Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

American Fatherhood Types: The Good, The Bad, And The Uninterested, Loren Marks, Rob Palkovitz

Faculty Publications

This paper presents four contemporary types of American manhood: (a) the new, involved father, (b) the good provider, (c) the deadbeat dad, and (d) the paternity-free man. These four types are compared, contrasted, and contextualized with related data from the classic Middletown studies of the 1920s and 1930s. The significance and implications of the trend toward paternity-free manhood are discussed, and directions for future research are suggested.