 |
|
Professor of Adolescent Psychology and Women's Studies
Dr. Nielsen has been teaching, counseling, conducting research and writing about adolescents and father-daughter relationships since 1970. A member of Phi Beta Kappa and the recipient of the outstanding graduate's award in teacher education from the University of Tennessee in 1969, she taught and counseled high school students for several years. After earning a Master's Degree in Counseling and a Doctorate in Educational and Adolescent Psychology, she joined the faculty of Wake Forest University in 1974. She has been awarded several university research grants and research sabbaticals, the Outstanding Scholar's Award in 1980 from the U.S. Center for Women Scholars, and a postdoctoral fellowship from the American Association of University Women.
For the past ten years she has focused primarily on father-daughter relationships with a special emphasis on divorced fathers and their daughters. She conducts seminars, serves as a consultant, and has appeared on television and been interviewed and cited by magazines such as Heart & Soul and Seventeen and the The Oregonian newspaper. In addition to having written several dozen articles for professional journals such as the Harvard Educational Review and the Journal of Divorce & Remarriage , Dr. Nielsen has written three books. Her 700 page textbook Adolescence: A Contemporary View sold more than 60,000 copies and was adopted by hundreds of universities throughout the country and abroad between 1986-1996.
More information on this topic can be found in Dr. Nielsen’s book:
Click here to visit her website
|
|
 |
Guest Article... Part one |
By Dr. Linda Neilsen © 2003
This article appears without citations for ease of reading. An unedited version may be read on Dr. Neilsen's website
In our country today only 50% of children under the age of 18 live in the same home with their biological father. Roughly 15% live with their mother who has never been married; 15% with their divorced mother who has not yet remarried, and 18% with their mother and stepfather. Only 2% live with their father and stepmother. By the year 2000 it is estimated that only 25% of white children and 10% of black children will live in a home with their father until the age of 18, while 40% will end up living with their mother and stepfather. Put differently, within the next few years the majority of fathers will not be living in the same home with their children - and even now, the majority of fathers and teenaged children are not living together.
Sadly most fathers see very little of their children after divorce. Only 8% of divorced fathers get to live with their children for as much as a third of a year. For example, only half of the 2200 children in a survey from the late 1980s had seen their father in the past year and only 15% had seen him once a week. On a happier note, compared to 20 years ago, almost twice as many divorced fathers now legally arrange for their children to live with them part-time. Still, when parents divorce, most fathers end up “childless” and their children end up "fatherless" in many.
Although researchers and the general public have been quite focused on those fathers and mothers who never get married and on divorced mothers, much less attention has been given to divorced. Even school counselors and therapists working with children usually exclude and ignore the divorced father, acting as if the children only have one parent - their mother. The good news is that some younger, recently graduated therapists with non-sexist views about men’s and women’s roles are making an effort to include fathers in their children’s. Nevertheless, as one of the leading experts puts it: “It is time that clinical researchers and clinical therapists stop serving as gatekeepers who prevent the father’s involvement in research and therapy.
In an effort to demonstrate the ways in which many of us unintentionally disenfranchise, demean, and demoralize divorced fathers, let us examine: (1) Some common misconceptions about divorced fathers (2) Reasons why divorced fathers do not have closer relationships with their children (3) Ways in which divorced mothers influence the father-child relationship and (4) Characteristics of mothers who are the most supportive of fathers after their divorce.
MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT DIVORCED FATHERS
Financial Support: Deadbeat Dads
Contrary to the popular image of "deadbeat dads", 75% of divorced fathers are fully meeting their financial obligations to their children. Four million fathers are paying 12 billion dollars a year in child support. Moreover, those divorced men with the highest incomes are usually paying for most, if not all, of their children’s expenses – especially when the mother did not work full time outside the home throughout their marriage. And when the mother grants the father some voice in how his child support money is being spent, the father rarely fails to pay and often pays more than is legally required of.
