Abstract
Expectations for fathers have changed over the past few decades—research has shown that many men express more egalitarian views toward fatherhood and being more involved in parenting, particularly in the caretaking and emotional aspects of parenting. However, despite intentions expressed before parenthood, parenting will often play out along more traditional, gendered lines. In this research, we demonstrate how discourses used by fathers might work to maintain gendered divisions in relation to parenting and work. Data were collected through semistructured interviews that covered men’s experiences of work and parenting. Discourse analysis was employed to analyze the data. We identified that while participants expressed a desire to be involved fathers, often this did not transpire. Participants’ inability to, or decisions not to be, actively involved was accounted for in various ways, and suggested a tension between what fathers recognize they should be doing, and what they are doing, as parents.
Studies have shown that many men now approach fatherhood with egalitarian views regarding the split of childcare and domestic labor. However, once a baby is born the division of labor still tends to be split in terms of traditional gender roles, with women assuming the bulk of responsibility for childcare as well as housework, often now in addition to paid employment (Drew and Watters 2014; Miller 2010; Rose et al. 2015; Shirani, Henwood, and Coltart 2012). Numerous explanations exist for this divide, including the absence of structural and institutional supports for men to be more involved in caregiving; masculinity encouraging men to perform certain, acceptable parenting behaviors; and social and cultural expectations reinforcing the idea that men are not good at care work. What is clear is that there is a divergence between expectations of, and for, fathers and what fathers are practically doing in terms of parenting. This suggests that men are making decisions not to be as involved in caregiving as changing expectations might dictate, which requires attention and consideration of the gendered expectations which might lead to these decisions. Further, although there are numerous studies demonstrating adherence to a traditional division of labor, there is less research which investigates how these gendered patterns of parenting and work are maintained (though, notably, see Locke and Yarwood 2017). This article thus aims to explore Australian men’s constructions of parenting, if and how they construct alternative masculinities in relation to parenting, and to argue that numerous institutional constraints contribute to men’s performances of masculinity and fathering.
Background
Expectations of fathers have changed over time, reflecting the complex and changing nature of society (Griswold 2012) and what is considered good or normative fathering (Dolan 2014; Marsiglio, Lohan, and Culley 2013; Miller and Nash 2017). However, fatherhood is also inextricably intertwined with masculinity (Hunter, Riggs, and Augoustinos 2017). Thus, to legitimize their masculine status, men are influenced to perform fatherhood in certain ways, often in line with hegemonic masculinity (Coltrane 1996; Connell 1987; Hanlon 2012; Johansson and Klinth 2008). Historically, this performance has comprised financial provision and engagement with paid work almost to the exclusion of engagement with activities within the private sphere, a realm which has been considered more suitable for women (Hanlon 2012; Perra and Ruspini 2013; Shirani, Henwood, and Coltart 2012).
Adams and Coltrane (2004) suggest that “families generally teach us that women and men should occupy different places in the social order. Relying on the ideology of separate spheres, families continue to raise children ‘to be’ masculine or feminine” (p. 232). The ideology of separate spheres can be seen in the organization of social structures such as schools, workplaces, and other social institutions; in particular, it can be seen in the assumption that while both parents may be present for the birth of a child, women will then remain at home to be caregivers of the child for an extended period, while fathers will return to work very shortly thereafter or not take leave at all (Connell 2005a; Miller 2011; Williams 2000). This is particularly so in Australia, where women are much more likely than men to return to work part-time, and to return once their children are over 12 months old (Baxter 2013). Men (and women) construct their identities as parents, and make decisions regarding parenting, within these contexts. They are influenced by culture and by expectations in relation to their gender; accordingly, when discourses, objects, and practices are (re)produced in a certain way (or not), this is tied to lived experience (Griswold 2012). These expectations, and their construction within a traditionally patriarchal society, should not be underestimated in an analysis of parenting behaviors.
What it means to be a “good father,” and the enactment of masculinity through this role, can and has changed with social and cultural context. As Edley (2001) suggests, societal discourses that are privileged can influence the construction of subjectivities by showing which subject positions are valued and held as “true.” Research of this nature has highlighted that men who live in differing cultural and social contexts do not experience fatherhood in the same way, and that this experience is likely to differ by factors such as race, class, disability, and location (Connell 2005a; Pini and Conway 2017; Roy and Dyson 2010). Chowdury (2013), for example, writes about fathering practices in South Asia which are often predicated on community, rather than family, ties. In the Australian context, Hammond (2010) notes that there are few positive images of Indigenous men performing fathering, and this can have an impact upon expectations and performances of Indigenous fathering.
