Parents of young children inevitably face difficult decisions about how they will balance their work and family responsibilities. Some families decide to have a stay-at-home parent. Some, by necessity or choice, choose to have to working parents, whether full or part time. Some have little leeway in the matter, being single parent families. Whatever their situation, if these parents use media at all, they are exposed to imagery and information about work and family configurations. And, no matter the parent’s choice or circumstance, some media sources will provide reinforcement and some will not. In three steps, this paper will first define and compare traditional family structure to a more conventional, non-traditional family structure; second, analyze how mothers are becoming the breadwinners of the family; and third; examine various media portrayals of the non-traditional family.
In Fitzpatrick’s article, Marital Interaction, traditional families are defined by “their faithfulness to conventional sex roles and marriage” (239). In the 1950’s situational comedies like Leave It To Beaver, women and men’s roles were structured around traditional family roles. The father, in this case, works all day in the office, whereas the mother stays at home, attending to household duties. For centuries, (except during times of war) traditional marriage has been the cornerstone of virtually all societies, the key institution for passing on values and taking care of their children. That was then, this is now. Most American’s, at present, don’t want to return to the narrow-minded one-size-fits-all family of the 1950’s. More father’s choose to be at home; whereas, more mothers choose to pursue careers outside of the home. In a related study called, “Sex-Role Expectations,” Gilbert reports, “Many of these women are not proponents of the conventional model of marriage in which the husband is superior intellectually and occupationally to his wife. (35).
Today, less than ten percent of all households follow the “Ozzie and Harriet” model of the breadwinning father and housewife mother. (Parasuraman & Greenhaus, 1997). The new direction that non-traditional families are taking switches fathers from executives, to what Robert Frank calls, “the primary caregiver.” In his book The Involved Father, Frank defines the primary care giver as “the parent who spends at least 30 hours a week home alone with the children and who take care of them for the greater part of four days a week. (5)” The primary cause behind the stay-at-home father’s arrangement, according to Vavrus, is usually “practical and rational, economic and/or professional. (359)” For instance, the mother may make more money than the father. Career-driven mothers, in this case, work all day in the office, whereas the father assumes the opposite role, and tends to works all day in the home. In two studies in the 1990’s Frank compared about 500 traditional families with 400 families with at-home fathers. Frank argued that the non-traditional family is more complicated than true role-reversal. Fathers are doing what mothers have done all long—domestic housework. But, unlike traditional fathers, working mothers take over in the evenings, usually handling bathing and putting the children to bed. Still, the men hold onto many of their traditional duties—including mowing the lawn and driving the car on family outings. (42)
In other ways, the job of a stay-at-home dad is less demanding than that of the stay-at-home mom. Although women’s roles are changing outside the home, much less has changed inside the home. According to Stebbins, “Responsibility for the household and the children still falls primarily on the women, though men are becoming more involved. (11)” For example, working mothers have two full-time jobs: paid employment, and homemaking and child care. Arlie Hochschild calls this the “second shift. (35)” The first shift from homemaker to paid employment, suddenly makes a subsequent shift back to homemaker. But research on the imbalanced workingwoman’s workload does not stop there. Gilbert argues, “Professional women’s perceived housework and child care responsibilities equals nearly three times as many hours per week more than their spouse. (61)” According to Susan Lewis, “Where masculinity is socially constructed in this way, women have low expectations of assistance from their partners.” But, just the same, there are no days off as a full-time parent. Perhaps the consuming demand of full-time parenting is equivalent to full-time employment. And taking over the “emotional work” of the family and soothing a distraught child is still a less common expectation for fathers.
The changing role of women has surpassed the outdated household categories. Women of the household have embraced a more independent role, and are no longer dependent on the male for financial stability. Women are even more likely to complete their college education. New economic realities require most women to work outside the home. As a result, gender inequality in the workplace is declining and becoming more balanced. The U.S. Board of Statistics shows that more women are graduating from college. College completion rates for young women (ages 25-29) narrowly exceed those for young men, 30 percent and 28 percent, respectively. (www.census.gov/population/soc/demo/education.pdf). Moreover, the rates for women in the labor force have also risen. For example, the number of working women (ages 25-54) in the United States from1978 to 1998 has dramatically increased from 41,589 to 59, 725. In contrast, the U.S. Census Bureau show has determined that rates for working women were declining until 1996-1998, when rates held steady. (www.bls.giv/opub/mlr/1999.htm).
