Introduction

What is fatherhood? How should it be defined? What are a father’s role and responsibility today? It must first be acknowledged that it is now more common to see men openly express their feelings towards their children than it was in previous generations, and that the relationship with their partner is more egalitarian on the side of child-rearing. This new archetype of the father is producing changes in family life and challenging the traditional notion of masculinity.

I believe, however, that there is no universal answer to fatherhood, not only because of its historical and cultural condition, but also because of its social complexity.

Circumstances

Being a father is bound up with specific circumstances that define and demand a great variety of roles. For example, it is not the same thing to face fatherhood as an adolescent or at an advanced age, nor to be the father of a baby or the father of an adolescent; it is not the same thing to be the father of one child or of four; it is not the same thing to be a father alone or in a couple; nor to be a father before or after a divorce; it is not the same thing to share fatherhood in a heterosexual relationship or with a partner of the same sex, nor to be an occasional father or a full-time one; it is not the same thing to be a father in Mexico or in England; it is not the same thing to have children by one partner or by several, nor to be the father of a disabled child or of a child with no physical difficulty; it is not the same thing to be the father of biological or of adopted children, nor to be the father of a girl or of a boy, and so on. Each of these ways of being a father calls for different answers. Fatherhood as a discourse enfolds an enormous social complexity, which it is impossible to conceive as an independent variable.

There is currently a great variety of publications on the theme of fatherhood, now situated as a problem and as an object of gender analysis. This is the result of the multiplication of socio-economic changes that have placed the father before a different position of responsibility, and of the increase in the number of lone fathers, particularly in rich countries. The figures for lone fathers are rising today in Western countries, for many reasons: by their own decision, by a forced decision, in the course of a slow, unexpected or sudden transition. Moreover, the theme of fatherhood has always been latent in writings on the family, especially in those of a feminist orientation.

Contexts

As family therapists using systemic narrative, we must understand fatherhood, in general terms, as a social interaction with several directions and several levels of complexity: for example in the couple, in the nuclear and extended family, in the community and in the culture. In this sense, the new fatherhood must always be situated in its social and circumstantial context, familial at the very least, and above all in the form of life of the new families. Consequently, it is impossible to speak of fatherhood or of masculinity without referring at least to their immediate counterparts: motherhood and the family.

We also use as a context of analysis the tension between modernity and postmodernity. We shall thus speak of traditional fathers, modern fathers and postmodern fathers. This contextual framework of analysis has also led us to recognise another type of fatherhood, the one deployed in the poor contexts of Latin America, and especially in Mexico.

In this brief piece of work, we shall study several ways of being a father. On the one hand, we shall analyse the changes in the paternal role as a consequence of modernity; on the other, we shall review a few alternative discourses that refer to other types of fatherhood, situated outside the nuclear family.

At the end, I include a brief reflection on my experience as a lone father and I put forward a few general points on the implications of the new fatherhood for family therapy.

The traditional father

Before examining the new forms of father that have appeared over the last decades, it is necessary to pause for a moment on the traditional family and on the way fatherhood has been expressed within it. In the first place, the origin of the term family is curious, for it is closely bound up with a traditional conception: it comes from a Latin word derived from famulus (servant), which originally designated the place where all the slaves and servants lived under one roof; the word then came to designate the household where the master of the house, the wife and their children lived, together with the servants. It represents what is commonly known as the traditional patriarchal culture, which starts from a discourse that defines the roles inside the family, fatherhood included, as though they were pre-established for natural or divine reasons; they were therefore assumed and were the object of neither reflection nor study.

For many reasons, economic ones in particular, in the other social classes as well, the man of the house was the one who held absolute power and dictated the rules and norms of the household. This way of organising the family is called patriarchal.

The impact of modernity on fatherhood

The modern movement is born in response to the traditional knowledge that organised everyday life in the Europe of the 17^th century. Founded on scientific reason, modernity is distinguished mainly by its orientation towards change, by means of a culture of creating knowledge and technologies leading to the transformation and the development of social life: what is commonly called progress.

