The study of the fathers’ involvement in child care days back to 1970’s when sociologists started to analysed the women’s movement, which happen in the 1960’s. In this period of time there was a massive overhaul on society roles and family structures. The changes, of course, included how children were raised. Earlier, there were many psychological and sociological studies from the ‘40s and ‘50s which studied about mother child relationships. As the roles of father increased in the ‘70s and ‘80s, it became important to acknowledge how fathers also acted as nurturer and caregivers for developing children’s.
During the 1980’s, there have found two informative paper which showed the father’s support as nurturers and also had a try to understand the fatherhood at that time. In 1981, Michael E. Lamb and Kyle D. Pruett had studied on the fathers’ Role of in Child Development. The findings of the both reports carefully complied and presented the research result on fathers and young children relationship (Weiss 1999).
Children whose fathers are present by their mothers’ side at the time pregnancy and the initial years of childhoods are more inclined to maintain a warm relationship with their fathers. (Hunter, 2018). Such children also are reported to have higher academic success, developed more career skills and better psychological well-being. Considering the percentage, 39% are expected to earn A’s in school, are 45% less likely to go through the grade repetition, are 60% less prone to suspension or expulsion from school, score on average 8 marks more on math and reading exams, score more points on IQ tests, are two times more expected to go to college and find secured work after high school and on the opposite 75% less prone to teen birth, are 80% less possibility to serve a jail sentence, 50% do not experience depression, are 4% less likely to experience cognitive delay (Nord & West, 2001). At the same time, men who take care of the children are more confident and better parents; more likely to take child father interactions in a positive manner; keep tabs on their children’s development and be more content with their lives (Eggebean & Knoester, 2001); be more able to understand themselves; empathically understand others; find parenthood for more pleasure; fewer hospital admission; feel more essentially important to their child (Heath, 1994).
If we understand the direct and indirect ways a father can stimulate child development then we will be able to have a thorough comprehension of the impacts of father involvement. This father involvement project is conceptualize to describe men’s role in caregiving across a range of task that can be grouped into three major parts. First one is engagement (spent personal time with children), second is accessibility (involved in household chores with minimal one-on-one interaction) and the third one is responsibility (when the fathers perform the activities which are mostly related with child care, like feeding the children, giving them a bath, putting them to sleep, taking them to schools and so on) (Lamb, 2004).
Desirable result have a high probability of coming true when there is intensive father involvement. The consequences for fathers of positive involvement are also caused by several healthy psychosocial outcomes or well-being; conjugal happiness, parenting skills, and intimacy to children are mostly depended on psychological and social aspects of sharing parenting (Ehrenberg, et al., 2001). First we have to know what the well-being of children means and how it affects the development of children, before we can make it an integral part of early year’s settings. The Children’s Society simply defines well-being as the quality of life or living standards as in how we are coping with our current situations. UNICEF (2018) recognized that the first five years of a child’s life is the most important when it comes to lay the foundations of the child’s future and life choices. The subjective and psychological well-being have several broad, Subjective: Self: health both physical and emotional, how the time spent; Relationships with family and friends, and local people; Environments: educational institutions, home and in addition the following aspects of psychological well-being and related issues: Psychological well-being: a sense of purpose, independence, proficiency, empathy. Other related issues: self-regard and hopefulness as children’s overall well-being (Rees, Bradshaw, Goswami, and Keung, 2010). Guardians should apply the healthy well-being strategy so that the children be benefitted in the long run to the extent of their adulthood and lifestyle choices. (Moriarty, 2018).
Bangladesh Context
Euro-western values of fatherhood and fathering have minimal acceptance in South Asia particularly in Bangladesh perspectives which have been mentioned above already. Bangladesh is a country of South Asia with a population of about 158.9 million (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, 2017). In Bangladesh the core of social and family life are determined by strong family ties and symbiotic relationship. By these values of family ties the distinctive roles of every individual are determined and assigned (Ball & Wahedi, (2010). In Bangladeshi culture the elders, especially males, are the head of the family and they take the decision of the family’s future. Children are given importance and they are adored by all the members and the guardians are concerned about their futures. Here generally women are not economically solvent and there are gaps between gender roles in social life. Women are not encourage to be active in public life. As the sons grow up the relationship thickens and the fathers become more involve with their sons. Sons may start helping their fathers at work and fathers may make good relationship with them by doing activities such as having a conversations, training them in work skills, shopping together or playing games together. Therefore we can say that as sons grow up their compatibility with their fathers increases when as sons help their fathers works.
A study on Perceptions and practices of fatherhood among urban fathers in Bangladesh indicated that 90% of urban father think and believe that the father and mother’s role are different in child rearing. It is described that mothers’ child caring role are feeding, bathing, nursing, cleaning, giving time and doing household chores. Fathers are incapable to do what the mothers does. In compare to mother roles, fathers involve playing a provider role; providing economic support; taking children to a park, zoo or other outdoor activities; making decisions about schools, teachers and doctors; disciplining their children; guiding and directing their spouse (Chakma, 2010).
Moreover, particularly in Bangladeshi cultural ideals differ from Western ideals regarding parenting. If our culture has to integrate such western views then we have to modify these ideals so that our cultural and religious laws can be in harmony with them or else there will be inefficiency in the model and there will be a high chance of it being made redundant. It is imperative that mothers are considerate the default caregiver owing to Bengali and Islam culture regarding gender roles (Ball & Wahedi, 2010).
However, Very few scientific study has been found which conducted in Bangladesh to explore the fatherhood. A study (Haider, 2003) evidenced that 44% of urban fathers are unaware of the need for mental care as measures for child development. Only 14% of the fathers knew how to provide interactive care to stimulate the child and only 18% identified playing or walking with the child as activities in which they could participate and contribute to the mental development of their child. That study also illustrated that in Bangladesh, fathers, on average, does not spend even an hour per day with their children and they believe that the influence of their role amounts to only 5% of all the effects that shape a child’s learning.