Biological and Social Fatherhood



“Dual Daddies: Low-Income Urban Non-Residential Biological Fathering

and Residential Social Fathering”

Monika J. Ulrich[1]

Department of Sociology

University of Arizona

Monika J. Ulrich, M.A.

Department of Sociology

400 Social Science Bldg.

PO Box 210027

University of Arizona

Tucson, AZ 85721

mjulrich@u.arizona.edu

Dual Daddies: Low-Income Urban Non-Residential Biological Fathering

and Residential Social Fathering

by Monika J. Ulrich, M.A.

Dissertation Proposal Version 8

The Problem

An increasing portion of lower class men have children from more than one relationship (U.S. Bureau of the Census 2004). These men have been the focus of a great deal of political and social debate. They are often portrayed as “deadbeat dads” and incompetent fathers (Hamer 2001a). Unfortunately, much of the debate around these men lacks insight into what these men themselves believe about fatherhood and how they believe that fatherhood impacts their lives.

Fathering relationships are usually classified by the relationship of the man to the child’s mother and the biological relationship of the man to the child (see Table 1). A great deal of theoretical and empirical research has been done on each type of fatherhood. However, very little research has been done on men who are simultaneously more than one type of father. For example, a man may have one child from a previous relationship with a woman he no longer lives with (Category III) and simultaneously be a step-father to his live-in girlfriend’s child (Category V). I will term men who are more than one type of fatherhood, “dual fathers,” since they are simultaneously fathers in two different types of relationships.

Very little research has been done on the beliefs and behavior of dual fathers. Much previous research on each type of fatherhood assumes that fathering outcomes are different for children of men in each category because the men in one category differ from men in another category. In other words, selection effects are largely to blame for these differences. Dual fathers challenge this assumption. Thus, dual fathers are in a theoretically powerful position to elucidate the beliefs and behaviors that come with each type of fatherhood as well as to explain the challenge of dual fathering. This research project will focus on men who are simultaneously a Biological Non-Residential Father (III) and a Step-Father (either IV or V).

Table 1: Types of Fathers

| |Biological Father |Social Father |

|Married to the child’s mother, coresiding |I. Married Father |IV. Married Step-Father |

|Unmarried to the child’s mother, coresiding with |II. Unmarried Father |V. Cohabiting Step-Father |

|the child and mother | | |

|Unmarried to the child’s mother, living apart from|III. Biological Non-Residential Father |VI. Unrelated Father Figure |

|the mother and child | | |

There are five research questions guiding this research:

1. What do dual fathers believe about Step-fatherhood (Categories IV and V) and Biological Non-residential Fatherhood (Category III)? Do they believe that these types of fatherhood differ, and if so, how? Do they believe that fathers have different obligations in these different fathering roles? Do they believe that these two roles carry different expectations from the community? Do they believe that they should treat children from each relationship equally or not? Who are their role models for how to behave as a dual father? What do they believe the norms are of these roles? What are the strains of these roles?

2. How do dual fathers feel about the other fathers in their children’s lives? Do they believe that they have a competitive or cooperative relationship with these men? Does the involvement of another man in the child’s life substitute for his involvement or encourage additional involvement? Research on the importance of extended kin (Stack 1974) in Black communities suggests that Black men would be more tolerant and accepting of these other fathers than White men, since there may be a cultural norm of greater involvement of the community members in children’s lives.

3. How do men who are dual fathers behave? How do they negotiate their relationships with each set of children? How do they manage limited resources of time and money in these relationships? How do their beliefs about equal or unequal treatment of children from different relationships relate to their actual behavior in those relationships?

4. What are the different consequences of different types of fatherhood for dual father’s lives? How do men believe that each type of fatherhood impacts their identities, roles in the community, sense of legitimacy as a father, relationship with romantic partners, employment experiences, and financial well-being?

5. What predicts beliefs and behaviors? How do age, relationship with the mother, income, employment type, income, and social support impact how a man divides his time between children? Specifically, how do race and norms of masculinity impact beliefs and behaviors?

