Gatekeeping and its impact on father involvement among Black South Africans in rural KwaZulu-Natal

Abstract

Involved and caring fatherhood contributes to the health and wellbeing of children, women and men. The corollary is also true - men, women and children are affected when fathers are not involved or supportive of their children. Many factors affect fathers' involvement, including women's attitudes, the history and nature of the relationship between mother and father, and the cultural context. This study explores gatekeeping and its impact on father involvement among Black South Africans in rural KwaZulu-Natal. Among married couples, gatekeeping occurs with respect to childcare and housework through women's attempts to validate their maternal identity according to socially and culturally constructed gender roles. Among unmarried, non-resident parents, women control father-child contact and involvement, with mothers and/or their families either facilitating or inhibiting father involvement. In this context, we found that cultural gatekeeping had a huge impact on father involvement, with the non-payment of inhlawulo or lobola regulating father-child involvement. In a country like South Africa, where there is high non-marital fertility and father-child non-residence, future research, parenting and family programmes should focus on strategies that encourage positive paternal involvement as well as maternal and cultural support for father involvement, regardless of parental relationship and residence status.

Feeling Pressure to Be a Perfect Mother Relates to Parental Burnout and Career Ambitions

“…With these aims, the current study increases insight into the mechanisms through which gender inequalities in both work and family domains may be strengthened by intensive mothering discourses. In the family domain, pressure to be a perfect mother may reinforce women’s higher investment in childcare tasks as compared to men ( European Institute for Gender Equality, 2015 ), since maternal gatekeeping behaviors increase women’s second shift ( Hochschild and Machung, 2012 ) and restrict men’s opportunities to invest in domestic tasks ( Mcbride et al, 2005 ; Gaunt, 2008 ). In the work domain, pressure to be a perfect mother may reinforce gender inequalities by contributing to women’s underrepresentation in positions of power, lower work participation rates, and lower pay ( European Union, 2016 ).…”

HIV seroconcordance among heterosexual couples in rural KwaZulu‐Natal, South Africa: a population‐based analysis

“…Most studies use marital status as the indicator of regular partnerships in heterosexual couples. However, in the surveillance area, only 10% of women aged 20 to 45 years were currently married in 2009 while more than half of men and women aged <39 years experienced at least one formation of a conjugal relationship . Lastly, the proportions of concurrent stable partnerships or causal sexual partnerships were quite low among those in stable partnerships.…”

Mothers and Parents’ Marital Relations: Influential Agents in Father-Child Relations

“…Krampe (2009) reported that the father-child relationship is very important, contrary to what had been previously argued, and that mothers can reinforce or erode the psychological presence of the father presence in their children's minds. National and international research findings emphasizing based upon a systemic and multi-dimensional evaluation of the father-child relationship report that mothers assume a facilitator or inhibitor (=maternal gatekeeping) role in the development of that relationship (Allen & Hawkins, 1999;Makusha & Richter, 2016;Puhman & Pasley, 2013, 2017Schoppe-Sullivan et al, 2008;Trinder, 2008;Tu et al, 2014). Gazi (2019) reported that there is a negative correlation between maternal gatekeeping and father involvement/the father-adolescent relationship, and that maternal gatekeeping predicted the father's involvement negatively.…”