Perhaps of more relevance to the present research and its participants is research around white, middle-class fathers and their contextual practices. LaRossa (1997) and Milkie and Denny (2014) investigated how fatherhood was framed in popular magazines in the United States; men’s roles within the family were framed differently depending on the sociocultural context of the decade. Milkie and Denny (2014) reported that in the latter half of the twentieth century the frame turned toward nurturance, and expectations regarding fathers’ emotional involvement increased (see also Marsiglio, Lohan, and Culley 2013; Marsiglio and Roy 2012). In the Australian context, Bell (2013) argues that although there is a cultural shift toward a more caring and nurturing fatherhood, ultimately traditionally masculine ideals of fatherhood continue to be idealized and portrayed in cultural products, such as magazines and advertisements. Miller and Nash (2017) argue that the shift in what is considered good fathering has particular implications for Australian fathers, where masculinity and fathering identity is strongly tied to breadwinning. The shift toward emphasizing a nurturing, emotionally involved, and connected fatherhood propels men into a situation where they are encouraged to construct a parenting identity somewhat at odds with the traits of stoicism, independence, and control revered in hegemonic masculinity (Connell 2005b). While masculinities can be plural and fluid (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005; Coles 2009), the ideal of hegemonic masculinity and (re)productions of this through interactions encourages men to construct their masculine identities in certain, privileged ways.
In particular, an Australian study of heterosexual partners conducted by Rose and colleagues (2015) noted that when attending medical appointments in the prenatal period and also at the birth, professional staff spoke to and positioned men in such a way that conveyed their status as secondary parents. This positioning by medical staff, in combination with cultural expectations of masculinity, may contribute to discouraging men from engaging in the type of new fatherhood that is increasingly emphasized (see also Drew and Watters 2014). Further, in their study of Australian heterosexual couples, for example, Singleton and Maher (2005) termed the women in their research “domestic managers” and the men “compliant helpers.” The women took on responsibility not only for the majority of childcare (and household chores) but also for directing their male partners in this regard. Similarly, Riggs and Bartholomaeus (2018) found in their study of heterosexual couples living in South Australia that the female partners took on double responsibility. They were responsible for both the majority of childcare and also for guiding their male partners in what, how, and when to do care work. Miller’s (2011) findings in her study of Canadian couples echoed this idea, in that fathers framed themselves as “helpers” and secondary parents, and distanced themselves from and/or reappropriated their engagement in feminine spaces and behavior (see also Borgkvist et al. 2018; Hrzenjak 2013).
For the most part, it appears that the opportunity to challenge gendered parenting norms is rarely seized, and traditional gender norms are often reinforced in the workplace, home, and medical and social settings, such that parents tend to fall back into gendered patterns of work and parenting after a baby is born (Miller 2011; Rose et al. 2015). However, Miller (2011) emphasizes that “opportunities to transgress normative ways of doing caring can also be refused or avoided, and/or explained through apparent incompetence, and so normative patterns of gendered behaviors continue” (2011, p. 1106). As we will argue, explaining men’s lack of action or choices in relation to parenting in terms of their incompetence, or of mothers being inherently competent, maintains the normality of current gendered patterns of parenting. To effectively shift these gendered patterns, structural enablers must exist (Miller 2011; Pedulla and Thebaud 2015).
In this vein, Shirani, Henwood, and Coltart (2012) point out that the necessary provisions enabling men to be more involved fathers are often not available in public spaces in the UK, which reinforces ideas around men’s incompetence in relation to caring for children, that “the father alone is not seen as an appropriate carer for a young baby” (p. 282). In contrast, countries with social policies and provisions enabling men to take up the carer role, such as Sweden and Denmark, have higher numbers of men spending time with their children, as well as engaging in primary caregiving (Brandth and Kvande 2016; Bunning 2015; Craig and Mullan 2010; Kaufman and Almqvist 2017).
