generally participate less in this practice and defer disciplinary responsibilities to the mother or even to the nonresident biological father (Coleman, Ganong, & Fine, 2000). Research on remarriage suggests that stepchildren, particularly adolescents, are especially likely to reject stepfathers who attempt to exercise authority and discipline too early (Cartwright, 2005; Coleman et al., 2000; Robila & Taylor, 2001). Children are more likely to accept stepfathers who maintain a friendly relationship and leave the disciplining to the mother (Coleman et al., 2000; Hofferth & Anderson, 2003).

The Kinscription Framework

Family systems are increasingly complex across race and class, and Linda Burton and colleagues have developed the framework of “kinscripts” for examining how families and individuals within them negotiate the life course, based on research with multigenerational Black families (Burton & Hardaway, 2012; Roy & Burton, 2007; Stack & Burton, 1993). The kinscripts framework is composed of three domains: kin work, the labor and tasks families need to survive; kin time, the sequencing of family transitions; and kinscription, the process of assigning kin work to family members. This framework allows for examination of family members’ activities to “regenerate families, maintain lifetime continuities, sustain intergenerational responsibilities, and reinforce shared values” (Stack & Burton, 1993, p. 160).

One unique parental role identified in Black families using the kinscripts framework is that of the “othermother.” Burton and Hardaway (2012) explain that “othermothering, as somewhat distinct from stepmothering, involves the culturally-scripted kin work of sharing parenting responsibilities with children’s biological parents” (p. 343). We apply the kin work component of the kinscripts framework to examine the kin work low-income Black men undertake as cohabiting stepfathers.

Prior research has found networks of coparents and “fictive kin” in low-income Black populations primarily comprise women (Collins, 2000; Stack, 1974). However, a growing body of research highlights that many low-income and Black men are involved in families and in parenting despite numerous barriers and challenges (Coles, 2009; Coles & Green, 2010; Connor & White, 2006; Doyle et al., 2014; Doyle et al., 2015; Forste et al., 2009; Hamer, 2012). A cohabiting stepfather, like all types of social fathers, may take on shared parenting or coparenting roles in the family. Because terminology for this population varies by researcher and study, we also use the terms “social father” or “mother’s cohabiting partner” interchangeably with “cohabiting stepfather” to refer to and be consistent with prior research (Berger, Carlson, Bzostek, & Osborne, 2008).

Researchers have examined kin work low-income men undertake to enhance paternal involvement in a variety of contexts (Edin & Nelson, 2013; Marsiglio, 2004; Marsiglio & Roy, 2012; Roy, 2004a). Though many such men are blocked from more “traditional” fathering roles such as serving as primary breadwinners, as social fathers they support mothers, and engage children in a variety of ways that can include providing supervision, advice, and financial support (Haney & March, 2003; Jarrett, Roy, & Burton, 2002; Jayakody & Kalil, 2002). Serving as a social father is one way marginalized men enact flexible fathering—employing strategies to maintain ties to parenting—in the context of limited economic resources, which can provide numerous barriers to father involvement (Edin & Nelson, 2013; Madhavan & Roy, 2012).

The process of “kinscription,” or the recruiting of individuals to do family labor, is especially salient to the examination of Black social fathers (Roy & Burton, 2007; Stack & Burton, 1993). Roy and Burton (2007) identify processes that influence mothers in their search for social fathers for their children, and note that though their work focuses on mothers’ reports of the kinscription process, further work should examine social fathers’ own kin work and active participation in the kinscription process. Our article extends this line of research by examining how male cohabiting partners describe their own kin work and role as a social father.

Olmstead, Futris, and Pasley (2009) call for more research that examines fathering roles using self-reports, Marsiglio (2004) calls for more work on subjective accounts of stepfathers’ lives, and Jayakody and Kalil (2002) argue that “work on social fathering urgently needs to develop a theoretical framework of what social fathers do” (p. 514). Based on a family systems theoretical model and applying the kinscription framework, our research examines self-reported kin work processes cohabiting stepfathers in low-income Black families undertake to negotiate their participation in the family, influenced by their partners, stepchildren, and larger family systems.

The Present Study

Data

Data come from the Impact of Transient Domesticity on African American Families study, funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The study comprises a longitudinal quantitative panel study of 136 low-income Black cohabiting stepfamilies with adolescent children aged 11 to 17 years, and a qualitative substudy with 15 of those families. We took a case study approach in limiting our sample to a group of individuals who are similar on a variety of relevant factors to examine the nuances of the experiences of this particular population (Elliott, Powell, & Brenton, 2013; Feagin, Orum, & Sjoberg, 1991).

