The effects of involved nonresidential fathers' distress, parenting behaviors, interparental conflict, and the quality of father-child relationships on children's well-being

Fathering, Fall, 2006 by Scott E. Harper, Mark A. Fine

It is important to note that residency status may not be equally important for all fathers. Especially for cohabiting and lower income men, residency may be quite fluid, suggesting that their identity as a father and their level of involvement may be determined by factors other than only their current place of residence. Nevertheless, because being a nonresident father is at least a rough indicator of having fewer opportunities for maintaining active involvement with one's children, we restricted the sample to this group of men.

Inter-Parent Conflict

The lack of established norms for inter-parent relationships for never married or dissolved unions can create confusion and disillusionment in terms of how nonresident fathers identify with their parenting role. Madden-Derdich and Leonard (2002) found that divorcing parents are often caught in the difficult situation of redefining their roles as father and mother as they simultaneously begin to give up their roles as husband and wife. Fathers who are unable to separate their identities as a husband and father may displace ex-spousal conflict into the parenting realm. Never married fathers are also placed in a precarious situation of being the 'outsider,' thus leaving them with few guidelines. The ambiguity or disillusionment can often result in increased tension and conflict between the former partners.

Cowan, Cowan, and Schulz (1996) and Hetherington (1999) have suggested that inter-parent conflict often creates an environment of strained relationships between parents and children. Recent studies, however, have challenged the inference that there is a direct relation between inter-parent conflict and father-child relationship quality. Based on a subsample of school-age children with nonresident fathers, Dunn, O'Connor, and Bridges (2004) found that the amount of the mother's conflict with the non-residential father was positively associated with higher levels of conflict between the nonresidential father and child. However, more inter-parent conflict was not related to low levels of positivity in the nonresidential father-child relationship. In a sample of nonresidential fathers, Sobolewski and King (2005) found that cooperative coparenting was positively associated with both responsive fathering and father-child relationship quality. However, conflict over childrearing was not related to either paternal responsiveness or relationship quality. The discrepant findings from these studies may be the result of different aspects of the co-parenting relationship being examined and possibly to differences in the ages of the children in the samples. While inter-parent conflict and cooperative coparenting are certainly conceptually and empirically related, they are separate aspects of the relationship and might have different relations to fathers' parenting behaviors, the quality of father-child relationships, and children's well-being. To bring some clarity to these mixed results, in the present study, we examined the question of whether inter-parent conflict affects father-child relationship quality above and beyond the influence of father distress and paternal behaviors in a sample of young preadolescent children (i.e., ages 3-12).