In summary, men are informed about their expected roles and the value placed on them by societal and institutional structures, and the ways in which fatherhood, and motherhood, is positioned through these structures (Marsiglio, Lohan, and Culley 2013). Certain discourses and institutional actions convey to men that they are more valued when they engage in paid work than when they parent (Daly 1996; Lupton and Barclay 1997; Miller and Nash 2017). Thus, even while expectations for fathering behavior are changing, structural and institutional support for this behavior may not be adequately shifting with it. For example, that the availability and monetary value of paternity leave in Australia, and numerous other countries, is minimal, works to convey to men that their role as fathers is less valued than their role as workers. It also encourages men to continue to view their fatherhood as inextricably linked to their ability to financially provide. Thus, certain discourses in regard to fathering and the (re)production of these through institutional policies and interactions may influence the subjectivities that fathers see as acceptable.
Method
Data were collected through semistructured interviews with Australian fathers, conducted between August and December 2015. Participants were recruited through flyers distributed around shopping and sports centers, snowball sampling, and dissemination of the research by radio interviews, a newspaper article, and a local research organization newsletter. Recruitment material called for “Hands on Dads” aged 18 years or older, who were currently working, and had at least one child between the ages of 1 and 12 years old. The original research question focused on men’s parenting and experiences of using (or not using) flexible working arrangements (Borgkvist et al. 2018). In this analysis, we focus on participants’ constructions of parenting.
Fifteen men participated in the interviews, most identifying as Anglo-Saxon Australian, except two who identified as Italian-Australian and European-Australian, respectively. The participants were primarily middle class, and all had female partners with whom they were cohabiting, with all but one participant being married. Participants worked in a range of occupations across the public and private sectors, and their ages ranged from 31 to 52 years. The majority of their partners were engaged in some form of part-time work.
Discourse analysis (Edley 2001; Wetherell, Stiven, and Potter 1987) was used to analyze transcripts of the interviews. Here, discourse analysis is applied as by Wetherell, Stiven, and Potter (1987), whereby discourse refers to spoken, written, formal, and informal interactions; language is seen as constructive and action-oriented, and, as such, it is not neutral but accomplishes certain things for the speaker. Analysis aimed to investigate the ideologies underlying individuals’ constructions of reality; this included the application of constructs such as interpretative repertoires and subject positions. Edley (2001) describes interpretative repertoires as coherent or understandable ways of discussing things and defines the construct of subject positions as “locations within a conversation” and “the identities made relevant by specific ways of talking” (p. 210). Talk is viewed as performative and (re)productive in that discourses are considered both indicative of the subject positions available to speakers and as able to assist in the maintenance or challenge of wider social and cultural processes and expectations (Ussher and Perz 2015). Thus, analysis is based on established methods and theory, and extracts are provided to allow the reader to assess the validity of the analysis.
We would like to emphasize the importance of conducting qualitative research, and interviews in particular, with men. Edley and Wetherell’s (2014) research discusses the ability of interviews and discourse analysis to elucidate the identity work that men can and often do to maintain accordance with hegemonic masculinity. Further, Chowdury (2017) wrote that interviews can provide spaces within which masculinities can be shored up, reinvented, and indeed constructed in relation to the interviewer themselves. Highlighting this identity work is imperative in identifying possible strategies for social change in relation to men and masculinities (see also Pini 2009). In addition, Locke and Yarwood (2017) argue that the use of interviews and discourse analysis can assist in giving men their own voices in relation to parenting (see also Dolan and Coe 2011).
Interviews were conducted by the first author and covered topics including parenting and housework arrangements, if and how participants had applied for and taken leave after the birth of a child, interactions with supervisors and coworkers, and if and why participants were or were not currently using a flexible work arrangement. Interviews lasted between 39 and 110 minutes and were recorded and transcribed verbatim by the first author. At the point of transcription, all names were changed and names of workplaces were omitted to maintain confidentiality. Transcripts were then read, reread, and coded by searching for patterns of talk that recurred across and within the interviews. During the data collection and analysis process, the first author discussed aspects of the data, codes, and themes with coauthors to consolidate preliminary ideas and analysis.
