Positive father involvement and investment in the early years is of importance for children's later emotional, cognitive and social well-being. This article critically examines the multiple motivations and barriers experienced by the growing number of father primary carers. The small-scale research study presented suggests that for a…

This is an essay about the transformative power of interpretive epistemologies for those who come into the social sciences seeking meaning in the messiness of human experience. It is about how an epistemological exercise gave the author symbolic tools to become sentient of his father's subjective oppressive force in his life--with the man living…

The absence of fathers during World War II had differing effects on the development of identity in boys and girls. Articles and research of the era discussed boys' separation from their fathers but largely failed to address daughters' loss of paternal influence. Evidence suggests that for both boys and girls, the problem was not primarily the…

The paper describes the conflict between parental responsibility for a handicapped child, particularly a retarded child, and the parents' other interests and concerns. Swedish parents (N=60) of retarded children were interviewed once and three families were interviewed several times over a 6-month period. Parents typically went through a period of…

In counseling sessions, a family with an adolescent son who has physical and academic problems comes to realize that each parent feels unappreciated for his or her efforts and that the father is overprotecting his son by not permitting him to solve his own problems and make his own decisions. (JDD)

Research on parent education has focused primarily on the dynamic between mother and child. The needs of young fathers and their importance have often been down played, and have been largely ignored when it comes to social service programs. In this response to Diana Slaughter Defoe's Constance Clayton Lecture, "What Shall I Tell My Children…