In the past two decades there has been an explosion of research on fathers (see Booth & Crouter, 1998;Lamb, 1997; for recent reviews). There is now a broad consensus that fathers are important contributors to both normal and abnormal child outcomes. Infants and toddlers can be as attached to fathers as they are to mothers. In addition, even when fathers are not physically present, they may play an important role in their children's psychological lives. Other important issues about fathers and families remain controversial. For example, scholars continue to debate the extent to which paternal involvement has increased over the past 20 years (Pleck, 1997). Similarly, we are only beginning to study the ways that fathering identities vary across subcultures (Auerbach, Silverstein, & Zizi, 1997;Bowman & Forman, 1998;Roopnarine, Snell-White, & Riegraf, 1993). Nor do we understand clearly the effects of divorce on fathers and their children (Hetherington, Bridges, & Insabella, 1998).Overall, this explosion of research on fathering has increased the complexity of scholarly thinking about parenting and child development. However, one group of social scientists (e. g. Biller & Kimpton, 1997;Blankenhorn, 1995;Popenoe, 1996) has emerged that is offering a more simplistic view of the role of fathers in families. These neoconservative social scientists have replaced the earlier "essentializing" of mothers (Bowlby, 1951) with a claim about the essential importance of fathers. These authors have proposed that the roots of a wide range of social problems (i. e. child poverty, urban decay, societal violence, teenage pregnancy, and poor school performance) can be traced to the absence of fathers in the lives of their children. Biller DECONSTRUCTING THE ESSENTIAL FATHER

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Over the past two decades, the large-scale entrance of women into the work force has fundamentally changed the fabric of work and family life. Unlike 75 other nations, the United States has no comprehensive family policy that helps families cope with the competing demands of work and family. Research within psychology has not been helpful in pointing out the need for a major shift in public policy. This article argues that both governmental policy and psychological research reflect the popular culture's idealized myth of motherhood. It suggests an interruption of the research agenda that searches for negative consequences of maternal employment and alternative child care. A new agenda is proposed that would document the negative consequences of not providing high-quality, affordable day care. This new agenda would also acknowledge the centrality of fathers and family process to developmental outcomes in children.

How can research data about gender role strain improve clinical work with men? The authors present qualitative data from 3 groups of fathers in the Yeshiva University Fatherhood Project: Haitian American, Promise Keeper, and gay fathers. The data illustrate the specific types of gender role strain associated with contemporary fathering and show how men are spontaneously reconstructing fathering and masculinity in general. The authors use clinical examples to show how psychologists can make use of this research knowledge in the diagnosis and treatment of men.The purpose of this article is to illustrate how research data on gender role strain can be applied to clinical work with men.Research from a large-scale study on fathering shows that men are experiencing gender role strain as they try to enact the traditional fathering role, a role that was developed in a different social and historical context. This experience of strain has led the fathers to begin to reconstruct the fathering role into a new parenting paradigm that is more psychologically gratifying in the context of contemporary societal expectations. These changes contain important suggestions for ways in which professional psychologists can help men make these transitions in their fathering identities.In the past decade, both the popular press and scholarly literature have expressed concern about men in contemporary society. Many theorists writing in the field of the new psychology of men have pointed out the problems inherent in traditional masculinity ideology and have called for a reconstructed masculinity (e.g., Brooks & Silverstein, 1995;Levant, 1992;Levant & Kopecky, 1995). Most of these authors (ourselves included) have focused on the kinds of broad social changes that would have to take place in order for this reconstruction to occur. These include changes in cultural gender ideology (i.e., what it means to be "masculine" and "feminine"); changes in the socialization of boys in families, schools, and organized sports; and changes in the workplace that support men's active involvement with raising infants and young children. Fewer authors have addressed the concerns of professional psychologists working with individual men (Brooks, 1998;Brooks & Good, 2001;Levant & Silverstein, 2001).As men struggle to reconstruct their identity as parents, spouses, and workers, many would benefit from clinical interventions, such as parent support groups, individual and group psychotherapy, and family therapy. We argue that psychologists must be trained to understand this struggle in terms of normative gender role strain rather than intrapsychic or interpersonal pathology.We begin by describing the theoretical framework of gender role strain. Then we present qualitative data from three different samples of fathers: Haitian fathers, Promise Keeper fathers, and gay fathers. We close with the implications of these findings for clinical work with men.

Feminist theory has not yet addressed the ways in which the ideology of fatherhood has contributed to interlocking inequalities for women in both the workplace and family life. This paper is an effort to inject a feminist voice into the redefinition of fathering, which I see as essential both to the achievement of equality for women and to the reconstruction of the masculine gender role. I begin by describing how our unconscious gender ideology pressures all families to become traditional patriarchal families. I address feminist concerns about the dangers of over‐valuing fathers’contributions to child development. I review the research evidence on whether fathers have the same potential for nurturing as mothers, and examine gay fathering in particular. Finally, I suggest that redefining fathering to emphasize nurturing as well as providing will place attachment and connection at the center of gender socialization for men. Masculinity would then become much less oppressive for men as well as for women.