Modern societies base their development on science, which made industrialisation possible and, most particularly, the creation of new communication technologies. At the same time, modern societies establish their social changes through the institutionalisation of their organisations, among which is the family. Indeed, the family, as the central institution of modern society, is day after day an object of study and of reflection within it.

The pioneering social studies of the family appear in the first four decades of the 20^th century in Europe and the United States; the work of anthropologists and sociologists stands out most particularly. The majority of studies agreed in considering the nuclear family, in its patriarchal form, as the axis on which modern societies rest (Murdock, 1949; Goldthorpe, 1987). Talcott Parsons himself (1994) situated the nuclear family as the ideal type of structure, the one that does not come into conflict with the demands of the industrial economy. Moreover, most social studies also defended the idea that the patriarchal nuclear family fulfilled four basic functions: sexuality, reproduction, socialisation and economy (Murdock, 1949).

The complementary couple

Given this structural and functional conceptualisation of the family, the parental roles falling to the father and to the mother were implicitly defined. Parsons (1994), for example, indicated in the nineteen-forties that the husband-father was the one who provided the economic resources through a job, while the wife-mother stayed at home to watch over and take care of the emotional needs of the members of the family; he thus described the husband as the instrumental leader and the wife as the expressive leader. Such a differentiation of roles within the couple was, in this author’s view, indispensable, “both for the needs of the social structure itself and in order not to establish between the spouses a relationship of competition that could undermine the solidarity of their relationship” (p. 55).

“The father, in this tradition, is seen as a peripheral member as regards the care and socialisation of the children. And when he interacts, he transmits his role as provider and protector, that of the ideally strong and controlling person” (Lupton and Barclay, 1997).

Social research on the family under the banner of structural-functionalist theory dominated for more than thirty years and directly influenced the production and development of policies intended to encourage the nuclear family in its patriarchal form, as well as the creation of new fields of professional intervention such as systemic family therapy (Medina, 2001).

The symmetrical couple

Later, in 1974, contradicting this idea, Young and Willmott predicted the appearance of the symmetrical couple in England as a product of modernity. They hypothesised that technology, by taking on the most arduous and most tedious tasks, would extend the jobs and tasks of middle-class families down the social scale. This would lead working-class women to choose between work at home and work outside, and would increase the choice of professional careers; the work of the spouses would thus become more alike every day and a more symmetrical relationship would be generated between them, especially in domestic tasks and the care of the children.

In the same sense, C. Díaz (1999) stresses that in Spain, families founded on the symmetrical relationship have increased considerably and have replaced the patriarchal relationship. This is mainly due to the change in women’s behaviour: their integration into universities and work, the use of contraceptives, the decision to have few children and at an advanced age.

In the same way, in Great Britain, J. Lewis (1998) presents the progress of an interesting piece of research, “Marriage and Cohabitation over Two Generations”, in which she notes that, from one generation to the next, on the one hand the negotiation of domestic work, of the care of the children, of the use of money and time becomes explicit; on the other hand, a change is observed in the discourse of the couple: it speaks of having more “freedom and personal independence”.

Furthermore, the excess of information and protection in modern societies is another of the aspects that add to the production of new fathers. Children, in today’s society, are sacred, and their coming into the world is highly planned, with a view to educating people who will succeed in the future (Lupton and Barclay, 1997); more investment in time and money is therefore demanded today, which involves the father more – even though I have the slight suspicion that this excess of information on the “good” care of children is another invention of the consumer economy.

The impact of postmodernity on fatherhood

The fundamental problem of this tradition is to take the results of research as ahistorical and universal, setting up its own institutions as the norm.

Although the concept of postmodernity is very broad, we shall refer here, for the purposes of the present work, only to the sense that establishes a critical framework for positive science. Postmodern epistemology rests on the following four propositions.

