Low Income, Nonresident Fathers' Coparenting with Multiple Mothers and Relatives: Effects on Fathering

Background and Purpose:

Low income nonresident fathers are often involved in complex coparenting networks that may involve multiple mothers, relatives, and other adults. However, the coparenting literature often obscures this complexity through limiting attention to father-mother relationships. The current study used family systems theory to examine the effects of fathers’ coparenting with mothers and relatives on fathers’ parenting self-efficacy, father-child closeness, and father-child conflict. Predictors included the number of fathers’ coparenting mothers and relatives, the quality of those coparenting relationships, and coparenting alliances specifically between fathers and the biological mothers of their children.

Methods:

Data and samples: A convenience sample of 624 low income, nonresident fathers were recruited from seven U.S. cities to participate in a survey. Non-residence was defined as not living in the same household all or most of time. Fathers who resided with their youngest child (target child, n = 95), and fathers who did not complete the Child-Parent Relationship Scale (n = 128) because their target children were younger than 1.5 years of age, were omitted from this analysis. The final analytic sample included 401 nonresidential fathers with children between the ages of 1.5 and 18 years of age.

Measures: Fathers’ self-perceived sense of efficacy in the parenting role was assessed using The Parenting Self-Efficacy Scale (PSE). The Child-Parent Relationship Scale was used to assess parents’ perception of their relationship with their child. The coparenting alliance measure was developed by the authors to assess fathers’ coparenting relationship with the target child’s mother, while the coparenting matrix was developed by the researchers to assess the number of individuals with whom the father coparents and the degree of cooperation between the father and each of those individuals. Education, unemployment, race/ethnicity, father’s age, total number of biological children, fathers’ fatherhood program enrollment status, face-to-face and telephone/social media contact with the target child, and gender and age of target child were included as control variables.

Results:

Overall, fathers who reported having more mothers in their coparenting networks reported lower parenting self-efficacy and father-child closeness. We further noted a race/ethnicity interaction effect for closeness, such that having more coparenting mothers was associated with decreased closeness for African American fathers but not for Hispanic fathers. Amount of cooperation among all coparenting mothers and relatives was positively associated with self-efficacy and closeness, but not with conflict.

Conclusions and Implications:

Finding from this study suggest that programs may want to assess coparenting relationships more broadly, rather than solely focusing on the singular father-mother coparenting relationship. Our findings suggest that it is important to assess both the number of coparenting partners as well as the quality of fathers’ relationships with these partners. Programs should also consider adopting curricula which address topics related to more complex relationships so as to help families address the unique dynamics of sharing parenting responsibilities with multiple individuals.