In this article, we analyze in-depth semistructured interview data collected from men in cohabiting relationships of less than 5 years with Black women raising an adolescent child from a previous relationship as part of the qualitative substudy (n = 15). All 15 families participated in the larger panel study were low-income (below 200% of the Federal Poverty Line including both partner’s self-reported incomes), self-identified as Black, and were living in a low-income neighborhood of New York City. Participants’ descriptions of their employment statuses varied from occasional to nearly full-time work, and their income sources varied from on to off the books (or a combination of both). As with many in the low-income population, most employment spells and income sources were relatively tenuous, with most participants discussing recent spells of unemployment or frequent low-wage job transitions. All sampling and survey procedures were approved by the researchers’ institutional review board and all names used in this article are pseudonyms. Participants were paid $40 for each interview.

Study participants were recruited by research project field staff members experienced in working with low-income Black residents of New York City. Field staff used existing networks of research study contacts, field informants, street recruiting, and social services agency contacts to recruit potential participants. The 15 families that participated in the substudy were selected based on willingness to participate and variation in demographics (Table 1).

Table 1.

Participant Demographics.

Pseudonym	Age, years	Gender	Educational attainment	Joint children	Months cohabited
Angela	39	F	HS degree/GED	0	20
Brandon	25	M	HS degree/GED
Ruby	17	F	—	—	—
Alisha	41	F	Some college	0	10
Carl	48	M	HS degree/GED
Sarah	14	F	—	—	—
Malaya	39	F	HS degree/GED	0	24
Greg	45	M	HS degree/GED
Nina	13	F	—	—	—
Kayla	35	F	Some college	0	4
Rodney	23	M	HS degree
Brandy	11	F	—	—	—
Dionne	31	F	Some college	0	28
George	36	M	No HS degree
Dara	11	F	—	—	—
Janet	29	F	HS degree/GED	0	6
Marvin	25	M	HS degree/GED
Andreas	11	M	—	—	—
Tiffany	35	F	HS degree/GED	0	16
Lamar	47	M	HS degree/GED
Corey	15	M	—	—	—
Tanisha	44	F	Some college	0	15
Roland	46	M	HS degree/GED
Jaye	13	F	—	—	—
Delia	44	F	No HS degree	0	26
Reggie	38	M	Some college
Alice	11	F	—	—	—
Tyra	38	F	HS degree/GED	0	4
DeMarco	29	M	HS degree/GED
Tatiana	12	F	—	—	—
Courtney	32	F	No HS degree	0	15
Ben	46	M	HS degree/GED
Kayce	15	F	—	—	—
Brenda	41	F	No HS degree	0	55
Christopher	51	M	HS degree/GED
Tonya	13	F	—	—	—
Wanda	48	F	HS degree/GED	0	45
Jamal	56	M	Some college
Will	12	M	—	—	—
Vivian	34	F	No HS degree	1	57
Robert	49	M	HS degree/GED
Dixon	14	M	—	—	—
Rena	29	F	No HS degree	1	56
Darius	46	M	No HS degree
Kordell	11	M	—	—	—

Note. HS = high school; GED = General Educational Development.

The first author, an unmarried and childfree White woman in her 30s with a PhD, conducted semistructured qualitative interviews with each family member confidentially in the family’s home or a convenient location selected by the participant, such as a park, restaurant, or the interviewer’s car. Participants were asked to describe their parenting activities and other topics related to family life. The interviewer differed from the fathers she interviewed in many ways (race, gender, socioeconomic status, parental status), and this likely shaped what fathers were willing to share with her. Trust was built between the interview and the interviewees primarily through the field staff member who recruited in-depth interview participants. This field staff member was himself a middle-aged Black father who lived in one of the neighborhoods participants lived in. He recruited study participants through his extensive social networks, and his good reputation generated trust among study participants who knew of him. He introduced the author/interviewer to study participants, describing her as friendly and trustworthy. The interview dynamic benefited from the interviewer being vouched for by a member of the population who was well respected, which created an initial dynamic of trust.

The interviewer openly shared details of her own personal life when asked and attempted to build further rapport through expressing her curiosity and a nonjudgmental attitude about participant responses. Following Naples (1996), she started with the assumption that, rather than researchers being either an “insider” or “outsider” (Merton, 1972), both researchers and study participants have different and contextualized social identities and locations that can shape interview data collection and analysis. While historical concerns about White researchers taking advantage of and/or misrepresenting Black people’s experiences may have shaped the research dynamic (Collins, 2000), so might have similarities between the researcher and some participants in shared views on relationships, marriage, and family life.

