Unmarried Couples with Children

9. Gatekeeper Moms and (Un)Involved Dads: What Happens After a Breakup?

204 Chapter 9 Gatekeeper Moms and (Un)Involved Dads: What Happens After a Breakup? AMY CLAESSENS W HEN ASKED shortly after their child’s birth, the vast majority of unmarried fathers say that they want to be involved the child’s life. A large proportion of mothers also want them to be. Yet, few fathers who are no longer romantically involved with the mother are visiting their child one year later.1 Over time, visitation further wanes, and only 58 percent of all twelve- to eighteen-year-olds who were born to unmarried parents have had any contact with their nonresident father in the past year (Koball and Principe 2002). Why, then, despite good intentions , do fathers disappear from the lives of their children? Because onethird of all American children are born outside of marriage, and these relationships break up at higher rates than marriages, understanding why and how fathers disengage after their relationship with the mother ends is clearly relevant. Media, policy makers and researchers have increasingly focused their attentions on noncustodial fathers, but little is known about these fathers and their involvement with their children. Much of the research on the determinants and consequences of noncustodial father involvement focuses on divorced or separated fathers, usually middle-class, rather than unmarried or low-income fathers (Coley 2001). Studies that do examine father involvement in unmarried couples rely on specific subsamples of fathers, such as teenage parents and welfare mothers. All of these studies provide insight into the determinants of father involvement , such as age, relationship with the mother and familial pressure. They do not, however, investigate a more diverse and representative group of unmarried and low-income fathers. Fathers, understandably, are the focus of studies of father involvement, but mothers, as gatekeepers, also play an important role in granting or restricting access to their children. However, the extant research provides little insight into this gatekeeping. In addition, most of the data used in studies of noncustodial father involvement come from maternal rather than paternal reports. Consequently, fathers are not reporting on their own involvement with their children (Coley 2001). This analysis seeks to describe the roles that both mothers and fathers play in fathers’ engagement or disengagement with their children following a breakup. Using in-depth qualitative data, I investigate father visitation and maternal gatekeeping in a diverse sample of fathers who were in a romantic relationship with the mother at the time of the child’s birth. Background Wide-ranging and multifaceted, father involvement is conceptualized in many ways such as financial support, emotional support, physical presence , and accessibility (Day and Lamb 2004; Hawkins and Dollahite 1997; Lamb et al. 1987; Marsiglio et al. 2000). All of these aspects of father involvement are important. However, focusing on multiple conceptions of fatherhood is beyond the scope of this chapter. Because my focus is maternal gatekeeping and father involvement, father engagement or involvement with his nonresident child or children is limited to father visitation. A diverse array of factors influence both father involvement and maternal gatekeeping, such as a father’s ability to contribute financially ,2 maternal and paternal attitudes toward fathering, parental conflict , maternal gatekeeping, new partners and children, and a father’s available time. However, given that maternal gatekeeping is rarely studied, I draw primarily from the noncustodial father involvement literature, focusing on the factors related to father visitation. Ability to Contribute Although conceptions of fatherhood have broadened beyond breadwinning , being able to provide for a family is still a central part of the meaning of fatherhood for both men and women (Gerson 1993). A father who cannot contribute financially to the mother and his child might withdraw from his child’s life if he feels he cannot fulfill the role of provider. In contrast, a mother might restrict access to the child if the father is not contributing financially to the family. Research has linked fathers’ ability to contribute financially to subsequent visitation, though this research also suggests many potential explanations for the large variation in financial contributions and observed What Happens After a Breakup? 205 visitation. In a study of young teen mothers, Anu Rangarajan and Phillip Gleason (1998) find that father’s earnings have a small positive relationship with visitation. Conversely, Irwin Garfinkel, Sara McLanahan, and Thomas Hanson (1998) find that earnings are positively and significantly associated with child support payments but are much less important in predicting frequency of visitation. In two...