The upper skin of the family, which demands discipline and at the same time is rarely at home, serves as a negative image for many young fathers. Above all, they themselves want to convey affection and maintain a friendly relationship with the children. They do not see financial security as their task.
According to a study, many fathers in Germany have detached themselves from the self-image of the family breadwinner. Only around twelve percent consider it their most important task to offer the family financial security. This was announced jointly by scientists from the Technical University of Braunschweig and the University of Applied Sciences in Kiel. The researchers explained that the image of the dad who feeds the family with his job and only plays with the children on weekends is passé.
Almost 60 percent now believe that showing affection for children is the most important thing. Accordingly, few participants named “classic male values” such as discipline (2.2 percent) or assertiveness (5.9 percent) as the most important value that they want to convey to their children. In the context of climate change, which is communicated as increasingly urgent, the researchers were surprised that only 2.5 percent of the fathers who took part in the online survey consider environmentally friendly behavior to be the most important value to be conveyed.
For the study, the team received 2,200 usable results from a nationwide online survey and conducted 55 qualitative interviews themselves. Since the focus of the study was on the self-image of fathers, the researchers also took a closer look at seven Instagram accounts of father bloggers. According to their own statements, they not only considered legal and biological fathers, but also foster fathers or homosexual father couples.
Many of those interviewed criticize their own fathers as “too assertive”, “absent”, “too busy with work”. They use their fathers as “negative role models”, according to the Vapro survey “You don’t need to be superheroes”. Respondents often emphasize that as a father they would deliberately act differently. According to the study, the ideal of the “emotional father” is widespread across all milieus. Fathers of sons in particular want to be “friendly fathers”.
At the same time, the study comes to the conclusion that many fathers do not live up to their own ideas of good fatherhood. “There are parallels here with the mother as an all-rounder who has to be successful at work and at the same time lovingly cares for the children and their relatives,” said Kim Bräuer from the TU Braunschweig. 60.4 percent of those surveyed would like to spend more time with their children. According to the study, only a third are satisfied with the time they spend with their children. 84.3 percent of fathers work 40 hours or more per week. Almost three quarters of the other parents do not work or work a maximum of 30 hours a week.
75 percent of those surveyed state that their job influences their fatherhood – 79 percent perceive this influence as negative. Two-thirds of fathers also experience a negative influence on their job through being a father – for 69.9 percent of them this influence is negative.
