Gender Roles In Child Rearing

American families follow typical customs when they begin a family. The man and woman begin their journey through marriage, and move to a house of their own. Their child is conceived after they are stable, and they plan for their baby. After the infant is born, the mother stays home to care for the baby, and the husband goes to work to provide monetary support. The baby rarely sees their father because of the long work hours, and the baby develops a bond to the mother through sensitive touch. I performed my fieldwork by asking mothers about their relationship to their partners and the role both partners play in child rearing. Sometimes the father is not present in the baby’s life at all, but for this section I purposely focused on married couples. One woman, who currently resides in the Midwest, stated she wanted her daughter to be raised in a proper household. In order to achieve her goals, it was important that she was married and lived in a home away from her parents. Her husband is a great supporter in her child’s life and she believes …show more content…
Cross-cultural research has hypothesized that fathers do not play a huge role in a child’s development because he does not provide the same amount of nurture and is rarely present (Hewlett, 1991; Cole & Bruner 1974). However, further studies have found that the baby bonds to the father at around the same age that the baby bonds to the mother (Hewlett 1991: Lamb1981), however, the child bonds through rough play rather than nurture. Across the United States, studies found that the father had less direct contact with their baby and participated in highly stimulating playtime. The cross cultural consistency of the role fathers play in an infant’s life can be credited to gender roles, compatibility with child care, and the operation of the human family (Hewlett