Young Adult South African Daughters’ Perceptions of Paternal Involvement and Nurturance

Abstract

This study aimed to assess current and retrospective levels of reported and desired paternal involvement experienced by young adult daughters, as well as current and retrospective levels of paternal nurturance. A sample of 89, female, third year South African Psychology students completed self-administered questionnaires, consisting of a biographical questionnaire, four Father Involvement Scales and two Nurturant Father Scales. Daughters reported their fathers as having been involved and nurturing while growing up. Although they indicated that they perceived fathers as somewhat less involved in young adulthood; they reported being satisfied with the level of father involvement. Daughters also reported high current paternal nurturance. The findings therefore indicate that a group of middle to upper middle-class South African daughters perceived their fathers as relatively involved in their lives and suggest that their fathers' involvement extends beyond traditional father roles.Keywords: father involvement, nurturance, young adult daughters, South Africa Interpersona, 2014, Vol. 8(2), 128-143, doi:10.5964/ijpr.v8i2.145 Received: 2013-09-30. Accepted: 2014-08-20. Published (VoR): 2014 *Corresponding author at: Psychology Department, Stellenbosch University, PB X1, Matieland, 7602, South Africa. E-mail: swessels22@gmail.com This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Young Adult Daughters' Perceptions of Paternal Involvement and NurturanceAlthough father involvement in intact families is on the increase, fathers are consistently less involved with children than mothers, even when both parents work fulltime. This pattern of involvement can be observed throughout the lifespan of the child (Cabrera, Tamis-LeMonda, Bradley, Hofferth, & Lamb, 2000;Gorvine, 2010;Phares, Fields, & Kamboukos, 2009) with researchers like Finley, Mira, and Schwartz (2008), finding that fathers are less involved than mothers in the lives of their young adult children. Furthermore, research indicates that father involvement declines after divorce (Agar, Cioe, & Gorzalka, 2010;Amato, 1994;Harris, Furstenberg, & Marmer, 1998;Schwartz & Finley, 2005;van Schaick & Stolberg, 2001), and that young adults from divorced families report a greater desire for father involvement than young adults from intact families (Finley & Schwartz, 2007).Research shows that father involvement is important in the lives of young adult daughters Schwartz et al., 2009;van Schaick & Stolberg, 2001) as it is associated with specific health outcomes like higher levels of self-esteem and sex refusal behaviours (Katz & Van der Kloet, 2010). Father involvement is also linked to positive relationship outcomes in young adulthood, including better functioning in intimate relationships, Interpersona | An International Journal on Personal Relat...