What Is the Best Thing About Being an Indigenous Father in Australia?

Abstract

In Australia, the ongoing structure of settler colonialism has meant understandings of Indigeneity continue to uphold deficit narratives about the lives of Indigenous peoples. The narrative that predominates for Indigenous fathers is often the labels of dysfunctionality, deviance, and disengagement with their children. Using the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children data, this paper seeks to challenge these deficit narratives to shed light not only on the strengths Indigenous fathers report of their experiences of fatherhood, but also on how fatherhood could be reconceptualised under an Indigenous epistemology. We applied a content analysis to answers generated by the question: what is the best thing about being your child's father? The range of responses suggested a most positive and child centred experience of fatherhood where Indigenous fathers report the sharing of love and culture with their children as direct contributions to children growing strong. We followed recent efforts and used a strengths-based approach in Indigenous fathering research, to counter deficit narratives of Indigenous fatherhood and explore how an Indigenous standpoint can inform approaches to social, cultural, and health and wellbeing practices. Implications• The findings highlight the significant role of a strengths-based approach focused on relationality to challenge unfair and inaccurate deficit-based narratives of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander fathers.• The paper identifies the influence of deficit-based narratives of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander fathers as an urgent issue for social work practice to address as such narratives may be implicated in contributing to excessively high rates of child removal.

Supports desired by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males in fatherhood: Focussing on the social and cultural determinates of health and well‐being

“…Further, components of Indigenous fatherhood, such as the sharing of Indigenous culture with their children, are not readily understood or appreciated by non-Indigenous society (Prehn et al, 2021). Instead, depictions and understandings of Indigenous masculinities, and the practising of fatherhood from an Indigenous worldview, for the aforementioned reasons, often results in deficit-based thinking (Fogarty et al, 2018;Prehn et al, 2021Prehn et al, , 2022.…”

“…Statements about Indigenous men having the worst health and well‐being outcomes in Australia are usually followed by unsubstantiated and hostile generalisations about their fathering capabilities (Prehn et al., 2022). Examples of such deficit narratives remain in government policy and actions; for instance, the Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER) was based on the supposed excessively deviant behaviour of Indigenous men (Wild & Anderson, 2007).…”