Fatherhood

History of Fatherhood Research

The social constructionist view of fatherhood argues that, “Each generation molds its cultural ideal of fathers according to its own time and conditions” (Doherty, Kouneski, and Erickson 1998). Substantial historical and cultural analysis has shown that hegemonic ideals of fatherhood behavior and men’s own responses to those ideals, more so than motherhood, are socially constructed in each society (Doherty, Kouneski, and Erickson 1998; LaRossa 1997). In fact, the very definition of fatherhood is subject to social forces (Hofferth 2003). The ever-changing and malleable ideologies, behavior, beliefs, and even definitions of fatherhood regularly lead social scientists and social sentiment at large to declare fatherhood to be in crisis (see Blankenhorn 1995; Griswold 1993; Popenoe 1996 for recent declarations).

Fatherhood research began in earnest in the United States in the 1960s. Malinowki argued that fatherhood legitimated children, providing full legal status to the mother and children (Malinowski 1964). This “Principle of Legitimacy” characterized fatherhood theory for some time. Coser and Coser further this work, arguing that without fathers, families could not have full social recognition (Coser and Coser 1964).

Since the 1960s, fatherhood has changed a great deal in the United States. The divorce rate has increased, the percentage of children born outside of wedlock has increased, and the percentage of children who live with a stepfather has increased. All of these changes have been especially prevalent in the lower class (U.S. Bureau of the Census 2004).

These changes in fatherhood have led to changes in fatherhood research. In recent years there has been a surge of interest in the benefits to children of having married, biological parents. Multiple researchers have documented children’s improved outcomes if they have this traditional family form (Amato 2005; Nock 2005). Other researchers have shown children’s success in a variety of family forms, some of which do not include a married, biological father (Cherlin 2005; Edin and Reed 2005). These researchers emphasize the quality of relationships over the structure of the family. Both groups of researchers primarily focus on fathers only insofar as they impact children and mothers but neither group has specifically focused on studying fathers or fatherhood independent of the impact they have on children and women.

Fatherhood Terminology

Before going further, it is important to clarify the differences between interrelated terms. There is a difference between the terms “father,” “fatherhood,” and “fathering.” A father is a man to whom society assigns responsibility for a child. Fatherhood involves the “cultural coding of men as fathers”, which includes “the rights, duties, responsibilities and statuses that are attached to fathers”, as well as the discourse around “good” and “bad” fathers (Hobson and Morgan 2002; Lupton and Barclay 1997).  In our culture, “Good dads” are married, white, middle-class, suburban, employed, and involved (Furstenberg 1988; Lamb et al. 1987). “Bad dads” are unmarried, Black, lower-class, urban, unemployed, and disengaged. According to Furstenberg, men are less likely to be in the middle than they are to be at one of these ideological and behavioral extremes (Furstenberg 1988). Little is known about how men negotiate fatherhood when they are simultaneously performing more than one type of fatherhood. A father may be simultaneously a “good” married father to one child and a “bad” unmarried father to another child who lives in a different home.

Fathering is the performance of fatherhood and could be seen as “doing” fatherhood, although this terminology has rarely been used (Plantin, Manson, and Kearney 2003; West and Zimmerman 1987). In this paper, when I talk about “fathering” a child, I refer to “doing fatherhood,” not the act of conceiving a child. There are three ways that a man does fathering: his identity, his beliefs, and his behaviors. One of the complexities of studying fathering is that behaviors, identity, and beliefs do not neatly correlate (Marsiglio, Day, and Lamb 2000). While we know a great deal about how behaviors, identity, and beliefs are disjointed among fathers who do one type of fatherhood, very little is known about men who do more than one type of fatherhood.

One of the central features of the empirical and theoretical debate about fathering involves father involvement (Marsiglio, Day, and Lamb 2000). Multiple researchers have documented how father involvement varies depending on race, marital status, social class, and other social factors. Father involvement is often compared to mothers’ involvement (Day and Mackey 1989). Alternatively, Lamb, Pleck, Charnov, and Levine offer a three-dimensional model of how to measure fathers’ involvement separate from mothers’ involvement: engagement, accessibility, responsibility (Lamb et al. 1987). Hofferth adds “positive emotional involvement” to this model (Hofferth et al. 2006).

Research shows that fatherhood, in general, positively impacts men’s lives (Eggebeen and Knoester 2001), increases connections to the community and extended family (Moore 2003; Pleck 1997), and decreases depression (Hoard and Anderson 2004). Much less is known about how step-fatherhood or dual fatherhood men’s lives.

