ABSTRACT
The place of fathers in the family has long been viewed by social scientists as potentially precarious. From the time of B. Malinowski's writings, family theorists have recognized the comparatively weak link between biological fathers and their children, at least in contrast to the more obvious maternal bond created by pregnancy and childbearing. The reconsideration of the role of fathers has been forced by a remarkable confluence of family changes. The management of parenthood across households has received some attention in the growing literature on unmarried parenthood. The child-support data may conceal informal patterns of paternal support or they may fail to reveal recent trends of increasing support among younger cohorts of fathers. The chapter explores both cross-sectional and longitudinal data from several successive waves of the National Survey of Children to examine the dynamics of paternal involvement over time.