With more women graduating from college and entering the career field, this indicates that the [male centered] traditional family structure is also changing. Authors Nye and Bernardo support working women, and declare, “The fact is that employed mothers currently average more education than mothers not employed. (274)” The traditional pattern of the male breadwinner and the female homemaker is changing to alternative parent roles. The number of women working outside the home has grown at a staggering rate since 1950, according to Hochschild. (23)” American families are more widely acknowledging, and accepting the changing roles from American families.
Even the media is recognizing this shift. Television’s focus on family significantly influences popular culture. In other words, television provides an important source of information for family structure and interaction. But, regardless of the fact the traditional family structure is changing, and more women are working outside the home, that most media does not reflect this change. Gerber, Gross, Morgan, and Signoriealli indicate that how the images of family life as depicted on television are depicted is cause for concern:
As the mass media have come to absorb many socializing functions of the family, they have offered us images of the family that may act as touchstones by which we gauge our experiences. The seductively realistic portrayals of family and family life in the media may be the basis for our most common and pervasive conceptions and beliefs about what is natural and what is right. (3).
Although TV has the power to bring people together, to show viewers a full picture of our society, few shows adequately focus on the reverse gender role-play of working mothers and at-home fathers. In fact, two films that address this topic only present distorted views of the at-home father role. One example is the movie Mr. Mom, which parodies a non-traditional family. The father (Michael Keaton) is a Detroit automobile engineer unjustly fired by his boss. The wife (Terri Garr), is compelled to get a job to make ends meet, and soon is hired as an advertising executive. Confounded by the complexities of domestic housework and childcare, he discovers that the work of a traditional housewife is far more complicated than he realizes; indeed it is a new job. Moving from breadwinner to househusband, this movie portrays the househusband as a creative, but incompetent full-time parent.
The movie Mrs. Doubtfire, is even more extreme example of how the media portrays non-traditional families. In order to get closer to his kids, the desperate father (Robin Williams), following an ugly divorce, dresses as a woman and passes as a nanny, Career focused ex-wife (Sally Fields) gains full custody of the children, which creates an opening for a full-time nanny position. Meeting the physical demands of a housekeeper, the disguised husband fulfills the role. Concentrating on the positive aspects of the relationships, the film teaches that love is the one thing that makes a family, no matter the distance, lifestyle, or circumstance. But on the contrary, the at-home father is portrayed as a hysterical deceptive, cross-dressed nanny.
The television show Who’s the Boss? further exemplifies the media’s incomplete portrayal of a non-traditional family. The widowed father (Tony Danza) works as a housekeeper for divorced an executive mother (Judith Light). Although the work/partner relationship between both parents as depicted in Who’s the Boss? is far more balanced than in Mr. Mom or Mrs. Doubtfire, the marriage link is not established.
Aside from movies and television, advertising is another form of media that communicates a variety of gender roles. The investigation of how gendered behavior exists in ads began several decades ago. Early investigations in the 1970’s conducted by Erving Goffman, illustrate exactly how print advertisements communicates through body, positioning, gaze and gender-specific activities. Goffman found that messages of power and social status were conveyed in ads with men depicted as physically larger and positioned at a higher elevation than women. Women were often shown looking directly at the men, whereas men only averted their gaze to a male superior, such as a boss or executive. The only situation in which men were depicted as inferior or incompetent was in “women’s related work (75)”—such as making breakfast or doing the laundry.
Studies show that television news stories, however, affirm the at-home fatherly role. Vavrus argued, “…news stories depict issues that stay-at-home dads face quite similarly, that reassert the competence and manliness of Mr. Moms…to validate men as a primary parent, to show that dads can be moms to. (358)” The news depicts an at-home father’s role as domestic and neutral. By challenging the more traditional masculine identity as breadwinner, the Mr. Mom role is becoming more widely accepted. Vavrus illustrates this consensus by saying:
Because we raise men to provide for and not care for children, culturally men have some psychological conflict when they begin doing this. And they go through a transitional period where they might doubt themselves. They certainly feel lonely and isolated because they aren’t
a lot of other fathers around. And sometimes their internal conflict can be reflected in marital conflicts as well. But if they can negotiate this transaction, intimate fathering has lots of positive drawbacks. Dads that stay at hoe express much more satisfaction in their fathering role and ultimately have much higher self-esteem and the couple experiences more marital satisfaction because the wife is very happy to have a chance to go out and pursue her career goals and have help at home as well. (359)
These gendered ads also exist in ads that are directed at children. Research indicates that’s ads for toys show boys as, “Strong, independent, athletic, in control of their environment, adventurous, and aggressive. Girls are [shown as] giggling, gentle, and affectionate, fixated on their physical appearance, and extremely well behaved. (Sobieraj)” Further, in commercials for action figures, Sobieraj reports, “Boys are shown manipulating action figures to shoot guns at one another, fight with knives, punch and kick, and inflict harm in various other ways. (44)” Ads directed at children rarely break out of stereotyped expectations for boys and girls. The role expectations created by various provide only a partial or skewed perspective on both family structure and interaction. Moreover, “The traditional view of men as providers and women as homemakers reinforces the myth of separate worlds. (Voydanoff)”
The final question is how—or even whether, children are different for being raised by at-home fathers. There is so little research on this that this paper will consider it an open question.