Unfortunately, much of the data collected on fatherhood is actually collected from mothers or from children. Less data has been collected from fathers about the impact of fatherhood on their lives and the impact of their lives and beliefs on the institution of fatherhood (Coley 2001; Marsiglio et al. 2000; Nelson 2004). In my research, I will focus on how men themselves feel about fatherhood, rather than gathering data from another source.

Factors that Predict How and Why Men Father

A great deal is known about which factors predict fathering behavior and beliefs. I will focus on seven areas that impact how and why men are involved in their children’s lives: marital status, biological relationship, co-residence, social class, race, masculinity, and psychological attributes and social support.

First, marital status and the relationship of a man to a child’s mother impact how and why men father (Marsiglio 1993). Researchers generally agree that marital status matters more for men than it does for women in terms of parental involvement (Hofferth 2006). Research done on middle-class men in 2003 found that they had a “package deal” mentality about children. These men believe that fatherhood, marriage, home ownership, professional employment, and high education all “go together.” At least for the middle class men included in the study, fatherhood was part of a package deal that demarcated adulthood. This theoretical approach failed to investigate how lower-class men and unmarried men who are unable to achieve some of the goals of the “package deal” negotiate family life (Townsend 2003).

Because of the impact of marital status on fatherhood, cohabiting step-fathers will certainly have different fathering behaviors than married step-fathers. Very little research has been systematically done on these step-families. Even large datasets, such as the PSID, have very small samples of cohabiting step-families (Hofferth and Anderson 2001; Hofferth 2006). Quantitative analysis of these families has generally found that children in these families have the worst educational outcomes relative to other family forms. There is some evidence that, controlling for social class, Black children in cohabiting step-families fare relatively better than their White counterparts (Moore 2003; Simons et al. 2006). However, small sample sizes lead to considerable skepticism in these results. Further, cohabiting step-families are most likely to face other economic and social problems, leading to conflated results (Hofferth 2006).

Second, the biological relationship of the child to the father impacts how and why men father. Children raised by step-fathers fare more poorly on several outcomes than children raised by biological fathers. Children raised by step-fathers have lower scores of academic achievement, even when controlling for race, class, and gender (Downey 1995). These children have more behavioral problems, are more likely to drop out of high school, and are more likely to report family conflict (Daly and Wilson 1998; Downey 1995).

Why do children of stepfathers do more poorly than children of biological fathers? Three theories have been proposed to explain this phenomenon: evolutionary, sociological, and selection effects (Hofferth and Anderson 2001). Evolutionary arguments provide two possible explanations for why stepfathers care for children: evolution favors men who actively participate in raising children, since those children are more likely to survive to adulthood (Hofferth and Anderson 2001) and the investment in someone else’s children positively impacts their relationship with that child’s parent, thus increasing the likelihood of having biological offspring with that partner (Anderson et al. 1999; Anderson, Kaplan, and Lancaster 1999).

Sociological arguments for why stepfathers care for children argue that ritual and routine contribute to family functioning. Stepparenting relationships are ambiguous, lacking ritual and routine. Further, they are not well institutionalized and they lack norms and roles. This ambiguity will harm family functioning (Cherlin 1978; Hofferth and Anderson 2001).

Selection effects are also proposed as an explanation for why children raised by stepchildren differ from those raised by biological children. According to this argument, the men who become stepfathers are not the same as men who become biological fathers (Ginther and Pollak 2004). It isn’t the stepfathering relationship, but this selection difference that leads to differential outcomes. For example, evolutionary arguments state that men only choose to raise non-genetic offspring when they have no or low chance of having biological offspring of their own (Daly and Wilson 1998). Alternatively, men who are available for a stepfathering relationship are more likely to have already failed in a romantic relationship (Daly and Wilson 1998). However, selection effects also can be positive. Stepfathers are partly chosen for their parenting skills, which should demonstrate a higher quality of parenting among these fathers (Hofferth and Anderson 2001).

Researchers have tried to adjudicate between these theoretical explanations by focusing on stepfathers who are also biological fathers and comparing children’s outcomes in each relationship. This has been done almost exclusively by comparing children raised in the same household who have a different relationship with the adult man in the household: some are his step-children and some are his biological children. This approach has shown mixed results (Case, Lin, and McLanahan 2000; Ginther and Pollak 2004; Manning and Smock 2000).