In this article, we only analyze the data collected from the mothers’ partners. Though all interview data collected from the partners were analyzed for this article, two interview prompts were especially related to the topic of fathering and family roles: “What do you bring to the household?” and “Tell me about your relationship with the focal child. How do you feel about the relationship and role(s) you play to him or her?” We targeted interviews at understanding the participant’s relationship with the focal child but in many cases, men discussed relationships with all of their partner’s children, who were mostly younger than the focal child. These data are included in our analysis.

Analysis

Interviews ranged between 30 and 90 minutes and were digitally recorded. Recordings were transcribed and entered into ATLAS.ti software for analysis. To analyze the data, the first author used a combination of deductive and inductive procedures (Bradley, Curry, & Devers, 2007; Crabtree & Miller, 1999; Fereday & Muir-Cochrane, 2008), taking a constructivist analytic approach (Charmaz, 2007; Mills, Bonner, & Francis, 2006). The deductive analysis consisted of reading through the transcripts and coding quotations, specifically focusing on descriptions of dyadic and triadic relationship dynamics and kin work, informed by family systems theory and the kinscripts framework.

To further illuminate the unique experiences for our particular sample, the author then conducted an inductive analysis of the transcripts, cycling back and forth, influenced by the principles of inductive grounded theory, between reading participants’ transcripts and field staff memos, and developing additional conceptual frames and coding systems (Charmaz, 2007; Strauss & Corbin, 1990). The author first read through the data using an open-coding technique, creating memos about common themes, and then moved to focused coding, using, and expanding the codes to further sort the data (Charmaz, 2007). The theme of some participants using the language of the “other father” to describe paternal dynamics emerged in the inductive coding process (concept described in greater detail below). Though we stratified the sample on gender of child and length of relationship, our analysis did not reveal meaningful differences in participant descriptions of kin work by either of these characteristics.

The rigor of the data and analysis was ensured in several ways. The authors met with project field staff weekly to discuss themes emerging from the project as a whole, participant survey responses, field observations, and informal conversations with participants during scheduling and before and after survey and interview data were collected. Field staff who recruited study participants and conducted survey data collection prepared weekly memos on their perspectives and understandings of the deductive and inductive themes. Triangulation of data was achieved by collecting and analyzing field notes based on informal conversations and observations every time a project member had contact with a participant. These meetings, memos, and field notes all influenced the final coding scheme for this analysis.

Findings

Analysis revealed that participants generally focused their descriptions of their kin work around three domains: involvement in child discipline, taking on financial responsibilities for the child, and developing and maintaining a paternal relationship to their partner’s child. In the sections below, we illustrate how men characterized their own kin work processes as they became involved in and integrated into the family through a kinscription process in each of these three domains. In each domain, participants described direct and indirect negotiation of involvement with their partners, and sometimes also with their stepchildren and/or children’s biological fathers. First though, we include a short section about men’s construction of their fathering roles in the larger social contexts in which they live.

Fathers’ Contexts

The focus of this article is how men described their kin work within the family system at a micro level. Participants’ broader understandings of being a Black father, their perceptions of how society tends to view Black fathers, and fathers’ feelings of scrutiny and marginalization in light of negative stereotypes of Black fathers are beyond the scope of this article. However, participants’ micro-level interactions and how they described them in interviews are influenced by macro-level political and cultural discourses around their fathering. All but one participant made at least passing references to such discourses.

For example, DeMarco discussed the efforts his (biological nonresidential) son’s charter school goes to in including fathers in students’ lives, making it easy for fathers to stay involved even if they do not live with their child through allowing them to visit during the school day and holding events like father–son dinners. He said he appreciated this because:

I think a lot of times a lot of fathers get bad raps, you know, “we don’t do this” or “we are deadbeats,” you know. . . . They sit there and say that Black men are deadbeat fathers. A lot of us do get bad raps because there is always one bad apple in the bunch.

Participants’ descriptions of their fathering must be understood in light of fathers’ own understandings of the social scrutiny they face in this role. They emphasized their participation in “traditional” fathering activities such as economic support and discipline, which had the effect (either intended or not) of refuting stereotypes about “deadbeat” Black fathers. Like DeMarco, as the following sections illustrate, some fathers emphasized their strong dedication to being an involved father in the context of their stepchild having an uninvolved biological father, and underscored the difference between themselves and those uninvolved fathers, who they viewed negatively. Both macro-level cultural and political discourses about Black fathers and micro-level understandings of their partners’ and step children’s experiences shaped their descriptions of their participation in negotiating their roles in the family as related to the child. The interviews and the findings below focus on the within-family processes participants described.

