‘You can Spend Time. . .But not Necessarily be Bonding with Them’: Australian Fathers’ Constructions and Enactments of Infant Bonding

Abstract

Governments are increasingly implementing policies that encourage early father-infant bonding. However, to date, research has not systematically examined fathers’ perspectives and experiences of early bonding. Using a social constructionist embodiment perspective we argue that paternal bonding is best conceived as a process of repeated, embodied performances that are shaped by gendered parenting discourses. Drawing on 100 semi-structured interviews with a diverse group of Australian fathers of young infants, we argue that most men believe they are capable of developing early strong bonds. They assume that bonding is a product of spending sufficient time with a child, irrespective of the parent's gender. In contrast, a sizable minority of fathers assert that physiology means fathers are ‘largely useless’ to very young infants, and tend to remain distant in the early months. We conclude that social policies promoting early paternal bonding must engage with and challenge gendered/physiological discourses.

“Never enough hours in the day”: Employed mothers’ perceptions of time pressure

“…; Brady et al. ). It is also likely that temporal experiences associated with time pressure will continue to evolve for women (and men) as workplaces and social relations become more liquid, mobile and networked.…”

“…; Brady et al. ) show that it is women who are predominantly taking up time flexibility measures to care for their children, particularly post‐birth. This time imbalance between male and female employees with caring responsibilities suggests policymakers need to reconsider incentives, campaigns or auditing of employed fathers’ workplace flexibility arrangements as possible ways to encourage the uptake of such measures by men (Bittman et al.…”

“…Evidence has shown that when fathers have more opportunities to care, they are equally proficient as mothers (Brady et al. ), and when women relinquish family responsibilities to their partners they save at least five hours of unpaid work per week (Allen & Hawkins, ). However, fathers tend to work long hours by both Australian and international standards, and this has made it difficult for them to have greater involvement in care or a larger role in organising work and family time (Connell ; Craig ; Baxter et al.…”

“…Yet, when men have access to longer parental leaves there are positive effects on fathers’ bonding with their children that may be important to fathers maintaining a lifelong involvement in their children (Brady et al. ). Currently, it is questionable whether the two weeks of paternity leave offered to fathers by the Dad and Partner Pay scheme in Australia is of sufficient duration to change fathers’ care patterns (Baird & Whitehouse ).…”

Determinants of participation in childcare amongst fathers who work very long hours

“…Furthermore, although fathers' overall time with children increases when there are two or three children in the household (compared with when there is one child in the household), fathers' time with individual children decreases (Price, 2008), primarily because parents are required to distribute their time amongst more than one child. In one qualitative study drawing on interview data from the DAPP evaluation, Brady, Stevens, Coles, Zadoroznyj, and Martin (2017) 16 found that fathers who had multiple children in the household tended to spend more time with older children while mothers maintained primary responsibility for infant care. This suggests gendered patterns of caregiving; that overall parents do not only specialise in certain roles relating to paid work and caregiving, but when there are multiple children in the household, parents may specialise in certain types of care.…”