Friday, March 20, 2009

Where are all the Fathers?

In a time when there is more and more information being provided about the importance of strong families, it seems strange that many families are falling apart. Others are staying together, and yet the members of the family hardly spend any time with each other. This drastic change in family structure has brought about numerous studies done on the importance of fathers in a family. Do fathers really impact the development of children? According to these studies we find that the presence of fathers makes a great difference on the outcome of the children. The United States has been slowly recognizing this and so there has been a push for more active and involved fathers. Men are sometimes encouraged to take time off of work right after the birth of a child. Some experts are trying to raise the amount of time fathers spend with their children. This is very different in Japan. The drive for more involved fathers has just begun. There is a great deal of evidence showing that Japanese fathers spend much too little time with their children, and as a result the children are having serious developmental and emotional problems. The issue here is whether the outcomes are enough evidence to convince fathers to step up and be more active in their children’s lives or not. Even with all of this information, many fathers are choosing to not try to spend more time in their children’s lives. With the amount of information available to show the positive effects of father involvement, Japanese fathers should be motivated to get to the same level of involvement that the American fathers are on.

The word “Fatherlessness” has been coined to describe the increasing trend for fathers to not be in the home, and with good reason (Dermott 10). It is obvious that many fathers are not spending the amount of time at home that they should. Many fathers spend their time at work, and at bars and other clubs. Fathers do spend some time at home; however, much of this time is spend watching sports on TV or being alone in a bedroom or an office. There is a lot of information about the amount of time fathers spend with their children from an article by Ishii-Kuntz. Some have heard that the amount of time fathers spend with their children is increasing, but others say that “the level and rate of increase in men’s family involvement [is] greater than others have suggested” (Ishii-Kuntz 31). For people to suggest that the majority of people think men are becoming more involved than they are, there must be conflicting evidence about the amount of time fathers are spending away from home or not with their children. While the confusion about the actual amount of time spend occurs worldwide, there are some places where it is obvious that fathers are not spending very much time at home. This is particularly evident in Japan. Japanese fathers from single-earner households spend, on average, 3 minutes each weekday and 19 minutes per weekend day on family work which includes, “feeding, bathing, helping, and playing with their children” (33). Only 3 minutes each weekday! That is not even enough time to appropriately read a bedtime story to a child. Three minutes is an incredibly small amount of time, especially when Ishii-Kuntz found that 75% of the fathers she studies worked about 54 hours per week (33). Even if the amount of time spent with children by the end of each week added up to a full hour, Japanese fathers are spending approximately 54 times more than that at work. Japanese fathers spend way too much time at work and way too little time at home with their children. American fathers also spend a great deal of time at work, yet all the studies have shown that they spend more time with their children that the Japanese fathers do.

According to one study, during the week Japanese fathers spend 0.33 hours with their son. Compare that to the full hour the American fathers are spending each weekday with their son (Ishii-Kuntz 39). American fathers appear to spend three times more time with their sons than the Japanese fathers do. The difference is not as great when dealing with the daughters. On a weekday, a Japanese father will spend 0.4 hours with a daughter and an American father will spend 0.5 hours (39). This is much closer, and yet American fathers are still spending more time with their children in general than Japanese fathers. Based on this information, American fathers spend a half hour more each week with their daughters than Japanese fathers do. That half hour can result in a much stronger relationship with a more emotionally and mentally developed child. Some may say that there are always the weekends to spend with children. However, about 20% of American and Japanese fathers are “engaged in work-related activities on weekends” (41). And if the fathers are not working on the weekends, they may be doing other recreational activities – without the family. Weekend time is spent in very different ways in Japan and the United States. We see that “Japanese men spend weekends alone or pursuing their own hobbies, [and] American men spend more time…with their children and…with their wives” (41). Many Japanese fathers are not even reserving part of two days a week to spend with family. Clearly Japanese fathers are not spending adequate time with their children. Many children, especially American children, equate the amount of time their father spends with them with how much a father cares for them. When American fathers spend more time with their children, they are seen as “understanding and reliable” (41). However, this correlation did not seem to be evident in the Japanese children’s minds. Could this be because the children are not used to having their fathers around at all? Perhaps if Japanese fathers spent more time with their children collectively, this mentality would exist.

2 comments:

Russell Hiatt said...

Paragraph One seems to be a point last paragraph. This paragraph does a good job at the beginning setting up expectations. (The word “Fatherlessness” has been coined to describe the increasing trend for fathers to not be in the home, and with good reason (Dermott 10).) with this sentence I expected to learn more about the amount of time that fathers spend at home. Well done


Paragraph 2 seems to be a point first paragraph. I'm not sure if this sentence does a very good job creating expectations, other than I expect a couple more statistics about "fatherlessness".

David Robinson said...

Fatherless
Time being spent with family
Greater involvement at home
not enough time
many fathers
time at home
people
Japanese fathers
confusion
amount of time
American fathers
Too much time at work

In the beginning of the paragraph you talk about, "lots of information" i would include this information instead of just stating it. This make the old information make more sense. You do a very good job about introducing our new information with old information. I don't see any ways you could make it better. At the end with American fathers i would add some old information to make it more cohesive. Maybe talk about American before you just go on to talk about American fathers.

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