Student Research Report: Mothers are to Love as Fathers are to...Also Love
In Spring 2021, students in Dr. Emily Stark’s Research Methods and Design course completed multiple hands-on data collection projects. They were also assigned a blog paper where they discussed one of the topics they chose to research and explained their findings to a general audience. The goal of this was to give students an opportunity to explore a different form of writing from APA-style research papers. Some of these blog papers will be featured here throughout the summer to showcase the students’ findings. Please feel free to contact Dr. Stark through the contact form on this site for additional information about this course or the assignments used.
By Will Kessler
Have you ever heard a father spending time with their child referred to as babysitting? Chances are you have. However, a father is still a parent to their child; their childcare is no more babysitting than a mother’s childcare. Younger parents are realizing that they don’t have to stick to gendered parenting roles, that in fact, they are free to parent to the best of their ability, regardless of their gender. However, often parents who break the mold can feel looked down upon and outcast by the society that created these gendered parenting roles.
Historically, men have been stereotyped as the breadwinners, the strongmen, and the builders. Women have been seen as the homemakers, the caretakers, and the nurturers. This has bled into parenting making the mother often be the loving source of care and comfort, while the father has been the stern disciplinarian. Obviously, some parents fall outside of this mold, but many do not. One study conducted in 1995 found that some parental activities were very gender oriented. Mothers tended to do more shopping and talking about social life and problems, where fathers tended to do things like playing sports with their kid. In fact, the researchers found that gender played a key role in the way parents were involved with their children (Hawkins et al., 2006). While this research is admittedly 25 years old, it demonstrates just how much the gender of the parent played in how they interact with their children.
However, as all aspects of gender roles and stereotypes are being questioned, this parental aspect falls under critique as well. Younger fathers desire more and more to spend time caring for their children. Working mothers struggle to find the line between being there for their child while working full time. Many parents can feel shamed by the public if they approach parenting in a way inconsistent with gender roles, even if upon closer inspection nothing is wrong with their actions.
A Minnesota State University, Mankato group of students that I was a part of recently conducted a survey on just that very subject to see where exactly public opinion lies when it comes to mothers and fathers and their parental roles. We wanted to see if people thought parents’ actions were more or less appropriate whether the parent was male or female. We distributed an online survey to participants through social media and Mankato psych classes. The survey consisted of a few demographic questions followed by a question asking participants to rate how appropriate they thought the actions of parents were in different situations. For example, we asked how appropriate it would be for a parent to discipline their child in public, take a bath with their 6-year-old, and ask personal questions about things like sex, in addition to other questions. Participants rated the appropriateness on a one to five scale. Participants were either shown a version of the survey where all parents were referred to as mothers, all parents were referred to as fathers, or all parents were gender neutral, referred to simply as a “parent”.
After analyzing all the data of the 51 people who took our survey, we found that regardless of their gender or the gender of the parent, people rated the appropriateness of each parenting scenario the same. We were very happy to see this, since it means people (at least the people we surveyed) don’t think gender influences what is acceptable as a parent; in their eyes, the genders are equal when it comes to parenting.
Thanks to this research, we hope that college students view parental gender roles very progressively. We are already seeing more fathers step up and be more involved with their children, as well as more mothers welcome the extra help. Both parents are very valuable to children’s lives, and this new progressive attitude of young parents is just what we need to keep this trend going. However, this isn’t something that just those in parenting roles right now can influence. By all of us realizing the value of both parents equally contributing to their children’s lives, we can help those parents by supporting them and giving them the room to be the best parents they can be. While the “babysitting father” may seem like a cute phrase to use, in actuality it, and other ideas about gendered parenting, further the stereotypes we saw 25 years ago. So the next time you see a father with their kid at the park, don’t be surprised a man is involved in their child’s life, be happy the kid has a good dad!
References
Hawkins, D. N., Amato, P. R., & King, V. (2006). Parent-Adolescent Involvement: The Relative Influence of Parent Gender and Residence. Journal of Marriage and Family, 68(1), 125–136. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2006.00238.x