Mother's Excess Control Hinders Dad's Role

Maternal Gatekeeping Affects Father's Involvement in Parenting

May 15, 2009

Findings show that mothers can affect fathers' involvement by how much they take over chores and childcare. Equally shared parenting may help.

Mother Knows Best may not be in the best interest of the family. A study released in 2008 suggests that when mothers engage in maternal gatekeeping they affect the quality and quantity of fathers' involvement in their children's lives.[1]

Mothers in Control, Co-parenting Quality, and Fathering Behavior

Maternal gatekeeping is a term used to describe when a mother takes control of the household chores and the childcare. She consciously or unconsciously puts up barriers for Dad and limits his involvement. In addition, she may prevent him from engaging in or completing housework and childcare, criticize his efforts, or fail to encourage him.

"This study provides perhaps the best evidence to date that the phenomenon of maternal gatekeeping exists and that, under some conditions, it may have the potential to affect fathering behavior," says the study cited in the article, "More parents share the workload when Mom learns to let go." (Sharon, Jayson, USAToday.com, May 4, 2009).

Researchers looked at 97 families with infant children. Prior to the study researchers assessed:

The results offer a dose of common sense: the more encouraging Mom is, the more Dad will be an involved father. Mothers' encouraging words can also affect the quality of a fathers' co-parenting. Moreover, when mothers criticize less, Dads are more likely to convert their personal beliefs about a father's role, (e.g. if fathers should co parent) into action.

Parents: How to Avoid Maternal Gatekeeping

Cynthia A. Frosch, Ph.D., a researcher, child and family development consultant and creator of The READY Method™ suggests, "Becoming aware of gatekeeping tendencies in ourselves as well as our responses to our partner’s gatekeeping (or lack of gatekeeping) can help us to dive deeper in to the process of knowing ourselves as individuals, parents and partners." [2]

"Beneath the desire or tendency to gatekeep may be a more deeply held belief or emotion, that our partners’ competence somehow implies our “less-ness” or incompetence, that him doing more = I matter less," says Frosch.

She suggests couples think about the messages they're sending to their kids when mom does the majority of the home and child care. Whether Dad is largely out of the way because he wants to be or because Mom is in the way, the family might be getting shortchanged.

Equally Shared Parenting: Half the Work All The Fun

Founders of Equally Shared Parenting (ESP) Marc and Amy Vachon, believe that sharing all aspects of childcare and household labor creates not only a more equitable division in the home, but a more joyful existence for the family. They define ESP as, "The purposeful practice of two parents in an intact home sharing equally in the domains of childraising, housework, breadwinning, and recreation time."

Lisa Belkin notes in her article, "When Mom and Dad Share it All,"[3] a University of Wisconsin’s National Survey of Families and Household Child that found that a woman's participation in housework is two to one to her husband's. The split for childcare is even more lopsided; with women doing five times more than men. The ratios don't change much even if Mom is working outside the home.

“You assume people will look at relationships rationally, and if there is such inequity and such a sense of unfairness, they would end it,” says Sampson Lee Blair, an associate professor of sociology at the University at Buffalo quoted in Belkin's Times article. “When you look at this rationally, it is very difficult to understand why things are the way they are,” says Blair.

Some parents might not be aware maternal gatekeeping is going on, or they are aware but this dynamic doesn't bother them. Yet when mothers control most of the chores and the childcare they reduces Dads' involvement. Shared parenting may offer a better model for children and provide couples with a more full and rewarding life.

1. Schoppe-Sullivan, Sarah J.; Brown, Geoffrey L.; Cannon, Elizabeth A.; Mangelsdorf, Sarah C.; Sokolowski, Margaret Szewczyk,"Maternal gatekeeping, coparenting quality, and fathering behavior in families with infants." Journal of Family Psychology, Vol 22(3), Jun 2008, 389-398.

2. Frosch, Cynthia, A."Guarding the Baby: How Mothers Influence Fathers' Involvement in Childrearing," TheReadyMethod.Com, March 24th,2008.

3. Belkin,Lisa, "When Mom and Dad Share it All," New York Times Online, June 15th, 2008.

The copyright of the article Mother's Excess Control Hinders Dad's Role in Marital Communication is owned by Laura Owens. Permission to republish Mother's Excess Control Hinders Dad's Role in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

May 28, 2009 10:05 AM

Guest :

Narcisstic mom gained power as she excelled in the workforce, father loses job in economic downturn. Now his name is mud. Mom is feeling extremely powerful because she still has a job! Now look at reality, You are the owner of the company and you have a good looking female and a productive male, who are you going to lay-off? Why can't the wife have some compassion for her man and help him get going again, instead of looking outside of the home for more opportunity for herself!