ABSTRACT
Our original reason for including this question was that we supposed that having the father away from home at night would be disruptive of fainily life and especially of the father's participant role. There is, however, an important distinction to be made here between those fathers who normally or regularly work night shifts and those whose work takes them away for forty-eight hours or more at a time. Night shift working, and to some extent morning and afternoon shift work also, may mean that the father in fact becomes much more intimately involved in domestic life and the care of the baby than if he were doing an ordinary eight-till-five job. The reason is that, whatever hours a man works, he will on average spend only a third of his time at work and a third asleep. For a man not on shift work, the remaining third of his life-the time he takes for eating and leisure-largely consists of the evening hours when the children are likely to be in bed and most of the daily chores have been done. Workers of these hours often only see their children for half-an-hour or so at bedtime during the week. The shift worker's life is quite different. If he is 'on nights', he will probably sleep from about 7.0 a.m. until about 2.0 p.m., have his dinner and then be free until the late evening; if he is on a day shift, either his mornings or his afternoons and evenings will be free. Either way, he is awake and at leisure for some hours during his wife's working day. Furthermore, there is little incentive for a man to go out to seek amusement on his own at a time when most other people are occupied in more serious pursuits.l He is thus likely to spend his time around the house or garden
where, since his wife is herself busy, he will probably be expected at least to ·give an eye to the baby or to look after the small children while she does her shopping; if he wants a breath of fresh air, the park or recreation ground is as good a destination as any, and the children need an airing too. Often he will busy himself doing odd jobs of painting or joinery around the house, while his wife works beside him and the children play round their feet. In general, he is likely to become more highly domesticated than the eight-till-five worker.
