Running Head: IS FATHER INVOLVEMENT IMPORTANT?

Is Father Involvement Important?

John Foster
The University of Memphis

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Is Father Involvement Important?
One of the most frequently debated hot-button issues of the day is the role that the father
plays in the home. Is the role of the father important? Is it unique? Is the development of children
who do not have a father in the home different or better than those who do not have a father in
the home? These are questions that researchers today are very interested in. However, not only
researchers are asking these questions. Both single parents and whole families want to know the
answer to these pressing questions. Leaders seeking to revitalize communities often seek to
increase the involvement of parents, specifically fathers, in the lives of their children. But is this
a worthwhile effort? While there is not extremely extensive research, there have been studies
conducted to examine the affect that a father has on the learning and development of his children.
How does the presence or absence of a father in the home affect gender identity development,
academic performance, and criminal tendencies of children?
Gender identity development has long been thought to be learned to some degree from
observation. For example, a four-year-old boy sees that his father works in a steel factory, a male
dominated job, while his mother cooks and cleans around the home. The boy learns by this
observation that men do jobs such as working in a steel factory and that women do jobs such as
homemaking. What does the research say about fathers and gender identity development? The
Journal of Vocational Behavior published a study in which researchers examined the time
children spent with their parents during childhood and correlated that information with the early
adulthood occupations of those children. They found that children who spent more time with
their fathers, both boys and girls, ended up in more male dominated jobs than did those children
who spent more time with their mothers in childhood. This study points to a significantly
different path of gender development that is experienced by children whose fathers spend a good

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deal of time with them as opposed to children who spend more time with their mother and thus
less with their father (Lawson, Crouter, & McHale, 2015). However, unlike other topics, this
study does not point to whether more father involvement is preferable or not. It is not necessarily
better or worse for a child to be in a less gender stereotyped occupation or a more gender
stereotyped occupation. To use the prior example, the study concluded that if the child spend
more time with their father, whether the child was male or female, they would be more likely to
work at the steel factory as opposed to if they spent more time with their mother where they
would be more likely to work in the gender stereotyped job according to their gender.
The performance of children in school is another statistic that is often correlated with the
presence or absence of the father in the home. Many believe that the less a father is involved in
the life of his child, the less likely that child is to perform well in school. On the other hand,
many believe that the more involved a father is in the life of his child, the more likely that child
is to perform well in school. A study performed by Claire Baker found this to be true. She
performed a longitudinal study over the span of 24 months examining the home literacy
involvement of parents with their preschool aged children. The study concluded that fathers and
mothers who were more involved in home literacy had children with better reading, math, and
social emotional outcomes in preschool. For example, the children were able to pay attention
longer and got in trouble less than their class mates whose parents were not as involved in home
literacy (Baker, 2013). The findings of this study are incredibly important for a number of
reasons. Much research suggests that the first five years of a childs life are particularly
important in their cognitive development. Thus, things such as home literacy are of particular
importance in this time span. One example of home literacy is a father reading a book to his
child. This shared experience is important to the development of the child for a number of

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reasons. First, the child hears the words of the story being spoken. Second, the child sees the
words that they hear on the page of the book. Third, the child sees the pictures that the words
represent and associates all three of these things. Repetition such as this enforces the learning of
vocabulary in a way that one of these things alone cannot. The study does not examine father
involvement in home literacy separately from mother involvement. However, it is easy to see
how it is important to have both parents present to make this exercise, home literacy, as complete
and effective as possible. If only one parent is present in the home, that parent will have all the
tasks of daily living to accomplish. It is very easy for something such as home literacy to fall by
the way side in the wake of paying bills and cooking dinner. On the other hand, when both
parents are present the tasks can be divided and accomplished with less time and energy leaving
time for things such as home literacy to be accomplished. Bakers study in particular shows that
it is the interaction between the father and the mother in a two-parent household that provides the
best learning environment for the childs home literacy skills. Most research on single parent
households has focused on households where only the mother was present and thus it is difficult
to assess the specific outcomes of the father on the cognitive development of a child. However,
as time has gone on, researchers have increasingly recognized the role that the father plays in the
cognitive development of the child (Baker, 2013). So while this study does not examine the
specific involvement of the father, it does conclude that the interaction of the father and the
mother in home literacy is key to the development of the child. This interaction is not possible if
the father is not involved in the life of the child.
Perhaps the most pressing question concerning the involvement of the father in the life of
the child is whether or not it correlates with the criminal tendencies of the child. One of the most
poignant ways to examine the correlation between paternal involvement and criminal tendencies