Parents investing time in ordinary aspects in their children’s lives is important, and having two involved parents demonstrates equality among gender. The bottom line is that men and women must be given the freedom to choose how their family is structured, and not judged for who is financially providing for it. And to support this transition, the media’s distorted portrayal of family must look beyond the traditional family structure, and accurately depict a new generation of at-home fathers.
References
Fitzpatrick, Mary Anne. Between Husbands & Wives; Communication in Marriage. Beverly Hills: Sage Productions, 1988.
Gilbert, Lucia Albino. Men in Dual-Career Families: Current Realities and Future Prospects. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 1985.
Goffman, Erving. Gender Advertisements. New York: Harper & Row, 1979.
Hochschild, Arlie. The Second Shift: Workijg Parents and the Reolution at Home. New York: Viking, 1989.
Nye, Ivan F & Felix M. Berardo. The Family: Its Structure and Interaction. New York: Macmillian Publishing Co., Inc., 1973.
Parasuraman, Saroj, and Jeffery H Greenhaus. The Changing World of Work and Family. Pgs. 3-14 in Integrating Work and Family: Challenges and Choices for a Changing World. Westport, CT: Quorom, 1997.
Sobieraj, Sarah. Beauty and the Beast: Toy Commercials and the Social Construction of Gender. Sociological Abstracts, 1996.
Stebbins, Leslie F. Work and Family in America. Santa Barbara, CA: Contemporary World Issues, 2001.
U.S. Bureau of Census. Educational Attainment in the United States: March 2000
(www.census.gov/population/socdemo/education/p.20-536/p20-536.pdf)
U.S. Bureau of Census, Labor Work Force Projections to 2008: Steady Growth and Changing Composition: 1998-2008. (www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1999/11/art3exec.htm)
Vavrus, Mary Douglas. (2002). Domesticating Patriarchy: Hegemonic Masculinity and Television’s “Mr. Mom.” Critical Studies in Media Communication. 19 (3, September), 352-375.
In Fitzpatrick’s article, Marital Interaction, traditional families are defined by “their faithfulness to conventional sex roles and marriage” (239). In the 1950’s situational comedies like Leave It To Beaver, women and men’s roles were structured around traditional family roles. The father, in this case, works all day in the office, whereas the mother stays at home, attending to household duties. For centuries, (except during times of war) traditional marriage has been the cornerstone of virtually all societies, the key institution for passing on values and taking care of their children. That was then, this is now. Most American’s, at present, don’t want to return to the narrow-minded one-size-fits-all family of the 1950’s. More father’s choose to be at home; whereas, more mothers choose to pursue careers outside of the home. In a related study called, “Sex-Role Expectations,” Gilbert reports, “Many of these women are not proponents of the conventional model of marriage in which the husband is superior intellectually and occupationally to his wife. (35).
Today, less than ten percent of all households follow the “Ozzie and Harriet” model of the breadwinning father and housewife mother. (Parasuraman & Greenhaus, 1997). The new direction that non-traditional families are taking switches fathers from executives, to what Robert Frank calls, “the primary caregiver.” In his book The Involved Father, Frank defines the primary care giver as “the parent who spends at least 30 hours a week home alone with the children and who take care of them for the greater part of four days a week. (5)” The primary cause behind the stay-at-home father’s arrangement, according to Vavrus, is usually “practical and rational, economic and/or professional. (359)” For instance, the mother may make more money than the father. Career-driven mothers, in this case, work all day in the office, whereas the father assumes the opposite role, and tends to works all day in the home. In two studies in the 1990’s Frank compared about 500 traditional families with 400 families with at-home fathers. Frank argued that the non-traditional family is more complicated than true role-reversal. Fathers are doing what mothers have done all long—domestic housework. But, unlike traditional fathers, working mothers take over in the evenings, usually handling bathing and putting the children to bed. Still, the men hold onto many of their traditional duties—including mowing the lawn and driving the car on family outings. (42)
In other ways, the job of a stay-at-home dad is less demanding than that of the stay-at-home mom. Although women’s roles are changing outside the home, much less has changed inside the home. According to Stebbins, “Responsibility for the household and the children still falls primarily on the women, though men are becoming more involved. (11)” For example, working mothers have two full-time jobs: paid employment, and homemaking and child care. Arlie Hochschild calls this the “second shift. (35)” The first shift from homemaker to paid employment, suddenly makes a subsequent shift back to homemaker. But research on the imbalanced workingwoman’s workload does not stop there. Gilbert argues, “Professional women’s perceived housework and child care responsibilities equals nearly three times as many hours per week more than their spouse. (61)” According to Susan Lewis, “Where masculinity is socially constructed in this way, women have low expectations of assistance from their partners.” But, just the same, there are no days off as a full-time parent. Perhaps the consuming demand of full-time parenting is equivalent to full-time employment. And taking over the “emotional work” of the family and soothing a distraught child is still a less common expectation for fathers.