Postmodernity has generated new social perspectives and attempts to salvage, recognise and value other types of discourse and forms of life that the dominant discourse does not include. The family is an object of study that has benefited from this new critical context. The nuclear family has thus been demythified as a normal and universal organisation, in order to recognise other forms of life that are also called families, which has produced “a kind of big bang in the sociology of the family” (Cheal, 1991, p. 8). Today, especially in rich countries, there is a tendency to speak of “alternative families” (Weeks, Donovan and Heaphy, 1999), differentiated by class, race, ethnicity, culture, history or preferences, and other types of family structure are recognised, such as those founded on single parenthood or families of choice. In several countries, especially in Europe and North America, a great diversity of types of families is today politically accepted, single-parent families for instance.

The impact of the feminist movement on the new fatherhood

The thinking that probably best represents the ideas postmodernity defends is feminism. It is once again Young and Willmott who, in 1974, predicted that the feminist movement would influence the following generations and that the traditional roles of the couple would be affected by it; the care of children, most particularly, would be a fundamental theme that would produce substantial changes in patriarchal culture.

It must be acknowledged today that feminist studies have brought to light many of the myths constructed about the nuclear family in its patriarchal form, which structural-functionalist sociology defended. For example, the pioneering work of Jessie Bernard (1972) demonstrated that, in the marital union, there are two marriages at once: hers and his. This brings out not only the importance of the differences between genders, but also and above all the power relationship that the man has imposed on the woman in a culture of man and for man.

More than a political denunciation, I believe that the great contribution of feminist studies is to have redefined the field of research into social roles between individuals, thus making it possible to include a great variety of styles of role that are not necessarily linked to sex, but to socio-cultural preferences and practices. They have thereby offered a new conceptual framework in which the feminine and the masculine can be explored in their historical and cultural condition.

The great variety of feminist studies on gender has directly influenced the concept of masculinity and produced new styles of being a father. Relationships within the couple have become more symmetrical, and the daily negotiation of what it means to be a father-man and a mother-woman has created a more egalitarian parenthood and, consequently, new ways of being a father and a mother.

One of the aspects that have probably contributed to generating spectacular changes in the structure and functions of the family over recent years is the increase in divorce. It has made second and third marriages proliferate, and has brought lone mothers and lone fathers onto the scene.

Homosexual fathers

It must be acknowledged that, from one generation to the next, there are more everyday spaces in which cultural diversity and complexity are accepted. One of the advantages of situating research on fatherhood within the framework of gender studies is that it makes it possible to see and recognise a great variety of ways of being a father; one of these varieties is that of homosexual fathers.

Today, families founded on a lesbian or gay relationship are a reality, but they continue to be stigmatised and are not legally recognised, so that they face serious problems of marginalisation. For example, the absence of legislation regulating, as it does for heterosexual couples, inheritance rights, pensions, health and social insurance, housing loans, immigration, and so on, as well as the right to adoption and to custody of the children when a couple separates, are current problems.

Fatherhood in the gay relationship is a reality that must be recognised from a new perspective, one that makes it possible to understand it through the very actors who produce it day after day, and that has nothing to do with the heterosexual relationship. On this subject, Weeks, Donovan and Heaphy (1999) stress that the absence of recognition, both social and legal, of parenthood founded on homosexuality has led this type of couple to face questions of obligation, commitment and responsibility towards the children and towards the partner that are more complex than those of heterosexual couples. For example, lesbian couples today discuss artificial insemination with gay friends and conceive children in this way; this has created a series of particularly complex questions about the role of the donor father in co-parenthood, and is sometimes the object of genuinely complicated discussions. This type of parental arrangement is complex: biological parents, lovers, former lovers and even the whole family are involved in it.

These authors give examples of this class of family. They analyse the type of relationship maintained by the gay fathers of a twelve-year-old girl and two lesbian mothers who live nearby (ibid., p. 96). In this case, the girl speaks of her dads and her mums, who are the ones who make up her family group.

At present, in England, a debate has opened in Parliament on the right of homosexual couples to adopt. One of the points put forward in its favour is that children need, above all else, a family context in which they are respected, listened to, loved, recognised and valued – and that heterosexual parents, within the framework of the traditional nuclear family, do not always guarantee such a context.

