Focusing on the mother as primary caregiver ignores the role of the father, which can have two severe negative impacts. It reduces him to breadwinner outside the home and no more. Firstly, it sidelines and trivialises the role that the father has in the child’s upbringing. Secondly, it limits the mother who faces the social pressure that she ‘should’ be the one giving up work to take care of the child, even if the father is equally capable and willing. Hoffman1 believes that, as a result of social stereotyping, a father is unlikely to undertake a fulltime childcare role unless he is forced to by his partner’s having returned to work. When this ‘higher participation in child care’ occurs, Hoffman believes it results in an ‘increase in the academic competence of both boys and girls, but particularly for girls’. Thus according to Hoffman, housefathers actually increase their children’s IQ levels more than house mothers.
Perhaps the most important issue with regards to the father’s role is that it is valued and desired by the father himself. Few employers offer paternity leave at all, and even fewer provide paid paternity leave. Even for those that do provide leave for fathers, it is often on a very short-term basis, leaving fathers often to miss out on time with their new born after birth. Over the past few years, Careerbuilder.com has released an annual survey that suggests that between 30%-50% of dads in the United States wish they could be stay-at-home parents with their partner working full time; but this situation is not financially possible for them.2 The focus on the mother as the ‘natural’ or ‘right’ primary caregiver for children ignores the desires of fathers like these.
Ultimately it seems that these issues can only be readdressed by dismissing the belief that women ‘should’ look after their children, and instead allow parents to decide what is best for them as a family.