Navigating Participation in Child Discipline

One domain of kin work all participants discussed when describing their role in the family was participation in parenting their partner’s children. Most (n = 10) described participating in disciplining when needed, but being careful not to interfere in their partner’s primary parenting activities. The focal children were adolescents, with less need for close supervision and physical caretaking, so parenting activities mostly focused on setting limits, making rules, and administering discipline. In this domain, men described their involvement in discipline as a role they navigated to align with their partners’ preferences. Unlike the other two domains discussed below, participation in child discipline was not something participants described negotiating with children or in the context of the biological father’s involvement.

Roland explained that he plays a supportive role to Tanisha with regard to disciplining Jae. He expressed that he can be soft hearted and is not the best disciplinarian on his own volition. In fact, he said that it makes him uncomfortable to serve as a disciplinarian to Jae on his own. However, he explained, “Her mother gives me that responsibility. . . . She gives me the green light to go ahead and discipline [Jae]. She tells me to do it.” Though he might not administer discipline on his own, Roland described doing so when directed to by Tanisha’s kinscription of him into that role.

Rodney also does not take initiative in setting boundaries because he sees that Kayla and her children already have an established routine that works for them, and the kids are generally well-behaved. When asked about his relationship with Kayla’s children, he said,

Well it’s more friendly. I don’t really have to tell them [to do anything]. Like, they know what to do. They always doing what they have to do. It’s barely or rarely a time I have to tell them to do something. If I’m telling them something, it’s something their mother told me to tell them.

In these cases, the mother and child had a preexisting relationship that the stepfather yielded to, but stepped in when directly recruited to do so by his partner.

In somewhat of a contrast, Darius explained that he, like two other participants, is the primary disciplinarian in the family. From his perspective, Rena is too lenient on the kids so he has to be the family disciplinarian. He believes that if he left it up to Rena, Kordell would be late for school because she is too lenient. He elaborated,

See with his mother, she’ll let him get away with it. But I’m zero tolerance and I always have been with children. [I tell them,] “You’re going to listen to me.” . . . They don’t care about mommy. They’ll run over mommy. If daddy leave, they’ll run over her.

Darius explained that Rena would object to this characterization of her as soft, but that she does yield to him as primary disciplinarian.

Reggie also described himself as a strict disciplinarian. However, he reported that Delia does not like his disciplinary style, so he does not participate in direct parenting activities in that realm. He explained that he is “into drama” and “always starting something” with Delia’s kids:

I say some bad things, and they say some bad things, and she jumps on me. “Why you arguing with the kids like that? They kids.” Yeah, but they don’t talk like kids. You know what I’m saying? And that pisses me off.

This caused conflict in his relationship with Delia, and he explained that she has now told him that he cannot have a say in disciplining. In response he said,

You know, she be like, “Stop! Those are my kids!” So now, I don’t say anything. I just sit there and look and shake my head. I don’t do that no more.

Though he described his relationship with his partner as very close, he also alluded to a lot of verbal fighting among all members of the family. He admitted that he instigates it sometimes, and that this is when Delia steps in to prevent him from “being too mean” to the children.

Reggie’s account illustrates inhibitory gatekeeping on the part of his partner with regard to discipline, while fathers’ accounts earlier in this section illustrate a facilitative gatekeeping process. Though discipline was a domain in which father’s described their involvement level as primarily dictated by mothers, findings illustrate the fathers’ undertook their own kin work to navigate their participation in this domain in line with their partners’ expectations, even when these expectations went against their initial preference for level of involvement.

Negotiating Financial Responsibilities

Participants frequently discussed the importance of a second domain, taking on financial responsibilities, when describing their involvement with the focal child. Most (n = 9) participants highlighted what they saw as the important contribution of splitting financial responsibilities with their partner, including the cost of raising the children, and ensuring that the family was never in financial desperation. In contrast to the child discipline domain, which participants described as primarily negotiated with their partners’ expectations, participants described their involvement in financial responsibilities as negotiated directly with their partner and often also their stepchild, and sometimes indirectly negotiated with the child’s biological father’s financial involvement.

Roland’s descriptions of his family’s economic situation illustrate the complexity of negotiating finances in a cohabiting stepfamily system. When reflecting on the family’s finances, Roland explained that Tanisha takes primary responsibility for providing for the family, because he has a painful medical condition that often renders him unable to work. Even though he described Tanisha as the primary financial provider, in contrast to stereotypes about low-income Black fathers, he explained that he took his role as supplementary provider seriously:

She has my back and I have hers. You know, first of all, we not going to live from check to check. I can’t do that. [I tell her,] “You’re the breadwinner here. You know, you make more money than me and stuff like that. You can’t live check to check, you know, you take what you got to take and put it in your little account. And your off-week, that’s my week to do what the kids need to be done or gotten, you know. That’s on me!”