During analysis we identified that, rather than interrupting or challenging traditionally gendered ways of parenting, participants (re)produced dominant discourses regarding parenting abilities and roles. In the analysis below, we aim to illustrate the tension that fathers constructed in their talk regarding their parenting and work roles, and the spaces and ways in which these fathers were enabled and constrained in enacting a contemporary fathering identity. We have chosen to present the accounts of five participants, based upon the content and representativeness of their accounts, to allow for in-depth analysis. However, similar accounts, and particularly the recognition that fathers should be more involved, were seen across multiple interviews.
Results
Men who participated expressed a desire to be involved parents but simultaneously gave varying accounts for not being as involved as they desired. In particular, we identified two competing interpretative repertoires within men’s talk: men as aspiring to be equal parents and men as subordinate or secondary parents. The coexistence of these two distinct interpretative repertoires suggests a tension between what fathers recognize they should be doing, and what they are doing, as parents. Participants drew upon discourses that constituted the second repertoire, of men as secondary parents, more prominently in our data and this is reflected in the analysis.
Below, we demonstrate examples of these competing interpretative repertoires, while exploring three discursive strategies that fathers used to manage this tension or to account for not achieving equal parenting. These self-identified engaged fathers drew upon biological explanations for parenting behavior, utilized discursive strategies that privileged their involvement in paid work, and emphasized the problematization of active and involved fathering as explanations for them not being as involved as they expressed the desire to be.
Biological Explanations for Parenting Behavior
In accounting for their parenting behaviors, many participants drew upon a biological discourse. While not a new discourse (see Locke and Yarwood 2017; Rose et al. 2015), its presence and function in this context is noteworthy as it demonstrates its continued accessibility: [T]he nappies, the housework and everything um, I really wanted to be a part of all of that. There’s um, there was a beautiful Michael Sherbon essay on fatherhood that I read really early on that had a, that I really liked, he basically said that the piss, shit and the vomit is the intimacy you can’t have one without the other so if you’re not there for the piss and the shit and the vomit you can’t, you won’t have that intimacy you can’t. And I really believed that was true so I wanted to be changing just as many pooey nappies as my wife and um, yeah, and you know trying to help out in the middle of the night. Unfortunately I’m a massively heavy sleeper so my reaction time was always so much slower than my wife’s…I don’t know if that’s evolutionary or something, but I wasn’t very good at that. (Age thirty-six, researcher)
Subsequently, in lines nine to eleven, Larry draws upon a different repertoire, positioning him as a secondary parent, in relation to his wife. Specifically, he draws upon a biological discourse to account for his failure to engage in the active components of parenting an infant, suggesting that being “a massively heavy sleeper” affected his reaction time and that this might be “evolutionary.” There are two points to consider here. One is that Larry draws upon a biological explanation for his inability to perform these tasks, thus framing it as something out of his control. In addition, his concluding remark “I wasn’t very good at that” leaves no room to consider that those parenting behaviors may be learned rather than biological or inherent to the mother. This provides a suitable account for Larry not undertaking these actions and not being as involved as he said he wanted to be, while the use of the word “unfortunately” works to reinforce his stated desire to be so involved.
Where Larry says, “I wanted to be changing just as many pooey nappies as my wife” and “trying to help out in the middle of the night” (lines 7 and 8), he positions himself as an outsider, a helper, and as aspiring to meet a standard set by his wife. This highlights a tension and negotiation of identity for Larry—a stated need and want to be an involved father, ostensibly undermined by biological factors beyond his control, which account for his inability to accomplish this.
Within this extract, Larry takes up numerous subject positions that accomplish various things for him. In stating that “I really wanted to be a part of all of that,” Larry implies that he was not part of this, positioning himself as outside of or separate from this realm of behavior, which has historically been undertaken by women—“the nappies, the housework and everything.” Although seemingly accessing the repertoire of involved parent which would incorporate these actions, the language used implicitly establishes a limit on his capacity to undertake these actions. In taking up this subject position, Larry positions his wife as the expert, the benchmark to which he compares his parenting behavior. This positioning can be seen to reinforce the idea of women’s natural ability and men’s inability to parent. It could also be argued that, in assigning expert status to the mother, this discursive work reproduces an assumption that there is a “right way” or a “best way” to parent, and that only the best performer should do this.
Similarly, Carl described how he had enjoyed taking time off when his first child was born:
It was really nice to sort of have all of that bonding time you know while I wasn’t working, um that was nice, yep.
Mmm, yeah. So when you say bonding time what do you mean by that?
