Chung-Kwei Wang
Department of Psychology Soochow University
Today, many fathers in Taiwan still expect their wives to do all the jobs of parenting. Even though young generation fathers feel distressed about their relationships with their elders, they were still not motivated to involve in child-rearing. In present research, following the principle of ground theory, the author aimed to identify key elements in the process of constructing the new fatherhood identity.
A sample of 9 couples from intact families was obtained from three resources: two non-profit societies aimed to enhance family harmony as well as new manhood, and one parent association of an elementary school. It was found out, through the emergent themes of interview data, several factors may contribute to the construction of child-rearing fatherhood.
These factors include: commitment on family, family crisis induced by the absence of fatherhood, father’s own experiences or observation on the negative effects of fragmented fatherhood, encouragement from their wives, models from successful/unsuccessful families, the intrinsic positive feedback in child-rearing. It was also found out that the conduct of child-rearing fatherhood requires readjustment of career development of these fathers. The results also reveal an important issue. In the absence of indigenous child-rearing involvement fatherhood model, these fathers rely on imported knowledge from America. We need to carry out more researches to understand the effect of “western fatherhood model” on the new fatherhood identity in this country.
Keywords: participatory fatherhood, family commitment