Exploring the mother’s and father’s roles

What do you think of when you hear the word motherhood? If you are like most people, you associate motherhood with a number of positive images, such as warmth, selflessness, dutifulness and tolerance. And while most women expect that motherhood will be happy and fulfilling, the reality is that motherhood has been accorded relatively low prestige in our society. Mothers rarely receive the appreciation they warrant. When children don’t succeed or they develop problems, our society has had a tendency to attribute the lack of success or the development of problems to a single source – mothers.

The role of the mother brings with it benefits as well as limitations. Although motherhood is not enough to fill most women’s entire lives, for most mothers it is one of the most meaningful experiences in their lives.

The father’s role has undergone major changes. During the colonial period in America, fathers were primarily responsible for moral teaching. Fathers provided guidance and values, especially through religion. With the Industrial Revolution, the father’s role changed; he gained the responsibility as the breadwinner. By the end of World War II, another role for fathers emerged, that of manhood model. Although being breadwinner and moral guardian continued to be important father roles, attention shifted to the father’s role as a male, especially for sons. The father now is being evaluated in terms of his active, nurturant involvement with his children.

Children’s social development can significantly benefit from interaction with a caring, accessible, and dependable father who fosters a sense of trust and confidence. The father’s positive family involvement assumes special importance in developing children’s social competence, because he is often the only male the child encounters on a regular day-to-day basis.

Father-mother cooperation and mutual respect helps the child develop positive attitude toward both males and females. It is much easier for working parents to cope with changing family circumstances and day-care issues when the father and mother equitably share child-rearing responsibilities. Mothers feel less stress and have more positive attitudes toward their husbands when they are supportive partners.

In earlier times, women considered being a mother a full-time occupation. Currently, there is a tendency to have fewer children, and, as birth control has become common practice, many individuals choose when they will have children and how many children they will raise. The number of one-child families is increasing.

Three accompanying changes are that (1) as a result of the increase in working women, there is less maternal investment in the child’s development; (2) men are apt to invest a greater amount of time in fathering; and (3) parental care in the home is often supplemented by institutional care (day care, for example).

As more women show an increased interest in developing a career, they are not only marrying later, but also having children later. What are some of the advantages of having children early or late? Some of the advantages of having children early are these:

• The parents are likely to have more physical energy (for example, they can cope better with such matters as getting up in the middle of the night with infants and waiting up until adolescents come home at night);

• the mother is likely to have fewer medical problems with pregnancy and childbirth;

• the parents may be less likely to build up expectations for their children, as do many couples who have waited many years to have children.

By contrast, there are also advantages to having children late:

• The parents will have had more time to consider their goals in life, such as what they want from their family and career roles;

• the parents will be more mature and will be able to benefit from their life experiences to engage in more competent parenting;

• and the parents will be better established in their careers and have more income for child-rearing expenses.