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Fatherhood

Fatherhood has been an all but universal experience for American men and is fundamental to understanding American masculinity. Through their experiences and conceptualizations of fatherhood, men have made sense of their lives, obligations, and responsibilities—as well as of notions attached to masculine identity, such as maturity, respectability, commitment, and breadwinning. Fatherhood has also been the foundation of male power within American society: While not all men have shared equally in such power—fatherhood is, after all, shaped by the interplay of class, race, and ethnicity— men as a sex have gained power thanks to the prerogatives and privileges that have accompanied fatherhood. The linkage between fatherhood and breadwinning, for example, has served to legitimate men's monopoly of the most desirable jobs, while consigning women to domestic obligations. The meaning of fatherhood, and its impact on masculine identity, has shifted throughout American history. While the archetypes of the Puritan patriarch, the Victorian breadwinner, and the suburban “dad”of the 1950s all connected their male identities to fatherhood, their experiences of fatherhood and masculinity differed greatly. Over time, economic, social, demographic, and cultural change have reshaped fatherhood, changed its meaning, and altered the definition of masculinity itself.

Patriarchal Fatherhood in Colonial America

For the first 150 years of European settlement in America, patriarchal power and an agrarian economy defined the experience and meaning of both fatherhood and manhood. Men were the self-anointed leaders of society, the titular and legal heads of families, and the primary locus of economic support for women and children. They represented their families' legal and political interests before the state and oversaw their children's religious upbringing. Religious and civic leaders, therefore, directed child-rearing prescriptions toward fathers. Although the stereotype of the uncaring, emotionally distant colonial father still endures, recent research suggests that men watched their children's development closely, played a critical role in their educations, and actively worked to shape their moral character. As children approached adulthood, colonial fathers helped to guide their children's courtships and their sons' selection of a vocation.

Furthermore, small homes and, for most Americans, rural living meant that fathers lived and worked in close proximity to their children. In rural areas, men helped organize the work of the household and introduced sons to the ways and rhythms of farm life; in towns and cities, fathers often labored in the home, or close to it, and introduced their sons to work at an early age. Whether in rural or more settled areas, religious and political leaders expected fathers to maintain good order within the household. A well-regulated society presupposed well-regulated families, and well-regulated families presupposed fatherly authority and engagement. In its many forms, ranging from will-crushing harshness to genteel indulgence, this regime of patriarchal fatherhood endured until the middle of the eighteenth century.

American Fatherhood in Transition: The Nineteenth Century

Sometime after the mid–eighteenth century, a variety of forces reshaped fatherhood in ways that endured for the next two centuries. The Enlightenment emphasis on religious, political, and economic individualism helped initiate this transformation. The paternal dominance and religious authority that infused Calvinist visions of manhood and family life in the seventeenth century eroded in the eighteenth century, and they were slowly replaced by an emphasis on models of manhood and fatherhood grounded in reason. Among the middling classes—though not necessarily among slaves and destitute nonslaves—family relations began to become more companionate. Romance, mutuality, companionship, and personal happiness became increasingly important barometers of spousal relationships, while male breadwinning and motherly nurture increasingly defined parental obligations.

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