Um, generally just time spent with my daughter doing, just family things, so it might be reading to her it might be um cooking with her it might be taking her to the museum that sort of thing, um just generally time spent with my daughter (thirty-three, administration officer).
Here, Carl engages with the discourse of father involvement and establishes it as important. However, he also shows some hedging (see Machin and Mayr 2012) when he says, “it was nice to sort of have all of that bonding time you know” (emphasis added). This hedging suggests that Carl may not have been entirely comfortable taking on that role, that aspect of parenting—with the implication that he was not entitled to perform parenting in the same way as the mother.
In this next section of Carl’s speech, his seeming lack of entitlement becomes more apparent as he suggests that mothers have an immediate connection that fathers cannot have: Especially sort of in the early um, early year or so, sort of getting to know her [his daughter], and because I mean it wasn’t immediate for me that I actually liked having a child in the house. But I mean now obviously I wouldn’t have it any other way but certainly for the first few months I wasn’t, the connection wasn’t there between me and my daughter as you know it is with my wife and my daughter. (Carl, thirty-three, administration officer, italics added for emphasis)
In addition, Carl’s suggestion that “it wasn’t immediate for me that I actually liked having a child in the house” accomplishes two things. First, as mentioned above, it implies that there is something innate, or biological, about the way in which women and children connect (despite there being a number of reasons why this may not be the case—see Miller 2005); second, and in contrast, it constructs men as needing to get used to having children around, as not immediately connecting with children. In combination with hedging that can be seen when he describes spending time with his daughter, this suggests that although he is accessing the discourse of involved parent and arguably is contributing to the repertoire of men as equal parents, he is positioning himself as a secondary parent. This undercuts his capacity to parent in the way he appears to recognize that he should, and positions his partner as the more competent carer/parent. Again, it can be seen that this tension is negotiated and managed through an account reliant on biology—something outside of Carl’s control.
Overall, these participants’ accounts demonstrated a discernible tension in expectations and ability to be an involved father, which was evident within most interviews. In addition, it is apparent in their accounts that biological explanations reinforcing notions of gendered expertise remain readily accessible.
Inhibited by Paid Work
As discussed, in our interviews, fathers repeatedly demonstrated their recognition of a tension between what they should be doing and what they were doing as parents. A second pattern in participants’ accounts of parenting related to descriptions of the impact that involvement in paid work had on their ability to be active, involved fathers. For example, in the below extract, Ross, who has two adult and two young children, responds to a question about what working part-time following the birth of his now older children meant to him. Ross now works full-time and does not spend time with his two young children in this same way: Mmm, yeah it was awesome. Yeah, ah it gave me an opportunity to um, I suppose not to be so distant, to be a part of what was going on and to, (exhales) I suppose um, what I feel with the other the two younger children is that Mum is still the centre of the world, ‘cos when things go wrong they go to Mum. But my two older children, because I was there a lot more and as a part-time worker and a part-time parent that wasn’t so distinct, so when they were upset, coming to see Dad was part of what happens and it wasn’t that striking difference that I feel now, ‘cos you’re, you’re, you’re there and you’re there picking up and [doing] drop-offs from school and kindy, being there all day with them. (Age forty-six, scientific manager)
The use of particular words and language by Ross works to position him as a secondary parent, and thus implicitly to position his wife as the primary caregiver. In the first line of Ross’s extract, it can be seen that Ross hesitates in his speech and uses noncommittal language when he says, “an opportunity to um, I suppose.” This hesitation suggests, as Carl’s hedging did, that Ross may not have been comfortable taking on (or talking about) this more involved aspect of parenting, that he did not know how to explain it. His use of the term “part-time parent” also suggests the notion that involvement in paid work might interrupt the performance of the parenting role, and vice versa. In the context of constructions of parenting, this is an interesting notion—it implies that you cannot be a full-time parent and a full-time paid worker simultaneously; it gives the sense that these are mutually exclusive roles with resources which cannot be used concurrently when responding to the demands of each.
