Human fatherhood: A multi-disciplinary perspective

The term fatherhood is overlain with a complex set of cultural, psychological and historical meanings. Nevertheless, for the majority of history it has implied little more than a role as bread winner and, as such, was afforded little academic focus as compared to that of the mother. However, the increasing numbers of gay men who take up fatherhood and absent fathers who actively pursue contact with their children combined with the general acceptance amongst new fathers of the ‘new fatherhood model’ make it clear that men are both motivated to create and maintain unique bonds with their children in the absence of a relationship with the mother and to adopt, where society allows, an identity centred upon compassion for and active involvement with their children (Finn & Henwood, 2009). Despite this, while the quantity of research into fatherhood has increased in recent years much of it focuses upon the psychological and behavioural impact of absent fathers upon child development within Westernised societies rather than asking a series of key ethological and neurobiological questions aimed at understanding the behavioural, emotional and motivational aspects of this behaviour from the father’s perspective. This paper aims to rectify this imbalance by reviewing the nature of fatherhood from a multi-disciplinary perspective incorporating psychology, anthropology, ethnography and neurobiology. Further, it aims to identify why an understanding of the father’s role is important both from the perspective of academia and society and to suggest future research programmes with the aim of identifying the complex, varying and unique role that fathers play across societies.