Parent Time

Interview by John Hoffman

It’s been more than 20 years since fathers began taking on child-rearing roles usually held by women, yet many couples still struggle to share parenting equally. Andrea Doucet tackles this contradiction and more in her book, Do Men Mother? Fatherhood, Care, and Domestic Responsibility. The Carleton University sociology professor based the book on her study of primary-caregiver fathers, including in-depth interviews with 118 stay-at-home fathers, single dads, divorced fathers with joint custody and, in some cases, their partners. Doucet tells Today's Parent columnist John Hoffman that we shouldn’t judge dads by their likeness to moms.

John Hoffman: Nobody would ever ask if women can father, so why ask if men mother?
Andrea Doucet: A number of feminist scholars and some journalists have made the case that the primary care of children is, by definition, mothering — and that when men take it on, they are mothering. But I wasn’t so sure, based on my academic work on shared parenting and my experience watching my husband, Derek, who shared in the primary care of our three daughters. I wanted to look at the question from the experiences of men.

Originally published in Today's Parent, May 2007