Perhaps relatedly, Ross’s implicit positioning of his wife as the primary caregiver suggests that he has the option of whether to take on this position, while his wife does not. This positioning works to maintain a view of women in general as most suitable in relation to caregiving and is reflective of a traditional perspective of work and parenting. Similarly, Ross suggests that working part-time “gave me an opportunity” to not be so distant. This choice of words assigns agency elsewhere, and does not position Ross as actively making the choice to work part-time; this positioning could suggest that Ross is aware of the cultural problematization of men stepping away from full-time work, hence his hesitation to commit to it in his speech. This subject position, of wanting to maintain a connection to paid work, became clear when Ross later articulated the below: [T]he time that you have with your younger children is very small…what I said to [my partner] was that you know I feel quite comfortable with you either wanting not to work or work part-time because it’s a short window of time that you get to spend some pretty crucial years with the two children…we’re fortunate that I’m full-time employed and we’re able to do that. (Age forty-six, scientific manager)
It can be seen here that the tension in competing repertoires of parenting was managed by emphasizing the importance of involvement in paid work. However, as will be demonstrated below, the ability of fathers to privilege parenting is often structurally constrained, which may contribute to fathers’ management of parenting and work tensions in certain ways.
Institutional and Cultural Problematization of Involved Fathering
Through analysis, we noted that participants regularly cited workplace culture, human resources policies, and information available to men regarding their options for leave and flexibility, to problematize their enactment of active, involved fathering. Participants described that they often faced institutional constraints when they were attempting to take leave or find out leave options available to them at work. However, in acknowledging these constraints, participants also engaged them to explain their lack of time spent at home or engaging in care work. For example, while recounting his experience of trying to take leave after the birth of his child, Mike expands upon a comment he made about there being “a particular culture” within his workplace: [M]aybe it’s more um a perception but certainly and it might be [my perception] might be borne from the experience I had when I did wanna take leave around the birth of my child, that um maybe for men there’s less of a less support for men wanting to do…ahh, perhaps child care arrangements or…to take that time off around the birth of the child like it’s kind of up to you to work out…bit of a gender bias towards women taking time rather than, than men perhaps. (Age forty, program officer)
Aspects of Mike’s speech further suggest that he is taking up certain subject positions that enable him to manage the tension present in his account. Throughout the above extract, Mike uses a great deal of hedging language. In the first line, the use of the words “maybe” and “um” indicate a hesitancy to be deliberate in his speech, to purposefully articulate that his workplace is unsupportive in relation to his taking time off. The use of “um a perception” indicates that he is hesitant to name his experience as fact. This hesitation could be interpreted to function in such a way that it allows Mike to avoid challenging the institution’s role in creating and maintaining the normative gendered expectations he is discussing—to avoid challenging the status quo because it might just be “a perception” rather than something tangible. In saying that “it might be borne from his experience,” Mike’s behavior is individualized and provides a platform for him to engage these discursive strategies. These strategies work to shore up Mike’s subject position of ideal worker (Acker 1990), and allow him to negotiate this subject position with that of involved father, by providing an explanation for his inability to be as involved as he would like. It is also possible that, rather than being a part of the process of identity negotiation, the use of these distancing strategies may reflect Mike orienting to the gender of the (female) interviewer. This may have had an impact on his willingness to be forthright about these experiences, and to locate them within a structure of bias within the workplace as opposed to his individual observation.
The same kind of talk can be seen in the following extract from Carl: I think she [Carl’s Manager] is in a position where she wants her workers to be happy but she also is aware that you know we’re quite understaffed and if somebody’s taking leave then that’s putting sort of more strain on, on um the office as a whole so…I sort of see why she would sort of suggest to me to move my [annual] leave rather than looking in to other options for parental leave. (Age thirty-three, administration assistant)
Finally, outside of workplaces, many fathers mentioned being made to feel unwelcome or questioned within spaces that traditionally have been reserved for mothers. Indeed, participants who took their children to playgroups, kindergarten, and other spaces typically considered feminine domains reported often being the only fathers there and described feeling unwelcome and uncomfortable: Yeah oh very much so, ah you know not so much as the kids grew older…ah with sports and things like that but certainly in the early days…I remember going to ah an event at my children’s kindy and being the only father there and the mothers almost being a bit uncomfortable or wary, well maybe that was just my perception mind you, um, but it wasn’t a comfortable um experience…I don’t know that I felt overly welcome. (Phil, age fifty-one, social worker)
These accounts suggest that parenting is (still) gendered, and, thus, for fathers some forms of active parenting are problematized while others are socially/culturally acceptable (see also Doucet 2006; Locke and Yarwood 2017); however the above demonstrates that men may engage discursive strategies that problematize involved/equal parenting in order to explain their lack of involvement. The ready availability of these discursive strategies and subject positions suggests that, for men, their invocation presents the most socially acceptable way to resolve the tension between parenting and work—rather than to name and challenge a lack of organizational support and/or the problematization of their active parenting. What this accomplishes is a continued contribution to the repertoire of men as secondary, rather than equal, parents.