The one million “deadbeat dads” who create such a negative image of divorced fathers are usually the most poorly educated men with very low or no incomes and men who never married the mother of their children. This isn’t to say that because a man is poor or because he never married he should be allowed to abandon his children financially. We might, however, wonder why poor fathers are legally required to pay child support whereas poor mothers are not required to pay anything when the children are living full-time with the. It’s also worth noting that some fathers who refuse to send any more money to their exwife for child support have their children living with them more than a third of the year, and have an ex-wife who lives with the man she committed adultery with while married. In any case, official government statistics underestimate how much money most fathers actually provide because only court-ordered child support is documented and because the money that fathers give voluntarily for such things as college is not recorded at all. Moreover, a father is often required to pay much more in child support than he would have been spending on the children if he was still married.
Another potentially damaging misconception is that divorced fathers are enjoying a much higher standard of living than the children and divorced mother. But in reality most mothers lose about 20%-25% of the income they had access to before their divorce, while most fathers lose 10%-20. Also 80% of women remarry within a few years and regain a standard of living at least equal to what they had before their. In contrast, most divorced men who remarry can not provide their new family with as high a standard of living as they gave their former wife and children Yet despite these realities, too many children are still operating under the assumption that after their parents’ divorce their father “got everything” while they and their mother.
Men, Women and Adultery
Still another way in which divorced fathers can be demoralized and demeaned is through our misconceptions about divorce itself - misconceptions which must surely have a negative impact on many children’s views of their fathers. For example, do you believe that men are more likely than women to leave their marriage because they have fallen in love with someone else? And do you believe that men are generally the ones who initiate divorce? If so, you’re wrong. In reality 75% of all divorces are initiated by the wife. And though in many cases the wife initiates the divorce for such reasons as the husband’s alcoholism or physical abuse, in many cases the wife wants the divorce because she has fallen in love with someone else or because she does not feel emotionally fulfilled enough in the marriage. Indeed women are now almost as likely as men to commit adultery and are more likely than men to get divorced because they have fallen in love with someone else. Some women also leave their husbands for a man with whom they have had little, if any, actual sex. So while claiming that they did not technically “commit adultery”, these wives have nonetheless betrayed and been unfaithful to their husbands (Adler. 1996; Pittman. 1990). As one such divorced fathers explains: “ She would tell me about her boyfriend to impress on me that she didn't love me. I just couldn't take it anymore, so I finally had to move out". In any event, the point is that less often than his children or the general public might assume, the divorced father is often not the person who was unfaithful or who caused the divorce due to such serious problems as alcoholism or abuse.
The Emotional Impact of the Divorce
A number of us - including the millions of children whose parents are divorced - also do not seem to understand that fathers suffer as much or more emotionally as mothers after a divorce. Indeed it seems as if people more readily envision the divorced father as a carefree “swinging bachelor” rather than as a depressed, lonely, disoriented human being. Many children, therefore, might be surprised to learn that men are more likely than women to become depressed, commit suicide, or develop a stress-related illness after their divorce. Most divorced fathers are extremely lonely, overwrought, and disoriented - mainly because they have lost daily contact with their children. Unlike mothers, almost all fathers are essentially rendered childless as soon as their marriage ends. In part because men are so reluctant to let people know how miserably unhappy and depressed they are or to ask for help, many people - including their own children - do not appreciate the extent to which most men suffer after a divorce.
The Benefits of Fathers versus Mothers
The belief that children benefit far less from a relationship with their father than with their mother can also be demoralizing to divorced fathers. Moreover, this demoralizing belief is not supported by our best and most recent research on child and adolescent development.
Depression, Anxiety, and Eating Disorders Teenagers and young adults who have close relationships with their fathers are less likely to become clinically depressed, to develop eating disorders, and to develop anxiety. So for example, teenage girls often become less clinically depressed after they start spending more time with their divorced. And since depression is much more common among girls than boys, especially during adolescence, having a close relationship with her divorced father might be especially important for a daughter.
