Rose Series

When sociologist Brian Powell and his team asked more than 1,500 Americans to define what counts as family, he found that respondents fell into three broad categories:

•Exclusionists (roughly 45 percent of his sample) strongly privilege the traditional heterosexual family;
• Moderates (roughly 29 percent) place more primacy on children and extend family status to any arrangement with children;
• Inclusionists (25 percent) have a broad conception of family that is flexible and expansive.

Digging deeper, Powell analyzed the themes and reasons each group invoked to explain why they believed certain living arrangements counted (or did not count) as family. Here are the themes used by people in the 'exclusionist' category:

In his RSF book, Counted Out: Same-Sex Relations and Americans' Definitions of Family, Powell elaborates:

The transcripts of our interviews are replete with phrases such as "the marriage vow," "the marriage covenant," "ceremonial arrangements," "legal marriage," "legal connection," and "legally binding." In their references to marriage, exclusionists also often mentioned the gender of the marital partners—most notably specifying them as "man and wife," "man and wife living together," or "marriage between a man and a woman"—thus making it explicit that their definition excluded gay and lesbian couples.

William Marsiglio (University of Florida) and Kevin Roy (University of Maryland) are the co-authors of Nurturing Dads: Social Initiatives for Contemporary Fatherhood (Russell Sage Foundation, 2012). The book explores the ways new initiatives can address the social, cultural, and economic challenges men face in contemporary families.

Q: Let’s start with your book’s title. You argue that contemporary models often equate “good” fathering with the ability to bring home a weekly paycheck. You say this framework is too narrow and is being redefined. What is the new model you propose?

More Resources on Fatherhood
• RSF Book: Chapter One, Nurturing Dads (PDF)
• RSF Book: Fathers Under Fire: The Revolution in Child Support Enforcement
• RSF Book: Black Fathers in Contemporary American Society

A: To be clear, for a few decades now, part of the cultural narrative about fatherhood has included references to the “new age father” or the “new father.” Scholars and other commentators of family life have highlighted how fathers are increasingly more active with and nurturing toward their children. Thus we are not the first to call for the public to support men’s nurturance of their children.

But we do, in a fairly comprehensive way, draw attention to the limitations of formal federal and state policies that hinge on fathers’ lack of residence, marriage status, or financial contribution. At the same time, we advocate for a new cultural discourse about fathering that will guide an eclectic yet coordinated set of initiatives to help fathers in all sorts of circumstances become more nurturing and responsive to their children’s everyday needs. The social transformation we seek will ensure that good fathering is widely defined to accentuate nurturance to the same extent, perhaps more so, than financial support. We stress diverse initiatives to forge unconditional, positive bonds between fathers and their children.