Roland saw it as his responsibility to make up for whatever financial necessities Tanisha’s paycheck could not. His identity as someone who helps provide for the family was important to him, and he wished that Tanisha’s 13-year-old daughter Jae would ask him when she needs money. However, Jae and her mother already had an established relationship with regard to Jae’s financial needs, and Roland explained that he had to engage in a kin work process of negotiating his role in providing with her directly.

[Jae] don’t never come to me. . . . She always go to her mother and be like, “Mommy do you have?” “You know damn well mommy ain’t got it. This is her off-week. You know when she get paid.” So I got tired of her constantly going around me to her mother so her mother can come to me, you know? You got to learn how to come to me and talk to me. I’m her stepfather, you know what I’m saying? “’Cause whatever you need, I got you.” She’s breaking down slowly but surely. She started coming to me and I keep that little jar—it’s probably empty now—but I put all my change in that jar, and that’s her jar. I also give her two dollars every morning.

This situation required both him and Jae to adapt to him being part of the family system. Rather than Tanisha recruiting him to do this, Roland described the process as kin work he himself initiated.

Darius lives with his partner Rena and her two sons from previous relationships. When asked what role he plays in the household, Darius stated “I support this family!” He said that he brings “everything: food, money, clothing” to the family to complement Rena’s paycheck from her part time job. Though at one point he described himself as unemployed, he later discussed receiving public assistance, occasionally getting work as a construction day laborer off the books, and buying and selling DVDs. Similar to Roland, Darius explained, “when it’s her income off day, it’s my day,” and characterized shared financial responsibilities as a main part of his role in the family.

Darius also explained that Kordell’s biological father owes several hundred thousand dollars in child support to Rena, and that he felt this was wrong. He explained that he and Rena now support Kordell, and thought about how he would react if Kordell’s father came to their apartment and wanted to see Kordell:

If Kordell’s father show up with $50,000 cash for [Kordell] and say, “Yo, I want to see my son.” I’m going to sit my butt down and say, “Go ahead, see him.” Other than that, I would say, “You can’t see your son. Get out of here. You say ‘hey [Kordell], I’m sorry my son.’ Yeah now you can see him, I’m going to sit down.”

It is clear that Darius has thought about where he fits into the larger family system that Rena, Kordell, and Kordell’s biological father are part of, and takes his financial responsibility for Kordell seriously. He saw Kordell’s biological father’s lack of providing as a serious transgression that needed to be remedied before he would be welcomed back into the family. However, Darius conceded that this would be possible if Kordell’s father paid the child support he owes. In this way, Darius described the hypothetical kin work he would do to financially support and protect Rena and Kordell if Kordell’s father came back into the picture.

George also negotiated his financial relationship with his partner Dionne’s daughter Dara in relation to her biological father’s involvement. In terms of providing for Dara, he explained “If I got it, I get it. It’s just like if she asks her father for something and he can’t get it for her, I get it.” George shares financial responsibility for Dara, negotiating his role with not only his partner but also indirectly with Dara’s biological father’s involvement in this domain.

Like other men in this study, Reggie proudly described splitting bills and also taking ultimate responsibility for whatever needed to get done financially. Reggie explained that Delia’s children “look at me like a dollar sign,” and described how this came to be:

I make it seem like they work for me. I make them clean up the house. I make them do the laundry, and, stuff like that. And I told them, “$10, here,” so they can have money to go to school with.

Like Roland, Reggie worked to establish his role as a financial contributor to the family and specifically to the children. In his case, Reggie took the approach of rewarding the children with money for doing chores. Though he complained about this, he also described creating the chore regimen and taking pride in being involved with the kids and able to provide for them.

Jamal was one of five participants who characterized their role in the family as primary financial provider. He lives with his girlfriend Wanda and her sons, works full-time, and is proud of his role as economic provider. He understands his role to include financially supporting his partner and her kids, despite having biological children in another household and his stepsons having an involved biological father. He explained that he works because: “You have to provide, you know. You’re staying there. You living with a woman, with her kids. What are you going to do? You can’t just provide for you and her.” He did not view this as a burden and seemed to take it as a given, and worked to balance his responsibilities in each household.

However, not every participant thought providing financially was an important part of their role in the family. One participant, Brandon, explained that he did not provide financially for his partner Angela or her daughter, and did not have aspirations of doing so. His last job was through a staffing agency, and since it did not pay much money, he explained that he was “selfish and kept it all for myself.” He explained that he and Angela keep their money separate, though if he needs something, she will help him out.

