Imagining Men: Lesbian Mothers’ Perceptions of Male Involvement During the Transition to Parenthood

Much popular and professional literature has focused on the effects of father absence, particularly in lesbian parent households; yet, little attention has been paid to lesbian parents' preferences and intentions surrounding male involvement. This qualitative study of 60 lesbian women who were transitioning to parenthood explores this issue. Most women desired some level of male involvement, even before their children were born. Far from describing a desire for "father figures," however, they conceptualized male involvement in novel, diverse, and sometimes ambivalent ways. Having a boy enhanced some women's motivations to actively pursue male role models for their children. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding of the kinship structure of lesbian-parent families and families in general. Key Words: family diversity, fathers, gender, lesbian, transition to parenthood. Lesbians have often been excluded from the discourse on families (Weston, 1991). Yet, many lesbian couples do become parents, increasingly through alternative insemination or adoption. Lesbian couples pursuing parenthood challenge the heterosexual monopoly of reproduction (Dunne, 2000) and stereotypes of gay adults as antifamily. At the same time, in becoming parents, lesbian mothers open themselves to many of the values that govern heterosexual families, such as the assumed need for both male and female role models. These values may contradict their own lived experience, such as the desire, implicit or explicit, to become parents without men. The subject we engage is how lesbians perceive and enact the cultural discourse about male involvement as they transition to motherhood. The Influence of Male Involvement on Children's Gender Identity and Socialization Theories of gender socialization typically address two related components: (a) gender identification through role modeling, which is the development of one's sense that one is a boy or a girl, accomplished via identification with the same-gender parent; and (b) gender socialization, which is an understanding of the rules and expectations associated with gender, typically achieved through contact with parents and exposure to other agents of socialization such as peers, teachers, and media figures (Sigal & Nally, 2004). Given the centrality of the same-gender parent in gender identification, this distinction is the focus of concern in discussing father absence. That core gender identity emerges early may contribute to this urgency: Some developmentalists suggest that children understand their own gender by 18 months, although children do not label themselves and others by gender until they are 2 or 3 years old (Coates & Wolfe, 1995). Gender socialization, however, is seen as less contingent on the gender of the parent than on the gender of the child. Boys are the recipients of more rigid gender socialization than girls, regardless of the parent's gender (Eisenberg, Wolchik, Hernandez, & Pasternack, 1985). Fathers tend to be more rigid socializing agents than mothers (Langlois & Downs, 1980; Tauber, 1979). On the need for fathers. Fundamental to Western culture is the conviction that fathers are essential to the healthy psychological, moral, social, and gender development of children (Silverstein & Auerbach, 1999), although the conduct and culture of fatherhood is situated within specific social, historical, and economic circumstances (LaRossa, 1997). Until the early 20th century, fathers were the primary parent, responsible for children's moral education. With the shift from an agrarian society to an urban, industrial society, the need for fathers transformed to that of breadwinner. A more nurturant view of fathers has taken hold today (Day, Lewis, O'Brien, & Lamb, 2005). Two frameworks dominate social science thinking about the importance of the same-gender parent. First, classic psychoanalytic theory remains an underlying discourse that, despite contemporary challenges (e. …