One problem with trying to directly compare these three approaches is that doing so assumes uniformly poor institutionalization of the stepfather role across all cultures, income levels, races, and region. In fact, we have little data about the differing institutionalization of stepfathers and how its institutionalization varies depending on the cultural context. For example, research on the institutionalization of stepfatherhood among lower-income families is scant. This failure to acknowledge possible differences of institutionalization in different cultures may explain the mixed results.

Third, co-residence impacts how and why men father. A recent field of small but rich data has investigated non-residential fathering. Recent research has become available from large, representative quantitative data-sets on non-residential fathering. These data have shown that non-residential fathers are more involved than researchers had previously assumed (Tamis-LeMonda and Cabrera 2002). However, involvement is likely to decline over time, such that one-third of minor children had no contact with their non-residential biological father in the previous year (Hofferth et al. 2002; Manning and Smock 2000). Unmarried, non-residential fathers have less legitimacy and fewer rights relative to married, residential fathers (Buchanan, Maccoby, and Dornbusch 1996; Hofferth Working Paper). Unmarried fathers primarily contribute to household functioning by providing money (Ciabattari). Mothers of children with non-residential fathers concur that financial contributions are the most important contributions made by these men. Interestingly, recent research has found that fathers themselves disagree that financial contributions are the most important contributions. Instead, nurturing, as defined by providing love and affection, is seen as the most important contribution to their children (Ciabattari; Hamer 2001b). No research has systematically investigated men who are simultaneously residential and non-residential fathers.

Fourth, social class impacts how and why men father. Low-income and urban fathers face the challenge of caring for children under conditions of economic and social strain. Research has shown that low-income men are twice as likely to become a father while teenagers as men who are farther above the poverty line (U.S. Bureau of the Census 2004). Research on pregnancy in these communities indicates that both men and women feel ambivalence about the pregnancy (Luker 1991). Both men and women are likely to describe their pregnancies as “unplanned but not accidental” (Edin and Kefalas 2005; Luker 1991; Nelson 2004). Extensive work by Elijah Anderson has found some evidence that many poor Black men actually desire pregnancies and are more likely to judge their masculinity as associated with fertility (Anderson, Kohler, and Letiecq 2002; Anderson 1989; Anderson 1990; Wilson 1987). However, much of this research includes only lower-income Black men, thus conflating race and class and making it difficult to dissect social forces. Much more research is needed that includes both White and Black poor men to help separate the impact of race and class.

Fifth, race impacts how and why men father. Some of these differences can be accounted to social class, as discussed above. However, even controlling for income differences, cultural differences in family norms still exist. For example, even controlling for social class, Blacks are more accepting than non-Hispanic Whites of early and unmarried motherhood (Jones and Luo 1999). Blacks are also more likely to believe that single motherhood is an acceptable family form (Jones and Luo 1999). Black families have a greater norm of extended kin reliance than their White counterparts, even though the empirical reality shows that low-income White families have and share more resources than low-income Black families. This greater norm of extended kin among Black families may lead Black fathers to have different expectations about their role. More research is needed that examines men of different races in the same social class in order to better understand racial differences independent of class.

Sixth, masculinity impacts how and why men father. The term “hegemonic masculinity” has been used to define norms of masculinity. Most recently, the creator of the term defined it by saying: “it embodied the currently most honored way of being a man, it required all other men to position themselves in relation to it, and it ideologically legitimated the global subordination of women to men” (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005). Masculinity interacts with fatherhood in important ways. Since childcare behavior is not consistent with hegemonic masculinity, men’s willingness to participate in childcare tasks is often limited to what men can psychologically afford to contribute without threatening their masculinity (Brines 1994). Hegemonic masculinity may directly include the breadwinning model of fatherhood in which men must provide for their families financially in order to be a man (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005). If this is the case, then men who are unable to financially provide for their families, such as those who are unemployed, underemployed or incarcerated may find that participating in family life constantly reminds them of their failed masculinity and thus may choose distance from this life (Gerson 1993). Hegemonic masculinity itself has little room for flexibility that may be required for lower-income or otherwise subordinated families to exist. Little is known about how masculinity impacts men who are dual fathers. Do men believe that dual fatherhood increases or decreases their masculinity?