To the surprise of many, on 22 June 2000, the Parliament of Navarre (Spain) passed a law allowing gay and lesbian couples to adopt children. What was principally done was to recognise other types of couple entitled to adopt, which are not necessarily heterosexual: “the foral law of Navarre grants the status of stable couple, which, independently of its sexual orientation, is defined as the union of two adults who have been living together for a year” (Pastor, 2000).

Fatherhood from within the homosexual relationship is lived and constructed in another way; this type of discourse of non-heterosexual relationships on responsibility, care, socialisation, education, love and paternal needs has generated new ways of masculinity and, with them, of family.

The impact of divorce on the new fatherhood

In recent years, another of the aspects that have contributed to generating spectacular changes in fatherhood is the increase in divorce.

In Great Britain, between 1980 and 1990, a debate took place around fatherhood, and especially around the problem of the father’s role after divorce. The increase in divorce put traditional fatherhood into crisis, above all the fatherhood that comes from patriarchal culture, because many children were losing their father. The break was not only with the wife, but also with the children, who lost all affective and social contact with the father. Although it produced a social crisis, this debate led to a law, which was named The Children Act 1989, intended to redefine the commitments and obligations of fatherhood after divorce, but which also affected the role of motherhood. In general terms, an attempt was being made to establish a new conception of fatherhood.

Although it proved beneficial in broad outline, C. Smart (1999) points out that this law has serious shortcomings: the new fatherhood, despite divorce, is constructed in it on the basis of the relationship with the ex-wife and not with the children, above all when the latter are minors; there thus appears a new style of relationship between the ex-spouses that affects fatherhood above all. “The new fathers are more communicative and more flexible” in the face of the mother’s instructions concerning feeding, care, routines, hygiene, the children’s illnesses, and so on (ibid., p. 103).

Lone fathers

The figures for lone fathers are currently rising in Western countries, owing to many circumstances: divorce, emigration for work reasons, the illness or death of the wife, the abandonment of the father and the children, and so on. These circumstances may stem from a decision of one’s own or a forced one, and be characterised by a slow, unexpected or sudden transition. In the United States of America, for example, there are 1.4 million lone fathers, who are classified according to the following variety: fathers who have a wife but who work elsewhere, divorced fathers who share custody of the children or who have them full time, fathers who are facing a severe illness of their wife or partner, and the widower who becomes a lone father (Davis and Borns, 1998).

This has generated radical changes in certain fathers, above all in those who have taken on total responsibility for the children. A new sensitivity has been detected in these fathers, which we call the paternal instinct.

The account of a personal experience: constructing the paternal instinct

By strange circumstances, and with the help of my friends, this lecture on the new fatherhood has coincided with my present condition as a lone father, following the death of my wife. I am the father of a four-year-old boy, Alex, and of a two-year-old girl, Nicole.

The account that follows relates my experience as a lone father. Although it has no scientific foundation, I believe it completes the present work: in my view, on certain themes, it is impossible to untie scientific discourse from personal biography and, in many cases, such an experience does not contaminate scientific knowledge, but enriches it and gives it life.

Everyone knows the expression maternal instinct, which evokes a natural feminine particularity touching on motherhood and which, at the same stroke, denies the possibility that a man might have such an instinct.

In May 1996, the birth of my son Alex made me a father. At the time, my wife and I had agreed that I would go on working full time outside the home and that she would take charge of looking after Alex at home. That does not mean that I did not interact with him, that we did not establish a close emotional relationship and that I did not take responsibility for him on certain occasions, above all when I was at home.

Although I recognised a particular relationship between Alex and my wife (she breastfed him for more than eight months), I saw and felt during that period that they shared a world apart, by means of a bodily language that they alone could understand: for example, when Alex was hungry, thirsty, hot, cold, had colic, and so on. My explanation and my consolation, as a father, faced with this understanding between them, was that it was due to maternal instinct.

Another of our agreements was that, during the night, she would be the one to get up when Alex cried. It is strange: I rarely realised that Alex woke up during the night (I did not hear him), whereas my wife would tell me that he sometimes woke up as many as six times. Once again, my justification was maternal instinct.