Fourteen of 15 participants identified contributing financially, either in a supplementary or primary fashion, as an important part of their role in the family. Even when they were not the primary provider, participants emphasized their stance that they would not let their partner or children go without something they needed, and would do everything they could to maintain they family’s basic financial security. Their descriptions revealed a kin work process of direct negotiation with their partners and often the children themselves, and sometimes indirect negotiation of their responsibilities in light of biological fathers’ financial responsibilities (or lack thereof).

Developing a Paternal Relationship

A final kin work domain almost all participants (n = 14) discussed related to their involvement in the family system was developing their relationship to the child—establishing their place in the child’s family system as a paternal figure. As evident in the prior two sections, in many cases (n = 8), the child’s family system included the child’s involved biological father. This meant that participants had to carve out a place in the child’s life for themselves, and in some cases innovate new ways to conceptualize their relationship. Participants described a range of paternal relationships with their partner’s children and ways of developing and maintaining the relationship. Though the ways they developed and named the relationship varied, most participants spoke at length about the importance of establishing a parent–child relationship, and demonstrated flexibility in the context of complex and sometimes multifather family systems. Similar to their descriptions of involvement in financial responsibilities, fathers described negotiating this relationship directly with the mother and with the child, and sometimes directly with the child’s biological father or in the context of his level of involvement.

Participants understood and respected their partners’ role as a parent and the preexisting mother–child relationship before they joined the family. However, this did not stop them from actively undertaking kin work by developing a parent–child relationship with the child. Many participants (n = 7) described their role as using the terms “stepfather” or “father” despite a lack of biological or legal ties to the child.

When he first moved in, Roland explained that he was careful not to interrupt the family life that Tanisha and Jae had already established. Though he took his role as a self-described stepfather seriously and wanted to provide for Jae, he also wanted her to know that he did not want to take away her mother’s attention: “I spoke to Jae personally and I just let her know that, ‘Whatever happens, you know, it’s just like, you’re still number one, you know? You still come first.’” Though he perceives himself to be her stepfather, he worked to emphasize the primacy of the mother–child relationship directly to Jae.

Darius, who explained that Rena’s son Kordell’s father is not involved in Kordell’s life and owes Rena child support dating back to when Kordell was a baby, described his own relationship with Kordell. He exclaimed “I play a big role to Kordell! I play big brother and dad. I try to show him.” Darius explained that he does “reenactments out there, with drugs and things. Like I’ll be walking and have a little paper like I’m smoking up a joint and like light, like pass it to him. . . . He better not touch it.” After a brief pause he reiterated “yeah, I do play a big, a major role in his life!” When asked if he thinks of himself as a parent to Kordell and his younger brother, he responded, “Oh yeah, those are my boys.” He sees Rena’s children as “his,” despite not being their biological or legal father.

Greg has a similar relationship with his partner Malaya’s daughter Nina. He expressed taking his responsibility as a father not only to the son he recently had with Malaya but also to Nina very seriously: “Not only do she got my son, she got my daughter. Her daughter is not by me, but that’s my child.” He clarified his role in the family, and specifically the work he does to develop and maintain his relationship with Nina, whose biological father is no longer involved in her life:

I don’t consider myself her stepfather. I consider myself her father. “I’m here every day. I’m going to bust my ass for you. I’ll make sure that you don’t have to want.” I’ll be the things her father couldn’t be, and be there for her. Go to the meetings for whatever, school, PTA meetings. Taking her to appointments, dentist appointments, doctor’s appointment. I’m doing the things that need to be done . . . I’m her father. I’m her dad. Something that she wasn’t getting from him, she got it from me. So that’s my child.

Greg sees himself as “stepping up” and doing the fatherly things for Nina that her biological father was not doing. In his eyes, this kin work made him Nina’s father regardless of their biological relationship.

In about half of the families, the child’s biological father was also involved in the child’s life, with involvement ranging from periodic to daily contact. In three cases in which biological fathers were involved daily, participants described innovative roles for themselves in those multifather families. Inductive analysis revealed that participants defined their relationship to the child in a unique way, outside of the more traditional terminology of father or stepfather. They used the concept of “other father” when describing themselves or the child’s biological father, demonstrating their understanding that the child had more than one father. Men who used the language of “other father” did not have a problem with sharing fathering responsibilities, and accepted this as a part of the family system they were in.

