In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

| 105 7 Men and Fatherhood Fatherhood is inherently male identified. When we talk about fathers we talk about men. Yet fathers remain strangely invisible as gendered subjects. We do not talk about masculinity; rather, the tendency is to essentialize fathers. This is done to men as well as by (some) men. At the core of fatherhood, however, is a tension that resonates in the contemporary practice of fatherhood. Fatherhood is one of the critical life roles for men, but care of children is significantly at odds with the concept of masculinity. One of the core principles of masculinity is “Don’t be a girl.” Care is associated with women and girls. Hegemonic masculinity drives fatherhood away from care. In this chapter I explore the patterns of contemporary fatherhood that embody this core tension. Our model of fatherhood has shifted to the involved, nurturing, caregiving father, and that pattern has grown among a proportion of fathers. For those fathers, the challenge of policy and practice is to refashion masculinity to include care, to provide support (cultural and institutional) for men’s care, and to connect men’s care to collaborative parenting with women. On the other hand, an opposing dynamic is the phenomenon of disconnection between fathers and children. The dissonance between new fatherhood norms and this strong pattern of disconnection is remarkable and troubling. From this perspective, cultural norms and hegemonic models block nurturing relationships with children and collaborative parenting with partners. Fatherhood exposes how masculinities confer privilege with a price. Power is defined in a way that ultimately separates men from their children and makes it difficult for them to embrace opportunities for care and relationship . This not only harms children; it harms men. In this chapter I set out the patterns of fatherhood, the characteristics of involved fatherhood, and variations of fatherhood policy. I suggest how masculinities analysis within a feminist structure might help to frame how law and policy could achieve more care, for the benefit of children, mothers, and fathers. I include differences among fathers, in particular the challenges for low-income fathers. 106 | Men and Fatherhood Multiple masculinities are critical to ensuring that policy is not class defined. Our naming of low-income families as “fragile families,” for example, may be explicitly sympathetic but implicitly can become coded language for race and class. The danger in reconstructing fatherhood without analyzing its relationship to masculinity is to “masculinize” care in a way that sustains hegemony. This danger is clear from new claims of hierarchy cloaked in the language of equality (Collier 2009; Fineman 1994, 2005). What is really needed is the reconstruction of fatherhood and masculinity away from power over women. Reformed or reconstructed masculinities might suggest a path to recognize and channel men’s emotional connection to their children into more meaningful and nurturing connections that would benefit children, men, and men’s partners. Fathers: Patterns “In recent decades . . . fewer men enter fatherhood and more leave it” (Hobson and Morgan 2002, 1). The disengagement is both economic and emotional. “New census data on family living arrangements suggest that fewer fathers may be participating in their children’s lives than in any period since the United States began keeping reliable statistics” (Tamis-LeMonda and Cabrera 2002, 525). This demographic reality means sharp differences in the patterns of fatherhood and motherhood. “Parenthood has become a much less central and stable element in men’s lives, not only compared with the past, but particularly as compared with its role in the lives of women” (Oláh, Bernhardt and Goldscheider 2002, 25). Men are less likely to live with their biological children and more likely to live with the children of their partner (ibid.). Measured biologically, most men are fathers at some point during their lifetime. Measured socially, by nurture, the pattern is just the opposite: most men do not nurture children to a significant extent. As fathers, men can be divided into several groups: nurturing fathers, who care for their children as primary parents or as coparents with a partner; breadwinner fathers, who provide economic support as their primary care for their children; and disengaged fathers who have little or no connection to their children. Along this continuum, primary or coequal nurturing fathers are a small albeit growing group. Those who nurture to some extent, as secondary or backup nurturers to mothers, are a more sizable group. Breadwinner fathers may or may not overlap with nurturers. Typically they focus on providing instead of care, [13.58.244.216...

Share