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18 January
NO 1253
Fathers' stress
Our results indicate that parenting stress and child's mood, acceptability and demandingness are directly and indirectly related to the father's engagement to his preschool child and to the extent of his availability. Parenting stress at child's age three to six involved the father's competence as a parent, his attachment to his children, role restriction, father's depression, isolation and health. Fathering stress began a cycle of alcohol use and child characteristics, and led eventually to a diminishing of joint activities, an element of compulsion in engagement, daily conflict situations, father's difficulty in including the child in daily activities and diminished indirect and direct engagement. These findings support earlier results showing that fathering stress is closely associated with the father's commitment to parenthood (Fagan, 2000). Father's moderate alcohol use functioned as a protective factor between parenting stress and father's engagement. This again supports results reported in recent years whereby fathers' use of alcohol is, in general, associated with parenthood (McMahon & Rounsaville, 2002; Thompson & Donovan, 2001). A fortuitous finding not reported elsewhere in the literature was the link between father's alcohol abuse and fathering stress. In other words, the more abundant the father's use of alcohol, the more parenthood-linked stress factors. The findings strengthen our understanding of father engagement to children. An appraisal focusing solely on engagement and availability instead of parenting stress, child characteristics and father's alcohol use presents a limited and perhaps overly romanticized conception of father engagement.
In the present study, we found that parenting stress, alcohol abuse and child's negative characteristics create a combination that eventually leads to the father's decreased engagement and availability. These findings are important for the study of prevention at both family and societal levels. At a family level, the prevention of parenting stress and father's alcohol use are important in that these constitute risk factors for father engagement. Father-child engagement is reported to promote child well-being and development (Dubowitz, Black, Cox, & Kerr, 2001; Rohner & Venetziano, 2001), satisfaction in marital relations (Carlsson, 2000; Kalmijn, 1999) and father's satisfaction with himself as a parent (Barclay & Lupton, 1999; Logan, 2000). At a societal level it is important to address interventions supportive of parenthood to fathers who belong to the category of risk consumers of alcohol and who are subject to marked stress associated with functioning as a father. The consequences of diminished engagement between father and child entail a very considerable expense to the community.
NINA HULME, MARJA-TERTTU TARKKA, TAPIO NUMMI
AND PAIVI ASTEDT-KURKI
Hulme, N., Tarkka, M.T., Nummi, T. and
Astedt-Kurki, P. (2006). The effect of parenting stress on father's
availability and engagement. Child Care in Practice, 12, 1, pp.
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Carlsson, M.A. (2000). Family structure, father involvement and adolescent behavioural outcomes. Dissertation abstracts International section A: Humanities and Social Sciences, 61, 2a, p.782.
Kalmijn, M. (1999). Father involvement in childrearing and the perceived stability of marriage. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 61, pp. 409-421.
Logan, S.C. (2000). Effective fathering practices and fathering satisfaction relate to fathering adolescents. Dissertation Abstracts International Section B: The Sciences and Engineering, 61, 5b, p.2769.
McMahon, T.J. and Rounsaville, B.J. (2002). Substance abuse and fathering: Adding poppa to the research agenda. Addiction, 97, pp. 1109-1116.
Rohner, R.P. and Venetziano, R.A. (2001). The importance of father love: History and contemporary evidence. Review of General Psychology, 5, pp. 382-405.
Thompson and Donovan, (2001).