The changing role of women has surpassed the outdated household categories. Women of the household have embraced a more independent role, and are no longer dependent on the male for financial stability. Women are even more likely to complete their college education. New economic realities require most women to work outside the home. As a result, gender inequality in the workplace is declining and becoming more balanced. The U.S. Board of Statistics shows that more women are graduating from college. College completion rates for young women (ages 25-29) narrowly exceed those for young men, 30 percent and 28 percent, respectively. (www.census.gov/population/soc/demo/education.pdf). Moreover, the rates for women in the labor force have also risen. For example, the number of working women (ages 25-54) in the United States from1978 to 1998 has dramatically increased from 41,589 to 59, 725. In contrast, the U.S. Census Bureau show has determined that rates for working women were declining until 1996-1998, when rates held steady. (www.bls.giv/opub/mlr/1999.htm).
With more women graduating from college and entering the career field, this indicates that the [male centered] traditional family structure is also changing. Authors Nye and Bernardo support working women, and declare, “The fact is that employed mothers currently average more education than mothers not employed. (274)” The traditional pattern of the male breadwinner and the female homemaker is changing to alternative parent roles. The number of women working outside the home has grown at a staggering rate since 1950, according to Hochschild. (23)” American families are more widely acknowledging, and accepting the changing roles from American families.
Even the media is recognizing this shift. Television’s focus on family significantly influences popular culture. In other words, television provides an important source of information for family structure and interaction. But, regardless of the fact the traditional family structure is changing, and more women are working outside the home, that most media does not reflect this change. Gerber, Gross, Morgan, and Signoriealli indicate that how the images of family life as depicted on television are depicted is cause for concern:
As the mass media have come to absorb many socializing functions of the family, they have offered us images of the family that may act as touchstones by which we gauge our experiences. The seductively realistic portrayals of family and family life in the media may be the basis for our most common and pervasive conceptions and beliefs about what is natural and what is right. (3).
Although TV has the power to bring people together, to show viewers a full picture of our society, few shows adequately focus on the reverse gender role-play of working mothers and at-home fathers. In fact, two films that address this topic only present distorted views of the at-home father role. One example is the movie Mr. Mom, which parodies a non-traditional family. The father (Michael Keaton) is a Detroit automobile engineer unjustly fired by his boss. The wife (Terri Garr), is compelled to get a job to make ends meet, and soon is hired as an advertising executive. Confounded by the complexities of domestic housework and childcare, he discovers that the work of a traditional housewife is far more complicated than he realizes; indeed it is a new job. Moving from breadwinner to househusband, this movie portrays the househusband as a creative, but incompetent full-time parent.
The movie Mrs. Doubtfire, is even more extreme example of how the media portrays non-traditional families. In order to get closer to his kids, the desperate father (Robin Williams), following an ugly divorce, dresses as a woman and passes as a nanny, Career focused ex-wife (Sally Fields) gains full custody of the children, which creates an opening for a full-time nanny position. Meeting the physical demands of a housekeeper, the disguised husband fulfills the role. Concentrating on the positive aspects of the relationships, the film teaches that love is the one thing that makes a family, no matter the distance, lifestyle, or circumstance. But on the contrary, the at-home father is portrayed as a hysterical deceptive, cross-dressed nanny.
The television show Who’s the Boss? further exemplifies the media’s incomplete portrayal of a non-traditional family. The widowed father (Tony Danza) works as a housekeeper for divorced an executive mother (Judith Light). Although the work/partner relationship between both parents as depicted in Who’s the Boss? is far more balanced than in Mr. Mom or Mrs. Doubtfire, the marriage link is not established.