Dating, Sexuality and Social Maturity Children who are able to maintain a close relationship with their father also tend to be more socially mature and to have fewer problems related to dating and sexuality - particularly if their divorced mother has not remarried. For example, many daughters who live with an unmarried mother and have little or nothing to do with their father either tend to grow up too fast by dating, having sex, or getting married at an early age or behave as if they are afraid to grow up and are extremely uncomfortable with dating and sexuality . Generally though, the son seems to pay a greater price than the daughter when he has little or no relationship with his father after divorce. Usually those boys who live with their unmarried mother and see little or nothing of their father are more socially immature, aggressive, delinquent, defiant, and psychologically or emotionally disturbed than other boys their age.
Self-reliance, self-discipline, and self-motivation In most families it is also the father who contributes most to the children’s becoming self-reliant, self-disciplined, and self-motivated. For instance, teenagers of divorced parents say it is their father who gives them the best advice, who teaches them the most, and who pushes them more to do their. And after parents divorce, those girls who live with their unmarried father have higher educational goals and higher achievement test scores than girls who live with their unmarried mother. Although most teenagers talk more to their mother than to their father about their social lives, they usually turn to their father to solve other problems, to get advice on education and jobs, and to get encouragement for self-reliance. So although teenage children might see their father are more demanding or more judgmental than their mother, those who remain close to their father often end up being the most self-reliant, self-disciplined, self-motivated, academically and vocationally successful, and achievement oriented.
Protection from a Depressed Mother Having a close relationship with their father can also be a protective buffer for children whose mother is clinically depressed or has extremely depressed ways of thinking and behaving. In such cases the father can teach the children less depressive, less self-defeating ways of thinking and behaving. The father can also help to counteract the overly indulgent, lax parenting that is common among depressed mothers. Staying involved with his children after a divorce can also be especially beneficial because a depressed mother tends to relate to the children in ways that interfere with their social skills and self-reliance. The father might also be the only parent who can help the children recognize and deal with their own problems because a depressed mother often ignores or denies whatever problems her children are having. For example, depressed mothers whose sons continue to have serious psychological problems as adults often claim that there is nothing wrong with their sons other than being “shy and sensitive” or “needing a little more time to grow up”. A depressed woman is also the least likely to get remarried after her divorce - which is unfortunate for her children, for reasons we will soon discuss. Sadly too, the depressed mother is often the least willing to share her children with their father after the divorce. In the words of one depressed mother, “I can’t bear the thought that anyone else can do as good a job parenting my children as I can”. In any case, a close relationship with their father can be a special blessing for children whose mothers are depressed or chronically unhappy and discontented with their lives.
WHY AREN'T DIVORCED FATHERS MORE INVOLVED WITH THEIR CHILDREN?
So if most fathers have much to offer and since most dads are so upset about being separated from their children, why do many men spend so little time with their children after divorce? The answer seems to lie in five areas: (1) Our society’s attitudes about fathering; (2) the ways in which we idealize mothers and motherhood; (3) the legal system’s treatment of divorced fathers; (4) differences in the mother’s and father’s parenting styles; and (5) the mother’s attitudes and behavior.
Societal beliefs about fathers and fatherhood
While we chastise fathers for not being more involved with their children, we simultaneously promote beliefs that make it more difficult for many fathers to be as close to their children as are most mothers – especially after a divorce. Among the most insulting and damaging are that men are “naturally” or “instinctively” inferior to women when it comes to caring for and raising children and that fathers are far less interested in and committed to their children than mothers. Indeed while many of us are offended if someone claims that certain races are genetically or “instinctively” superior to others, we often seem to accept the assertion that men are genetically or “naturally” inferior to women as.