In February 1998, Nicole was born and we kept to our agreements, although my responsibility and my time increased, mainly with my son Alex. It was an important moment, in which I lived my fatherhood in another way. Before me was a two-year-old child who expressed himself with a particular logic, which I learned in my daily interaction with him.

In June of the same year, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was another moment in which my daily practice as a father changed radically, for I devoted more time to my wife and my children. For a year and a half we fought this malignant illness together, although the prognosis grew darker every day and, according to the doctors, death was inevitable, sooner or later. This circumstance led me to take charge of my children full time and radically changed my responsibilities as a father.

Every day I learned something different: from changing nappies to the art of striking up a lullaby. Today my children and I form a close relationship in which we share a common language. For example, at night, even asleep, I hear every one of their movements, I interpret when they are tired, ill, when they are hungry or thirsty, when they want to play, to sleep or to rest. Curiously, they too listen to me and are attentive to me, which explains the interactive nature of fatherhood.

Moreover, I have also experienced radical changes in the way I express my feelings towards them; I am surprised to see that a caress and a word of love are different for Alex and for Nicole, and I am certain that this is due not only to the difference in age, but also to the difference in sex.

All this makes me think that a paternal instinct has probably arisen in me.

This new way of facing my masculinity, through paternal practice, is certainly bound up with my personal history, that is to say with the mother who was always at my side when I was a baby and then a child and who today forms part of my identity as a man, as well as with my present circumstances, which – with my wife’s illness and then her death – have made me interact day after day with my children in another way, discovering a form of life that is not only difficult and overwhelming, but also fascinating, stimulating, interesting and highly satisfying.

Beyond modernity and postmodernity: poverty and the new fatherhood in Latin America

Modernity and postmodernity as forms of life do not find logical sense in Latin America. It is not possible to apply the clear-cut evolution of traditional, modern and postmodern paternal practices of the Anglo-Saxon countries to a reality such as the Latin American one. The very history of this region shows us that there is a series of economic and cultural preconditions that make fatherhood a hybrid impossible to categorise in a single way. Poverty in particular has generated styles of life that place many families in a situation of disadvantage, creating a singular family dynamic.

For example, the anthropologist Oscar Lewis identified, in the nineteen-fifties, a whole culture of poverty in families that had emigrated from the countryside to the city under the effect of destitution. His research, socio-biographical in methodological style, made it possible to recognise a series of sui generis fatherhoods. Thus, in the Sánchez family (1997), Jesús Sánchez, although he had children by four different women, each of whom had children from previous marriages, always had a sense of responsibility towards his various women and his children; he abandoned none of them and always expressed a particular affection towards them. This atypical structure of a traditional family, which has nothing to do with the modern nuclear family or with postmodern families, does not make Jesús give up his fatherhood; and he expresses his support and his love to his children and stepchildren less badly than many fathers who live in the context of an upper-middle-class nuclear family.

This brief analysis of a type of Mexican family, which has been growing from the nineteen-fifties until today, serves only to reflect on the social and cultural complexity that enfolds fatherhood, a theme of study impossible to analyse as an independent variable and out of which no universal and ahistorical knowledge could be made from research results.

Implications of the new fatherhood for family therapy

As we have seen, there is not one way of being a father, but several, and they depend on the circumstances and the contexts of families. This new family context requires new therapists, who go beyond traditional knowledge and incorporate into their knowledge and their practices new ways of seeing and treating the family. By this we mean the following.

5. Making fatherhood a resource. Fatherhood being understood as a diverse discursive practice, finding in it an attractive resource for creating changes in the whole family system. For example:

In order to recognise, in families, their own way of understanding and treating fatherhood, so as to understand the family dynamic around this theme.

In order to make the new fatherhood an alternative discourse that can be combined with new forms of motherhood, generating in the children new styles of gender that they will possibly reproduce in the following generations. For example, if we want to make fatherhood a resource, it is necessary to analyse the moments when a traditional father has shown towards his children feelings and behaviours that have left the whole family surprised: these alternative moments can be useful in therapy.

And in order to explore with the family new ways of fatherhood, so as not only to solve problems, but to generate new styles of life in the medium and long term.