This research explored how and in what ways early childhood and fatherhood are constructed in Taiwanese father-run baby blogs. Nowadays, many parents use the internet to record and share their experiences of being (and becoming) parents. There is a growing body of literature on mothers on the internet, but the subjects of fathers on the internet and the child as recorded by the parents are both under-explored. This research selected three public Taiwanese baby blogs to study. All of the blogs were being run by new fathers and all were named (entitled) using the child's name or nickname. The entries and interactions within these blogs up until the blogged children turned three years old were observed. The blog entries and the interactions within them were treated as public texts, and a qualitative method suitable for analysing different forms of blog contents was developed. In relation to the new doing of fathering - blogging - the interactive nature of the internet and its function of creating and strengthening the identity were not obvious in this research. Although these blogs seemed to be isolated from other online communities, one of the studied cases provides us with an example of how the blog and the participants' off-line activities enrich each other. The findings of this research also suggest that these public presentations of family life have the purpose of displaying family, in order to confirm the family relationship with their readers and especially with the recorded child in the future. This displaying provided us with the three fathers' versions of fatherhood. It was found that the fatherhood being constructed in these blogs is closer to the old version of a good father. The father's role still appeared as that of supporter of the mother, who was still seen as shouldering the main responsibility for child raising. However, from an analysis of the process and the descriptions of the decision making displayed in these blogs, this research suggests that the supporter (father) - leader (mother) relationship (Sanchez & Thomson, 1997; S. Williams, 2008) should be understood as a relationship between the project director (father), who oversees the project of child raising, and the project manager (mother), who has to get the project done. Although their child-raising record showed the characteristics of intensive parenting, because of this director-manager relationship, the intensive parenting shown by the father should in fact be seen as a type of intensive mothering. With regard to the displayed child, it was found that the Taiwanese child is surveyed and defined (normal or abnormal) by the state, the medical system, and parents' daily practices. The child is also nurtured with traditional gender stereotypes and traditional aspirations (to be filially obedient) in mind. In the nurturing process, the importance of education is highlighted and the child is taken to participate in competitive activities from under one year old. It was concluded that, overall, the fatherhoods and childhoods found in this research join forces in constructing and confirming (old) Taiwanese norms relating to fathers and to the 'normal' and competitive child. Since the children in this research were represented by the father and lacked agency, it is suggested that there is a pressing need for further research into the subsequent experience of these once-displayed-in-public children, that will give us a better understanding of the practice of sharing one's child(ren)'s information online.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1994. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 175-180).

In the United States, the state of fathering has been a concern across all racial groups. Approximately 73% of Black men father children prior to marriage in comparison to 56% of Hispanic men and 30% of White men. The proportion of children born outside of marriage rose from 40% to 47% between 2002 and 2006-2010 (Martinez, Daniels, & Chandra, 2012). Shifts in economic opportunities, cultural, social, and political factors have strong influences on the way in which fatherhood is defined, experienced, and judged. Although there is a plethora of research on fathering involvement in the area of non-resident fathering, this research is dominated by a sampling pool of middle-class European Americans. The purpose of this study was to examine parenting practices of non-residential African American fathers residing in the Midwest. I explored how these men defined what it meant to be a father and their perceptions of the influences on their fathering behaviors. Ten African American non-residential fathers from the Midwest were interviewed utilizing a phenomenological interview approach. Data were collected using one-hour semi-structured interviews that were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. The data were then critically and rigorously analyzed, utilizing a four part coding, data analytic method including (1) applying open coding to identify emerging concepts, (2) applying in vivo coding by grouping similar comments into categories based on their common properties, (3) applying axial coding to group codes and to create themes, and (4) organized themes into categories that was based on the theory of planned behavior constructs. Five thematic domains (i.e. external variables, attitudes towards behavior, subjective norms, perceived control, and intentions), along with seventeen themes emerged from the phenomenology data analysis procedure including: bonding, father vs. sperm donor, father warmth, identity, father roles, influences, number of children, parent’s individual differences, sex and age of the child, employment, financial support, emotions, inter-parental conflict, inter-parental relationships, relationship quality, distance, and limit setting. Findings from this study lead to several recommendations for ways to strengthen the role of fathers within the non-residential family dynamic, with the ultimate goal of improving the health and well-being of all the members of the family.

No description available.

Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2004.

In 1980s, following the urbanization and industrialization, the rate of dual-earner and nuclear family increased in Taiwan. The changing family form also influenced the time-distribution between parents in housework and child-caring. Men started to participate in these kinds of work. The image of ¡§New father¡¨ or ¡§New mother¡¨ also appeared in mass media. However, the images of parenthood provided by advertisements are not neutral and value-free. Thus, the aims of this study are to discover the power relationship and sex ideology through using semiotics to analyze the parenthood¡¦s images on advertisements in Taiwan. 15 processed milk advertisements are chosen as the samples for this study. The major findings revealed that the images of parenthood in processed milk advertisements are full of patriarchy ideology. Although there are some new parent¡¦s images appeared in the advertisements, the images of parenthood are in some measure full of patriarchy ideology. Mother is still children¡¦s major caretaker in the advertisements. The distribution of child care is different. Mother has to do repetitive, scheduled and important housework like preparing lunch. In comparison, father only has to do easy caring work like playing with children. Because of the different work distribution, mother is imprisoned in the private sphere. In addition, mother is idealized and marginalized in the advertisements. Mother can be good mother easily with the help of processed milk. However, the product, processed milk, is more important than mother in the advertising. Mother can only be completed with the help of processed milk. Mother is simplified as buyer and user of the product.

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Clinical Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

What does it mean to be a father? What are our expectations of men as fathers and are those expectations being met, and what does that say about men and masculinity? Even as recently as thirty years ago, the answers to such questions would have been considered obvious to most people. The father's task was to provide for his family, to be the authority in the home and perhaps occasionally to help the mother by entertaining the children. He would not be expected to have an intimate relationship with his children or to provide either physical or emotional support to them. In fact he would not be expected to have a great deal to do with his children and as long as he provided for his family materially and maintained discipline within the home, he would be considered a good enough father. But now that has changed. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Durban-Westville, 2004.

The research explores the meaning and concomitant effects of the absence of the father in the development of very young children by observing three cases of single parent families where the fathers were continuously and permanently absent. A comparison group was also used. The exploration rests upon a minimum of pre-suppositions; we are not pre-supposing at the outset that a single mother household inevitably leads to pathology. Since the research investigates meaning the focus of attention is on the internal worlds of baby and mother. The research utilises the psychoanalytic theories of fatherhood of Freud, Klein, Winnicott, Wisdom, Ogden and Gaddini. Interpretation of behaviour observed draws upon psychoanalytic theories of inference and meaning, especially the models of the mind used in the clinical work of Klein, Bion and Meltzer. The method used in the research was a modification of the Tavistock Method of Infant Observationa s initiated by E Bick, the centralp sychoanalyticc onceptsu sed being those of transferencea nd countertransference. The responseosf the differentm emberso f the families to the presenceo f a male observer was a focal point of the research and illuminated the meaning of the father's absence and the father's role in early development.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 1983. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 52-55).