Moreover, the assumption that men are inferior to women as parents is not supported by the research. To begin with, most of what women know about mothering is learned, not instinctive - as is true for men and fathering. And there are human mothers who do not love, bond with, or take care of their children (Allport. 1997; Blakely.. Likewise, among other mammals there are mothers who ignore, abandon and even kill their young, while the fathers take charge of the feeding and. More to the point, how human fathers and mothers relate to their children is heavily influenced by what their particular society and their ethnic culture at a particular time in history has taught them. For instance, in colonial America fathers were generally considered more important than mothers when it came to the moral, religious, and intellectual upbringing of children. As a result, most books and advice on child rearing were addressed to fathers, not to mothers. But as our country became more industrialized, most fathers and mothers were no longer able to work in or near home providing equally for the family’s economic needs. As most men were driven further from home into salaried jobs, most women were gradually left at home in charge of the children. But the tide changed again during World War II when mothers were needed in the workforce. Only when returning veterans needed their jobs back were we told that “good” mothers should not be employed and that “good” fathers should provide 100% of the family’s income. Yet even during this brief period of the 1950s, only 60% of all parents were able to achieve this concept of “good” parenting. By the 1960s the majority of fathers and mothers once again returned to our traditional definitions for the “good” family - a family where both parents provided for the family’s economic needs. But the point is that the way fathers and mothers relate to their children is heavily influenced by what they have been taught - not by their genes or by.
Neither is it true that most fathers are less interested in and less committed to their children than are most mothers. First, many fathers resent having to be away from their children so much because of their long work hours and the demands of the job. Second, when both parents are employed full-time, fathers
and mothers generally do similar amounts of housework and childcare. Third, many fathers are more stressed and more worried about their children than about work-related problems. As experts who have reviewed the research put it: “It is simply not true that a job is more important to a man than his family”. For example, many fathers suffer from just as much separation anxiety as do mothers when leaving their young children in day care. Fourth, when given equal time with their children and when not having to shoulder the family’s financial burdens alone, fathers are generally just as nurturing, attentive, and involved with their children as are mothers. So although most men interact differently than women do with children, fathers are not inferior.
When it comes to the commitment of divorced fathers, two other findings are worth noting. First, divorced fathers who give their children lots of time and attention seldom receive much credit or public recognition. Second, when a couple is having marital problems, the husband often reacts by spending less time with the children and less time at home; while the wife often does the reverse. So in some cases where it might seem as though a father is losing interest in his children prior to divorce, he may just be reacting differently than the mother does to their marital stress.
Finally, upper and middle class white beliefs about motherhood can make it more difficult for fathers to remain closely bonded to their children after divorce. Compared to other races and to lower income groups, these white mothers are less likely to believe "it takes a whole village to raise a child." That is, the white mother from a middle or upper class background is the most likely to be too possessive and uncooperative when it comes to sharing “her” children with other adults, including their own.
Idealizing Mothers and Motherhood
Another way of demoralizing fathers is by representing motherhood in overly idealized ways. For example,mothers are often portrayed as the more virtuous, honest, unselfish, and self-sacrificing parent. And motherhood itself is typically presented as the most perfect, the most intense, and the most ideal love that any adult can have for a child. Then too, we tend to idealize mothers when it comes to sex in that fathers are more likely to be portrayed as being unfaithful and being. In reality, though, women in our country are almost as likely as men to commit adultery and are more likely to leave a marriage because they have fallen in love with someone. Many of us also seem to be the most forgiving and most understanding when it is the woman who commits adultery. That is, when a mother commits adultery, we are more likely to tell ourselves that she “couldn’t help it” because she was so lonely or so misunderstood by her husband. Not surprisingly then, too many children wrongly believe that it was their father, not their mother, who caused the divorce by being unfaithful or by falling in love with someone. And sadly it seems that too many children end up with little or no relationship with their father after divorce partly because they have such idealistic notions about mothers and.
The legal system’s treatment of divorced fathers
Our idealized beliefs about motherhood and about men’s inferiority as parents are also reflected in our divorce laws. Too few fathers are considered equal to mothers in the standard divorce agreement. Almost 90% of mothers are awarded full custody, while most fathers are restricted to two weekend "visits" each month and scattered vacation days. Indeed a number of fathers do not fight for joint custody or for more time with their children because they know how unlikely it is that they will be granted equal rights as parents. In other words, divorce laws still tend to reinforce the idea that what children need most from their divorced father is his money, not his involvement in their daily. Partly because the law gives most mothers the legal right to move whenever and wherever they want, 40% of divorced fathers do not live in the same state with their. Not surprisingly then, many divorced fathers can not see their children more often because they live so far. Fortunately though, if the divorced father has managed to maintain his relationship with his children, as teenagers the kids say that the quality of their relationship with their father is far more important than how much time they actually spend with him. Nevertheless, there is a growing demand for changing our divorce laws so that fathers will have a better chance of staying bonded to their children.