When asked about his relationship with Wanda, Jamal said that it was good, and offered: “I treat her two kids like mine.” Jamal said that Will took his moving into their apartment in stride, and did not seem bothered by it. He posited, “I guess Will just had like two guys in his life now. His biological father and an other father he could ask for money too. So it’s good for him!” He explained that Will “calls me Pops once in a while, but he know his real Pops too.” In response to the question of how he and Will’s biological father get along, he replied that they get along well, and added, “there’s no reason why we shouldn’t.” For him, serving as an other father is an innovative strategy of paternal involvement and does not (and should not) cause strain or conflict.

Lamar also described his relationships to his partner’s children and the children’s biological father using the term other father. Lamar said of his relationships with his stepson Corey and Corey’s biological father:

Oh, you know, I treat [Corey] like my son. I take him out with me. . . . We go out. We hang out. We eat out at restaurants. You know, yeah, he likes me a lot. His father will tell you, we all get along. So, it’s like no problem. If [Corey’s father] can’t do it, I’ll do it. We all go out, basketball, movies, bowling, things like that. We went out plenty of times together. It’s no problem with the other father. He’s a nice guy and he knows I’m a nice guy, you know. That is how it is.

Lamar described going to another state with Corey to spend time with Corey’s biological father, and explained that when Corey’s biological father is in town, he will spend the night at their apartment sometimes, sleeping in Corey’s room. He explained: “That is what family is supposed to do.” Like Jamal, he takes this as a given of how a family should adapt to this kind of situation, and innovated a unique paternal role in the context of this complex family system.

George used similar language to describe the role he plays to his partner’s child in the context of the child’s biological father’s involvement. He has been living with Dionne and her Dara for 3 years, and does not find Dara’s biological father’s involvement with his stepdaughter to be an impediment to his fatherly role. He described his relationship with his stepdaughter as close:

Well I just look at it as she’s like my daughter I never had. Our relationship is good. It’s real good. Like I said, she sees her father often. So, you know, even though she sees him, I still try to be that father figure. I still talk to her and stuff like that, and I have no problem whenever she asks me for anything.

When asked how he enacts that “father figure” role, George said,

Like I said, even though they are not my kids but still I try to be equal. Like if I go out and I go and buy my kids something I make sure I come back in the house with something for them.

George works to be sure that he treats his stepchildren the same as he treats his biological children from a prior relationship, and willingly shares fatherly responsibilities with Dara’s biological father.

Cohabiting stepfathers we interviewed play a paternal role to their partners’ children, and acknowledge that they share these responsibilities with their partner and in some cases also with the child’s biological father. All participants but one described negotiating a paternal relationship to the child directly with their partner and with the child, and some described negotiating directly with the child’s biological father or indirectly with the biological father’s level of involvement.

Discussion

Cohabiting stepfathers are increasingly common as families across race and class grow more varied and complex. In this study, low-income Black men in cohabiting relationships with women who have adolescent children discussed undertaking their own kin work in establishing involvement with their stepchildren. In their discussions of this kin work, three domains were prominent: involvement in child discipline, taking on financial responsibilities for the child, and developing a paternal relationship with the child in the context of complex and sometimes multifather families. To varying degrees in the three domains, they navigated this process directly with their partners and often with their stepchildren, and sometimes both directly and indirectly with the child’s biological father’s level of involvement.

Participants described a multiperson negotiation process in the domains of financial responsibilities and developing paternal relationships. But in the domain of child discipline, most described letting their partner take the lead to maintain family routines and harmony. Their level of involvement in this domain was not negotiated with other family members such as the stepchild or the biological father. The conceptualization of maternal gatekeeping as both an inhibitive and facilitative process was evident in men’s descriptions of their involvement in discipline (Cannon et al., 2008; Coleman et al., 2002). More than in the other two domains, they almost exclusively focused on their kin work in this domain in response to their partner’s preferences and expectations. They described undertaking kin work within the gatekeeping process to align their behaviors with what their partners wanted, even when it was not their ideal level of involvement. This likely promoted family stability, as prior research about discipline in stepfather families with adolescents finds such families tend to function best when mothers remain the primary disciplinarian (Cartwright, 2005; Hofferth & Anderson, 2003), and that children are more likely to accept stepfathers who leave disciplining to the mother (Coleman et al., 2000; Hofferth & Anderson, 2003).

A majority of participants conceptualized their financial role as sharing financial responsibilities with their partner, not being the primary provider, as is now common across the income spectrum. Whether they were supplementary or primary financial contributors to the family, making economic contributions was very important to all participants but one. They considered their responsibilities in light of their partners’ economic circumstances and their own desire to take on financial responsibilities, and directly negotiated this with their partners and stepchildren, and sometimes in relation to the biological father’s involvement in this.

