What Should Fathers Do?: Perceptions and Practices of Fathering in Urban South Africa

• In Event: Doing Love, Doing Labor: Carework, HIV, and Parenting in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

What we know about fathering often comes from mothers and children, not fathers. Competing, sometimes conflictual, agendas around children’s, in contexts with extensive nonmarital childbearing and multipartner fertility, may result in biased reporting. Framing parenting as a socially constructed practice, we examine 1) how fathers talk about what they should be doing for their children; 2) what they actually do in practice; and 3) how this compares to mothers’ reports of what fathers do. Expanding research on fathering in non-western societies, we advance understandings of alterations to parenting as a gendered practice both within and outside the home

Presenter

• Sangeetha Madhavan, University of Maryland, College Park