Mother’s and father’s parenting style
The father’s relationship with his children can also be influenced by how different or how alike his style of parenting is to their mother’s. When both parents are similar in terms of setting limits and disciplining the children, then the father isn’t as likely to end up being criticized or shunned. But in cases where the mother continually excuses and tolerates the children’s infantile, aggressive, or inappropriate behavior, then the father can come across as much too uptight, inflexible, or demanding. Especially as teenagers, children in such situations sometimes pull away from their father after the divorce in part because he has higher expectations for them and is willing to discipline and to stand up to them when they are out of line.
The bad news for many divorced fathers is that many mothers abdicate too much power and control to their children - especially if the mother hasn’t remarried and especially if the child is a boy. And sadly, these children often end up less socially mature, less self-reliant, less self-disciplined, and less psychologically well-adjusted than their peers.
These differences in parenting styles after divorce are not especially surprising, however, since it is often the father who is primarily responsible for setting the limits, encouraging self-control, and disciplining the children in married families. Moreover, even well-educated mothers with ample money after their divorce often provide too little supervision, household order, and discipline as single parents.
And regardless of income, education, or marital status, the woman who did not have a secure, loving relationship with her own parents while she was growing up is the most likely to be overly indulgent and overly submissive with her own children.
This certainly isn’t to say that divorced mothers are always more indulgent and more lax than divorced fathers. In fact, whichever parent feels the guiltiest about the divorce is often the one who does the worst job when it comes to setting limits, saying “no” to, or disciplining the children . And whichever parent is guilt-ridden often goes to great lengths to deny that a deeply troubled child has any problems whatsoever.
The Mother's Attitudes Towards the Father
When it comes to how close children and their fathers are after divorce perhaps the single most important factor is the mother’s attitudes towards the father. That is, fathers and children usually remain close only if the mother actively encourages and facilitates their relationship. This isn’t to say that mothers always recognize how much power they have in this regard; nor that most mothers intentionally set out to hard the father’s relationship with the children. Nevertheless, after divorce too many mothers do not support and may even work against the father-child relationship. Adult children often put the situation this way: "I wish my mother had allowed me to like my father without guilt and that she hadn't made so many negative comments about him. "Her tearing down of my father made me obsessed with finding him. When at 18 I did, I learned that there was a positive side to him that my mother had never told us about". "I remember I hurt my dad over and over again because mom filled me with so many ideas that he was a bad person". There are even mothers who have gone so far as to offer to return some of the child support money if the father will agree to spend less time with the children. As one commentator put it, many men who are accused of being “deadbeat dads” are in fact “beat-dead dads” whose former wives have dead-bolted the kids’ hearts against them. In other words, too many divorced fathers end up with little or no relationship with their children in part because the mother has not been supportive.
This isn't to say that there aren’t fathers who abandon their children after divorce no matter how hard the mothers work to keep these relationships alive. And this isn't to say that there aren’t divorced mothers who dedicate themselves to strengthening the father’s bond with their children. As one divorced woman explains: "My mother forced me to make a choice between her and my dad when they divorced, so I see to it that my kids spend time with their dad and stepmom". And another mother changed jobs and moved to a new town just so her ex husband could have joint custody of their two sons. Later she even allowed the boys to live with their father part-time even though he was not paying her any child. So there are many women who consider themselves to be “good” mothers only when they succeed in keeping the children and their father closely bonded after a divorce.
Read part two
Linda Neilsen © 2003
This article originally appeared inThe Journal of Divorce & Remarriage - 1999, vol.31 pages 139-177
|
|
 |
