ABSTRACT

This chapter examines the balances that fathers achieve between paternal involvement in childrearing, commitment to work, career trajectories, company policies toward father involvement in family matters, and men's perceptions of supports and barriers to involvement represented in the interface between home and workplace. Recently, Dienhart and Daly (1997) persuasively argued that the 'culture of work' is one of a number of 'informal and formal mechanisms that usurp the primacy of fathering in men's lives'. Acknowledging providing as an important form of involvement in satisfying the needs of the family may help fathers find a balance between the two extremes of provider 'role rejecters' and provider 'role over performers'. Fathers spontaneously discussed the developmental benefits of fatherhood, and the relative contributions of fathering versus work, in moving them along their own maturational paths. Both fathering and work consist of multiple roles, frequently changing demands and micropolicies that require implementation. Thus, the intersections between fathering and work are numerous, complex, and dynamic.