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is to study those children who have a father in prison. Lauren Porter and Ryan Kind conducted
such a study. They studied children who had a father incarcerated and children who did not have
a father incarcerated. They found that those children who did have a father incarcerated had a
nearly 50% higher chance of delinquency than did those children who did not have a father
incarcerated (Porter & Kind, 2015). Much research has shown that the amount of time parents
spend with their children is directly linked to their delinquency or lack there of. In the case of
this study, the children who had a father incarcerated experienced an extreme deprivation of time
spent with their parents very simply because one of their parents, the father, was unable to spend
time with them due to his incarceration. This lack of time spent results in less parental control
over the child and less attention given to the child. These factors combined are believed to
contribute to the delinquency of the children in the study. However, the study found that those
children who stayed well attached to their fathers while they were incarcerated had a
significantly less likely chance of becoming delinquent. By controlling for this variable,
attachment to the father, the researchers showed that it is not primarily the incarceration that
leads to the increased chance of delinquency in the children. Rather, it is the level of attachment
the child has to the father that is the key contributor in the childs delinquency. A high level of
attachment correlated to a low level of delinquency and a low level of attachment correlated to a
high level of delinquency.
The research examined has shown father involvement to be a significant factor in the
development of a child. However, the involvement of a father is not always significant in the
same way. In the area of gender identity development, the role of the father was shown to
significantly change the occupation that the child would pursue in young adulthood. The more
involved a father was with his child, the more likely that child was to pursue a male dominated

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occupation. On the other hand, the more time a mother spent with her child, the more likely the
child was to pursue an occupation that was stereotyped to the childs gender. Research shows that
fathers play a key role in the gender development of their child as it relates to future occupation
choice. In the area of academic performance, research is less clear about how the individual
efforts of the father affect the cognitive development of the child. However, research is very clear
that the more involved parents are in home literacy, the better the child performs in academics as
well as in social emotional situations. Moreover, the research concluded that it was not the
individual efforts of the parents in home literacy that greatly benefitted the child but rather the
interaction between the two parents in home literacy that provided great benefits for the child.
Therefore, the involvement of the father can be shown to be important because interaction
between the two parents is not possible if one of the parents is not present. Finally, in the area of
criminal tendencies in children, father involvement was shown to be very important. Research
done on the delinquency of children whose father was incarcerated found the key variable to be
the level of attachment the children had to their father. Children who remained attached to their
father throughout his incarceration had a much lower level of delinquency than did children who
were much less attached to their father during his incarceration. This research indicates that high
levels of father involvement with their children significantly reduce the chances of delinquency
in the children. Father involvement is significant in the development of a child in the areas of
gender identity development, academic performance, and childhood delinquency.

References

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Baker, C. E. (2013). Father's and Mother's Home Literacy Involvement and
Children's

Cognitive and Social Emotional Developmet: Implications for

Family Literacy

Programs. Retrieved November 1, 2015, from

memphis.edu:

eds.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.memphis.edu

Lawson, K. M., Crouter, A. C., & McHale, S. M. (2015). Links Between Family
Gender

Socialization Experiences in Childhood and Gendered

Occupational Attainment in

Young Adulthood. Journal of Vocational

Behavior , 90, 26-35.

Porter, L. C., & Kind, R. D. (2015). Absent Fathers or Absent Variables: A New
Look at

Paternal Incarcerationa and Deliquency. Retrieved November 1,

2015, from memphis.edu: jrc.sagepub.com.ezproxy.memphis.edu

Windsor, D. L., Murrel, V. S., & Magun-Jackson, S. (2015). Lifespan
Development: An
Educational Psychology Perspective, Boston, MA: Pearson Learning
Solutions