Developing a paternal relationship to the child was sometimes complex for participants given the family systems they were engaged in. Several men described themselves as the child’s stepfather, despite the lack of a legal step-relationship, or even as the child’s father (or “other father”), despite the lack of a biological relationship. In this regard, what they did for and with the child on a daily basis was more central to participant’s perception of their relationship to the child than were legal or biological ties. Within this domain, we identified an adaptive fathering strategy that fostered shared paternal involvement in these complex families: identifying more than one father for a child, and accepting this as part of the family system. This process required direct and/or indirect negotiation with the involvement level of the biological father.

The fathers in this sample who identified an other fathering role constructed their function as primarily supporting the child through taking on fathering responsibilities and activities. Notably, stepfathers’ “claiming” of the child (Marsiglio, 2004) did not negate the biological father also claiming that child. In fact, their paternal involvement often indirectly supported the child’s biological father’s parenting activities in addition to their partner’s parenting activities, though this was not their primary intention. In this way, the other father role differs from the role of the “father ally” identified by Marsiglio and Hinojosa (2007), which is focused primarily on fostering or improving the child’s relationship with their biological father.

The shared paternal other father role is somewhat similar to the role of the “othermother” researchers have identified in Black families (Collins, 2000). Burton and Hardaway (2012) explain that othermothering is distinct from stepmothering and is predicated on the norm of not trying to take the place of the mother, but acting as a complementary mother figure when needed. This is in line with what we found about shared fathering roles. The men who described themselves as other fathers tended to already be involved in complex family arrangements with prior partners and children before entering into their current cohabiting relationship. Perhaps because of their prior experiences, the pervasiveness of multiple partner fertility in this population, and cultural norms about the importance of children and shared parenting, these fathers did not have much trouble constructing this role in their families.

However, our finding about other fathers differs from findings that othermothers do not serve as mother figures to their partners’ children (Burton & Hardaway, 2012). This could be due to a variety of reasons, such as cultural differences (almost half of Burton and Hardaway’s sample was Latino), gender differences (men compared with women), relationship stability (transient vs. more settled), and sample size. Participants felt that being a father to their partner’s children was an important role that they took seriously, but understood and respected the child’s relationship with their biological father and their mother. This is significant and provides a jumping off point to advancing theoretical understandings of kinscription and social fathering in cohabiting stepfamilies. We argue that adaptation to multifather families through acknowledging shared paternity is a unique kin work activity that some low-income Black men have undertaken in response to their social, cultural, and economic circumstances that allows them to be involved in fathering in the context of family complexity.

We also find that regardless of the specific identification of their relationship to the child, cohabiting stepfathers undertake negotiated kin work to become integrated into the family system in multiple domains. Participants described participating in the process of becoming a part of the system through negotiating directly and indirectly with partners, stepchildren, and biological fathers. The domain of discipline was primarily dictated by their partners, though stepfathers negotiated their own adaptation to this, and in the domains of financial responsibility and paternal relationships, involvement was negotiated among the participant, partner, stepchild, and in the context of the biological father’s involvement. Prior work primarily associates kin work with women and particularly mothers (Burton & Hardaway, 2012; Roy & Burton, 2007), and our findings advance understanding of this concept by identifying the kin work cohabiting stepfathers do in multiple domains of family life.

Our findings should be interpreted in light of the limitation that this work is based on a relatively small sample of men in a very specific subpopulation (low-income, Black men living in New York City, stepfathering an adolescent, and in a cohabiting relationship of less than 5 years). It is possible and indeed likely that cohabiting stepfathers in different subpopulations and different social and economic circumstances may describe their fathering experiences differently. In light of these limitations of the present study, we suggest several research topics that we hope future work in this area will address.

For one, we encourage more research on the concept of shared paternity and harmonious multifather families. Specifically, how common is this phenomenon, and how can these positive relationships be fostered? Is this a cultural phenomenon unique to low-income Black families or does it occur across racially/ethnically diverse and economically diverse families? Second, we believe that understanding the varying reasons some cohabiting stepfathers are more involved than others is important for facilitating beneficial involvement. How and why does participation in different domains of involvement vary? Which aspects of the mother–partner relationship have a positive influence on the stepfather–child relationship, and how? How and why does maternal gatekeeping matter? Third, more research about stepfathering in the context of social disadvantage is important for advancing the emerging body of work on marginalized men and their strategies for being positively involved in children’s lives. Fourth, research examining the congruence of men’s reports with mother and child reports of paternal involvement is important for a more comprehensive understanding the family system. We strongly encourage continued research in this area, with a focus on a larger sample that draws from a wider range of social fathering circumstances, to expand, compare, and specify how various types of social fathers conceptualize and enact their fathering responsibilities in an era of increasing family complexity.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (#R01HD064723).

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