Moreover, while some fathers spend a good deal of time with their children playing, watching television, or engaged in other activities, in the vast majority of households, it is still mothers who maintain the infrastructure of children's lives. It is mothers who know what time to give the antibiotic, what stuffed animal must be packed, where the lost sock is. The roles of fathers and mothers, to be sure, don't need to be identical. But it would make the lives of large numbers of women far easier if fathers took on more of the hard work of parenting. There are assorted complex reasons for fathers' marginal roles.
Variations depend in part on race and culture.
Studies show that some men have little contact with their children because they are working long hours, while nonresidential fathers often have little contact with their children because they are ashamed of their unemployment or underemployment. The nature of a father's relationship with the mother and the mother's attitude about the father's involvement strongly predict both residential and nonresidential fathers' degree of engagement with their children. Because some women do not view fathers as competent caregivers, they very explicitly seek to limit a father's role in direct caregiving. The irony, of course, is that a man's failure to develop close relationships, including with his children, may well be a prime cause of his depression. About four years ago, I became alert, however, to a very different kind of reason that fathers remain such a slight presence to so many children.