Co-Parenting and Masculinity in a Fatherhood Program Focused on Preventing Partner Violence

Background and Purpose: Despite estimates of a ~40% co-occurrence of physical child abuse and intimate partner violence, few responsible fatherhood programs focus on the prevention of partner violence in order to improve child outcomes. This may miss an opportunity to address important predictors common to both forms of violence, such as gender norms. This qualitative study is part of a larger evaluation of a responsible fatherhood program with an emphasis on preventing partner violence. While the quantitative evaluation data shows some improvements in aspects of fathering, less is known about how these changes occur. We asked the following research questions: How has men’s communication with the mothers of their children changed since joining the fatherhood program? To what do they attribute this change?

Methods: We recruited a purposeful, typical case sample (Patton, 2002) of 23 fathers from the 450 program participants. Their ages ranged from 25-64, the majority identified as African American, all were un-/underemployed, and few had full-time custody of their children. Each participated in an audiotaped, semi-structured interview about parenting, employment, incarceration history, relationship with their children’s mother, and learning from the fatherhood program. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed using Dedoose 8.0. Following Charmaz (2014), we conducted initial coding to capture emerging concepts, and used initial codes to establish a set of focused codes that were applied to the entire dataset. Constant comparative examination of the data yielded a set of integrated themes related to masculinity, fatherhood, and relationships with children’s mothers. Multiple coders, peer debriefing, and reflexivity were used to establish credibility and confirmability.

Results: Most participants reported learning how to respond with patience to stressful situations with the mothers of their children, citing the importance of role-modeling for their kids. They used norms of masculinity to explain their change in demeanor, describing the importance of being a “strong” man who is calm and unflappable, instead of a volatile man who is not in control of himself. Many described having improved communication with the women in their lives through listening and compromising rather than assuming that they were correct because of male authority. Apparent in many of the narratives was also an appreciation of the work that mothers routinely do to care for children; this appreciation was central to how the men explicitly recognized the existence of gender norms, and it came about through analysis of their own lived experience doing the day-to-day work of involved fatherhood.

Conclusions and Implications: According to these men, the fatherhood program was useful in retooling the relationship with the mother of their children, in most cases de-escalating negative interactions and improving co-parenting communication. Norms of masculinity permeated participants’ narratives about how they understand themselves as fathers and how they relate to the mothers of their children. Thus, they harnessed their social identities as men into being involved fathers. While this is a positive development, it also calls into question the degree to which this program and programs like it are working within systems of hegemonic masculinity rather than disrupting them.