Aside from movies and television, advertising is another form of media that communicates a variety of gender roles. The investigation of how gendered behavior exists in ads began several decades ago. Early investigations in the 1970’s conducted by Erving Goffman, illustrate exactly how print advertisements communicates through body, positioning, gaze and gender-specific activities. Goffman found that messages of power and social status were conveyed in ads with men depicted as physically larger and positioned at a higher elevation than women. Women were often shown looking directly at the men, whereas men only averted their gaze to a male superior, such as a boss or executive. The only situation in which men were depicted as inferior or incompetent was in “women’s related work (75)”—such as making breakfast or doing the laundry.
Studies show that television news stories, however, affirm the at-home fatherly role. Vavrus argued, “…news stories depict issues that stay-at-home dads face quite similarly, that reassert the competence and manliness of Mr. Moms…to validate men as a primary parent, to show that dads can be moms to. (358)” The news depicts an at-home father’s role as domestic and neutral. By challenging the more traditional masculine identity as breadwinner, the Mr. Mom role is becoming more widely accepted. Vavrus illustrates this consensus by saying:
Because we raise men to provide for and not care for children, culturally men have some psychological conflict when they begin doing this. And they go through a transitional period where they might doubt themselves. They certainly feel lonely and isolated because they aren’t
a lot of other fathers around. And sometimes their internal conflict can be reflected in marital conflicts as well. But if they can negotiate this transaction, intimate fathering has lots of positive drawbacks. Dads that stay at hoe express much more satisfaction in their fathering role and ultimately have much higher self-esteem and the couple experiences more marital satisfaction because the wife is very happy to have a chance to go out and pursue her career goals and have help at home as well. (359)
These gendered ads also exist in ads that are directed at children. Research indicates that’s ads for toys show boys as, “Strong, independent, athletic, in control of their environment, adventurous, and aggressive. Girls are [shown as] giggling, gentle, and affectionate, fixated on their physical appearance, and extremely well behaved. (Sobieraj)” Further, in commercials for action figures, Sobieraj reports, “Boys are shown manipulating action figures to shoot guns at one another, fight with knives, punch and kick, and inflict harm in various other ways. (44)” Ads directed at children rarely break out of stereotyped expectations for boys and girls. The role expectations created by various provide only a partial or skewed perspective on both family structure and interaction. Moreover, “The traditional view of men as providers and women as homemakers reinforces the myth of separate worlds. (Voydanoff)”
The final question is how—or even whether, children are different for being raised by at-home fathers. There is so little research on this that this paper will consider it an open question.
Parents investing time in ordinary aspects in their children’s lives is important, and having two involved parents demonstrates equality among gender. The bottom line is that men and women must be given the freedom to choose how their family is structured, and not judged for who is financially providing for it. And to support this transition, the media’s distorted portrayal of family must look beyond the traditional family structure, and accurately depict a new generation of at-home fathers.
References
Fitzpatrick, Mary Anne. Between Husbands & Wives; Communication in Marriage. Beverly Hills: Sage Productions, 1988.
Gilbert, Lucia Albino. Men in Dual-Career Families: Current Realities and Future Prospects. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 1985.
Goffman, Erving. Gender Advertisements. New York: Harper & Row, 1979.
Hochschild, Arlie. The Second Shift: Workijg Parents and the Reolution at Home. New York: Viking, 1989.
Nye, Ivan F & Felix M. Berardo. The Family: Its Structure and Interaction. New York: Macmillian Publishing Co., Inc., 1973.
Parasuraman, Saroj, and Jeffery H Greenhaus. The Changing World of Work and Family. Pgs. 3-14 in Integrating Work and Family: Challenges and Choices for a Changing World. Westport, CT: Quorom, 1997.
Sobieraj, Sarah. Beauty and the Beast: Toy Commercials and the Social Construction of Gender. Sociological Abstracts, 1996.
Stebbins, Leslie F. Work and Family in America. Santa Barbara, CA: Contemporary World Issues, 2001.
U.S. Bureau of Census. Educational Attainment in the United States: March 2000
(www.census.gov/population/socdemo/education/p.20-536/p20-536.pdf)
U.S. Bureau of Census, Labor Work Force Projections to 2008: Steady Growth and Changing Composition: 1998-2008. (www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/1999/11/art3exec.htm)
Vavrus, Mary Douglas. (2002). Domesticating Patriarchy: Hegemonic Masculinity and Television’s “Mr. Mom.” Critical Studies in Media Communication. 19 (3, September), 352-375.
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