Discussion/Conclusion
In this article, we have demonstrated how fathers in paid employment may negotiate tension in evolving expectations in relation to work and parenting. We have further shown how these two roles might be managed by fathers, and how the repertoires, discourses, and subject positions engaged by fathers (and mothers and institutions alike) may work to reproduce gendered patterns and expectations.
The juxtaposition of evolving expectations in relation to work and parenting roles leaves fathers in a difficult position. While required to meet changing expectations regarding their level and type of parental involvement, the accounts presented, and previous research, suggest that fathers are typically not provided with the cultural and institutional support required for them to achieve this kind of fathering (Hunter, Riggs, and Augoustinos 2017; Locke and Yarwood 2017; Marsiglio, Lohan, and Culley 2013; Pedulla and Thebaud 2015; Suwada 2017; Kaufman and Almqvist 2017). However, in engaging the above discourses and choosing not to challenge these barriers, the accounts deployed by fathers maintained traditional, gendered parenting roles while simultaneously assigning blame for their lack of involvement elsewhere.
Institutional culture is powerful and can be influential in individuals’ behavior and everyday decisions, actions, and subject positions (Dolan 2014; Drew and Watters 2014; Marsiglio 2008; Griswold 2012). Participants recognized and discussed structural constraints as having an impact on their ability to be involved fathers, but these structural constraints were primarily used to account for their inability to be as involved as evolving norms and expectations dictated. Invoking an explanation of structural constraints externalizes, and absolves in a sense, individual responsibility—because it appears outside of their control. This distancing from responsibility and control in relation to involved parenting may not seem surprising when it is considered that, while father involvement has come to be idealized, it requires fathers to step away from and reduce their connection to a socially and objectively/publicly valued role, traditionally associated with masculinity—and into one associated with femininity, which is trivialized and undervalued (Fisher and Tronto 1990).
This notwithstanding, discourses of fathers as involved parents were drawn upon in the presented extracts. As Edley (2001) might describe, the use of these discourses suggests that an ideological shift in the rhetoric of fathers has occurred and is acknowledged by fathers. This way of talking about fathering, and the voicing of a desire to be more involved, appears more readily available and acceptable now than in previous generations. That participants felt a need to account for not engaging in these behaviors does support the idea that this expectation is becoming more salient.
Further, as Elliott (2016) suggested, when men engage in care, caring masculine identities can then further develop (see also Lee and Lee 2018; Hanlon 2012). Recognition of this expectation may provide a basis for fathers to increase their active involvement in parenting and incorporate this into their masculine identities (though, as Hunter, Riggs, and Augoustinos [2017] suggest, what this might actually mean for care work requires further investigation because feminine work is often reappropriated by men). If we also consider the findings of Rehel (2014), Miller (2011), and Wall (2014) that fathers who are engaged in caregiving in the early stages of an infant’s life are more likely to remain involved parents, and to see caregiving as a learned rather than inherent behavior, this recognition presents a promising move toward change in father involvement.
However, fathers’ enactment of involved fathering may be hindered through the problematization of involved fathering in workplaces and day-to-day interactions more broadly. Involved fathering appeared to be affirmed when fathers engaged in activities with links to masculinity, such as taking their children to and coaching sports, as well as financially providing for them. Other researchers have observed that this works to reinforce the kinds of parenting behaviors and activities that men and women are encouraged and rewarded for doing (Coltrane 1996; Connell 2005a; Lupton and Barclay 1997). In order for parenting expectations to evolve, and to become less gendered, the ways that mothering and fathering roles are recognized and the value that is attributed to them needs to evolve, as do the ways that women and men are valued within the workplace. Support from workplaces is required for the choice to privilege family over work to be normalized for men; this support is likely to result from broader cultural changes in norms around parenting and work. These factors influence each other (Griswold 2012; Locke and Yarwood 2017; Miller and Nash 2017).