Seventh, psychological attributes and social support impact how and why men father. Lamb and Pleck proposed that father involvement is determined by four things: motivation, skills and self-confidence, social support, and institutional practices (Lamb, Pleck, and Levine 1985). Doherty argues that father involvement is determined, more so than mothering, by the coparenting relationship, the behavior and beliefs of the other parent, and the institutional context (Doherty, Kouneski, and Erickson 1998). The literature on father involvement assumes that men are involved in only one type of fatherhood relationship at a time. These theories do not account for how men negotiate father involvement when they are dual fathers.

Much previous research on fatherhood compares diverse experiences of fathers with the norms of ideal fatherhood. As Townsend argues in his interviews with middle-class men, the ideal father is White, married, the biological father of his children, coresiding with the family, and middle-class. Less is known about the norms, ideals, and beliefs of lower-class men. It would be naïve to believe that lower-class and middle-class cultures have developed identical models of an ideal father. In fact, lower-income fatherhood has had to adopt different models because lower-income families simply face more diversity of family forms. Research needs to be done to identify norms, ideals, and beliefs that low-income men compare their behavior to, especially in situations where they are atypical fathers.

Previous research on fatherhood has not adequately addressed the experiences of dual fathers. Dual fathers are in a unique theoretical position to help us understand what biological and social fatherhood mean to men who are participating in both. Low-income men’s own experiences have rarely been represented from their own perspective in previous research. Little is known about how low-income men feel about fatherhood and how various types of fatherhood impact their own lives. While we know the factors that predict more and less father involvement, we don’t know what different types of fatherhood mean to the men who are dual fathers nor do we understand the norms, roles, and expectations of each type of fatherhood from these men’s perspective.

Research Design

I will conduct forty to sixty semi-structured interviews of urban lower-class men that are both biological non-residential fathers (III) and social residential fathers (IV and V) of minor children. I will continue to do interviews as long as I am still gaining useful information (Glaser and Strauss 1967). I will try to limit my sample to men who do not have biological children with their current partner (Don’t have children in category I or II). I will try to get interviews with equal numbers of men who are married and unmarried (category IV and category V). I will also make an effort to include men of multiple races.

Exact figures about how man men are simultaneously non-residential biological fathers and residential social fathers are not available. However, approximately 26.7% of adult men between the ages of 15 and 44 have minor children that they do not live with. Among those below the poverty line, that number increases to 33.9% (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2006). In addition, 15.9% of all men 18-44 live with a non-biological child and simultaneously have a biological child that they may or may not live with. That figure increases to 17.1% of men who are at or below 1.5 times the poverty line (Jones et al. 2007).

I will do this project in Oakland, California. Oakland has a great deal of racial diversity with 68.7% of the population identifying as non-White and no racial group claiming more than 35.7% of the population (African Americans) (U.S. Bureau of the Census 2007). According to 1999 data, 19.4% of people in Oakland live below the poverty line, compared to 12.5% of the United States at large. Oakland is also well represented in previous sociological research on family life in urban areas (Waller and Swisher 2006). This allows me to check the validity of my findings by comparing them with other research on family life in Oakland.

Random sampling of dual fathers in low-income areas is very difficult, nor is it necessary for this theory generating project. I will recruit a sample population using multiple recruitment methods in order to obtain a broad sample of low-income men in Oakland. I will recruit by passing out and posting flyers in different locations. These flyers will state that I am a researcher looking to interview men who live with someone else’s children and, at the same time, have children they don’t live with.

First, I will recruit through Oakland School District by passing out flyers in schools that give me permission to do so. I plan on distributing a flyer advertising this research project to students and encourage them to bring it home to their parents. I believe that this method will obtain the widest range of parents. This method involves contacting parents through children and relies on children to remember to give the flyer to their parent, children possibly prescreening their family for eligibility prior to giving it to their parent, and parents responding to this advertising without having any contact with me. These characteristics make this less than ideal, yet provide a good way to get a large sample of low-income men without relying on snowball sampling.