Further, when considering the problematization of fathers’ involved parenting by institutions, Griswold (2012) suggests that just as institutional culture can influence individuals, individuals can influence institutional culture and contribute to a shift in norms and expectations. The discourses these participants engaged to account for their lack of involvement reflect the most readily available discourses and point to the resources men and women have available to them to contribute to changes in norms. From a broader perspective, it is evident that in the Australian policy climate, resources have inherently privileged a traditional narrative in relation to parenting and work, and continue to do so (Brennan 2011). It seems that the ability of fathers to incorporate the spheres of work and home, and for fathers to truly be more involved, requires further social change, normalization, and policy support (see also Johansson and Klinth 2008; Kaufman and Almqvist 2017; Suwada 2017).
It cannot be ignored, however, that the men who participated in this research did recognize a gap between fathering ideals and what they were doing in practice, and they chose not to act upon it. Again, it can be seen that with fathering ideals evolving faster than masculinities are changing, men are left with a lot to lose by pushing beyond the accepted boundaries of masculinity in order to meet these new ideals (Connell 2005a). It appears from these accounts that masculine identity, in Australia at least, remains very closely tied to financial provision. In this sense, it does not matter that they are failing to perform this new fathering ideal—they are still engaging in and performing an acceptable, valued form of masculinity, and of fathering. Similar to the findings here, both Riggs and Bartholomaeus (2018) and Singleton and Maher (2005) found that the Australian fathers in their studies were performing new, expected fatherhood ideals, but only to an extent. They were, for example, performing tasks that seemingly proved their idealized fathering identity—changing nappies, feeding, and in some cases assisting with household chores.
However, the male participants in these studies still privileged their engagement in paid work, by positioning their primary role within the family as the breadwinner, and, in many cases, expecting their female partners to schedule their own time (including caregiving and paid work) around the fathers’ engagement with paid work. In Riggs and Bartholomaeus’s (2018) study, both their male and female participants engaged with these ideas. Given that involvement in paid work featured so prominently in these accounts, and the present research, it could be that men’s continued engagement with discourses of father as provider maintains the legitimacy and value of this performance of masculinity, while simultaneously inhibiting progress toward an evolved masculinity which integrates care work to the same degree.
The research presented here involved heterosexual fathers currently in paid work, who were primarily middle-class, and of Anglo-Saxon descent. These men fit in to a specific privileged group and are not representative of other classes and ethnicities of men and fathers. For example, Shows and Gerstel (2009) demonstrated that working-class and upper-class fathers may negotiate parenting and work tensions differently (see also Dolan 2014; Connell 2005a). There is also a dearth of research focusing on individuals with different gender and sexual orientations and/or different familial structures, and families in relation to negotiations of parenting and work identities generally; we acknowledge that our research, which focuses on heterosexual participants, may reproduce heteronormative assumptions regarding the topic at hand. Furthermore, we reiterate that these are the dominant patterns of speech we identified in the data; others may have identified different points. We also suggest that future research might consider the impact of irregular work, or “gig jobs,” and the rising popularity of the gig economy (see Stewart and Stanford 2017) on men’s decisions and positioning in relation to parenting.
Through demonstration of how, through language, gendered patterns of work and parenting can be maintained and remain unchallenged, the findings presented here add to the growing body of research in this area. How fathers choose to account for their lack of involvement in certain aspects of parenting has consequences, both at the individual and societal levels. The analysis presented in this article indicates that men’s use of biological explanations for parenting behavior, the positioning of themselves as secondary parents and their female partners as primary caregivers/experts, and continual engagement with discourses privileging traditional connections to paid work remain prominent factors influencing men’s parenting. In effect, women’s positions as primary caregivers are arguably maintained through men’s negotiation of masculine identity and its interaction with work and parenting. Although small changes in parenting roles and expectations do seem to be occurring, as Connell (2003, 17) suggests, “the gender order does not blow away at a breath.”
Footnotes
Author’s Note
Shona Crabb is also affiliated with Fay Gale Centre for Research on Gender, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia.
Vivienne Moore is also affiliated with Fay Gale Centre for Research on Gender, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia and Robinson Research Institute, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia.
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) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.