Second, I will pass out flyers in agencies that are served by the Oakland Summer Lunch program. Fifty-seven summer non-profit, religious, charitable, and government agencies receive free lunches for children in their agencies throughout the summer. These fifty-seven agencies cover a wide range of agencies that serve low-income families. I will pass out flyers directly to parents in these agencies when they drop their children off and pick them up. Alternatively, if I can obtain permission to do so, I will mail my recruitment materials directly to parents of children in these agencies.

Third, I will recruit fathers through Head Start agencies. There are eleven head start agencies in Oakland currently serving 1097 children (City of Oakland Department of Health and Human Services 2007). These agencies provide education to children between 3 and 5 years old. Because of the firm starting and ending times, the fact that parents must come inside the agency to pick up their children, and the relatively small number of children at each agency, I anticipate being able to personally speak to parents when they pick up their children to seek out those who would be interested in participating.

Fourth, I can supplement findings from other sources by posting a flyer in health care facilities, employment agencies, non-profit organizations, children’s services agencies, and low-income neighborhoods. I can also supplement findings by doing a snowball sample. However, I do not want to rely exclusively on a snowball sample because network effects may override other findings.

Finally, if previous methods prove ineffective, I can recruit men through Laney and Merritt Community Colleges in Peralta Community College District. About half of the attendees of these two schools come from Oakland and about half of those receive financial aid or special services because they have low-incomes (Peralta Community College Institutional Research Board 2006). Distributing flyers in classrooms, through special service offices, the childcare center, and directly may allow me to contact men who are fathers. This is less effective than other methods because many in the population may not be parents and a greater number of participants are not low-income.

Interviews will last approximately one to two hours and will be conducted in a location selected by the respondent. I will ask men detailed questions about their reproductive history, their children, their relationship with their children, their beliefs about fatherhood, and their fathering behavior. I will also ask specific questions about challenges they face because they are dual fathers. If needed during the interview process, I will revise questions in order to make the questions more relevant to a man’s experience.

My own race, gender, and class as a White, middle-class woman, will certainly impact my relationship with the men I interview. Previous research has shown that the race and gender of the interviewer impact interview responses, especially when the interview includes questions about race and gender attitudes and practices (Taylor, Gilligan, and Sullivan 1995). A recent study on Black men’s experiences with crime showed that they gave more detailed and rich descriptive information when interviewed by another Black man. However, the content of the interviews was not substantially different depending on the interviewer (Brunson and Miller 2006). I am not a member of this population, and I will make my outside status obvious. Previous work has shown that this strategy can elucidate more responses by interviewees who must explain norms and roles to someone who “isn’t from around here” (Phillips and Bowling 2003).

Interviews will be recorded on a portable tape recorder and transcribed. Interviewees will receive $15 compensation for participants’ time completing the interview. After transcribing the data, I will code it using Atlas.ti. In addition, I will present a report of my findings to research participants and colleagues as a check on my findings.

Conclusion/Contributions of Proposed Research

This research will be an important contribution to both theory and policy. Theoretically, this research will explore the meaning of fatherhood in men’s own lives from the perspective of those men. Particularly, this research will focus on the experiences and negotiations of men who are dual fathers, an increasingly common father type among the lower-class. This research will explore how these men manage and negotiate relationships with their children, the children’s mothers, and the other fathers in their children’s lives. This will fill an important gap in research on extended kin networks by including the perspective of men who are in both than one network. This research will also allow researchers to better understand how men who serve in two types of fatherhood compare those experiences, what the norms and expectations are of each type, and what it means to be a good father in each role. This important research on the meaning that low-income dual fathers give to fatherhood in their own lives fills an important gap in previous studies. In addition, this research has potential far-reaching implications in terms of policy. Previous policy has focused on family ideals most typical of middle-class families. Information on what these men believes their obligations are as father, how these men prioritize relationships, and contribute financially and emotionally to children’s lives can help public policy activists to create policies that are consistent with the ideologies and values of the lower-income men who are impacted by them.

Appendix A: Interview Instrument

I’d like to talk with you today about fatherhood. I want to start by identifying your children.

Behavior:

Can you help me make a list of your children’s first names?

--Do you know of any other children you may be the father of?

--What are the first names of the children you live with now?

Let’s start by talking about your first child, [name].

Child 1:

How old were you when this child was born?

Can you tell me a little about your life at the time?

--Were you working? Where?

--Who did you live with?

What was your relationship with the child’s mother?

--Were you married?

--Did you date? How long?

--Did you live together?

--Did you ever live with the child?

Did your parent(s) know that this was your child?

--What did they think about it?

How old were you when you stopped living with the child?

--How many years did you live with the child?

How did it change your life to have this child?

How did it change your relationship to have a child?

Do you think that if you guys had never had children, you might still be together?

Do you think having a child made it easier or harder to get a job?

Find a place to live?

Where does this child live now?

--Who with?

Does your girlfriend/wife know about this child?

--How does she feel about it?

--How does she feel when you visit the child?

--How does she feel when you give money for the child?

--Have you ever fought about this child? What was that fight about?

How often do you see the child now?

-- What does the child call you when s/he talks to you?

--Why do you still spend time with the child?

How often do you get a chance to send money to this child?

--Why do you still spend money on this child?

What do you do to help take care of this child now?

--What do you do to be a good father to this child?

--What makes you a good father?

What is your relationship with the child’s mother now?

--are you still married?

--do you get along well?

--Do you ever fight about this child? What about?

Who does the child live with?

--Does this child have another father around? Another man in the house?

--What is he like?

--Is he a good father?

--What makes him a good father or a bad father?

Now, did you have any kids before (Child 1)?

Child 2 (or current social fatherhood, oldest child):

How did you meet this child’s mother?

--How old were you at the time?

--Did you ever get married?

--How long have you lived together?

Can you tell me a little about your life at the time you moved in?

--Were you working? Where?

--Who did you live with?

How did you find out that your girlfriend had a child?

--How did you feel about that?

How old was this child when you moved in?

--How old is s/he now?

--Who else lives in the home?

Do you think that if your girlfriend/wife didn’t have a child, your relationship would be better?

Do you think your girlfriend having a child made it easier or harder for you to get a job?

For you to find a place to live?

How often do you see the child now?

-- What does the child call you when s/he talks to you?

--Why do you spend time with the child?

How often do you get a chance to give money to this child?

--Why do you spend money on this child?

What do you do to help take care of this child now?

Do you consider yourself a “father figure” or “like a father” to this child?

--What do you do to be a good father to this child?

--What makes you a good father?

What is your relationship with the child’s mother now?

--are you still married?

--do you get along well?

--Do you ever fight about this child? What about?

Does this child have a biological father?

--What’s his story? Is he around?

--What is he like?

--Is he a good father?

--What makes him a good father or a bad father?

Compare:

I know it’s hard to compare, but thinking about (biological child) and (social child), which relationship is harder? Why?

--Is it harder to be a good dad to [child 1] or [child 2]

--Why?

Which relationship is most important to you right now? Why?

Who do you think you’ll still see in ten years?

Beliefs:

Now I want to talk with you about some of your beliefs.

What does a good father do?

--What should a good father do when he doesn’t live with his kids anymore?

--What should a good father do when he does live with his kids?

Do you know someone who is a really, really good father?

--What makes him so good?

--What does he do?

Do you know someone who is a really, really bad father?

--What makes him so bad?

--What does he do?

Where did you learn how to be a good father?

--What was your own father like?

Where did you learn how to be a father of a kid that doesn’t live with you?

--Where did you learn how to be a father of a kid that lives with you but isn’t yours?

Do you know other men who have children that they don’t live with and who live with their girlfriend or wife’s children?

--Do you think that this is common?

If a man has to choose between giving money to his kids or spending time with them, what should he do?

--If a man has to choose between giving money to the kids he lives with now, or kids that live with someone else, what should he do?

--What if the kids that live with someone else live with another man who takes care of them?

--What if the kids that he lives were are still really close to their biological dad?

--If a man has to choose between spending time with the kids he lives with now or the kids that live with someone else, what should he do?

--What if the kids that live with someone else live with another man who takes care of them?

--What if the kids that he lives were are still really close to their biological dad?

Is there anything else you want to tell me about what it’s like to be a father?

Before I go, I want to ask a few clarification questions.

What is your race?

How old are you?

Are you married right now?

Have you ever been married?

What is your job right now?

I appreciate your time. Do you know any other men who live with their wife or girlfriend’s kids and also have kids who live with someone else?

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