Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 665 Huntington Avenue, 11th floor, Boston, MA, USA.
Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan.
BMC Public Health. 2018 Nov 20;18(1):1274. doi: 10.1186/s12889-018-6143-9.
Parents are the primary providers of nurturing care for young children's healthy early development. However, the literature on parenting in early childhood, especially in low- and middle-income countries, has primarily focused on mothers. In this study, we investigate how parents make meaning of fathers' parenting roles with regards to their young children's early health and development in rural Pakistan.
Data were collected between January and March 2017 through in-depth interviews with fathers (N = 33) and their partners (N = 32); as well as separate focus group discussions with fathers (N = 7) and mothers (N = 7). Data were analyzed using thematic content analysis.
Parents described a distinct division of roles between fathers and mothers; and also several shared caregiving roles of fathers and mothers. Specifically, parents highlighted aspects of fathers' coparenting and several common ways by which fathers supported their partners. We found that these gendered divisions in parenting roles were strongly embedded within a complex network of interacting factors across the individual, family, and sociocultural contexts of the study community.
Our findings suggest a more family-centered conceptualization of fatherhood during early childhood that encompasses both fathers' direct engagement with their young children and their indirect contributions through coparenting, while recognizing a variety of contextual systems that shape paternal parenting. Future parenting interventions that reflect the lived experiences of both fathers and mothers as parents and partners may further enhance the nurturing care environments that are critical for promoting healthy early child development.
父母是幼儿健康早期发展的主要养育者。然而，关于幼儿养育的文献，尤其是在中低收入国家，主要关注的是母亲。在这项研究中，我们调查了父母如何理解父亲在育儿方面对幼儿早期健康和发展的作用，研究地点在巴基斯坦农村。
2017 年 1 月至 3 月期间，通过对父亲（N=33）及其伴侣（N=32）进行深入访谈、对父亲（N=7）和母亲（N=7）进行单独的焦点小组讨论，收集了数据。采用主题内容分析法进行数据分析。
父母描述了父亲和母亲之间明显的角色分工，以及父亲和母亲共同承担育儿责任的几种方式。具体来说，父母强调了父亲共同养育子女的几个方面，以及父亲支持伴侣的几种常见方式。我们发现，这些育儿角色的性别分工深深植根于研究社区的个人、家庭和社会文化背景的相互作用的复杂网络中。
我们的研究结果表明，在幼儿时期，需要更以家庭为中心的父亲角色概念化，既包括父亲与年幼子女的直接互动，也包括通过共同养育间接做出的贡献，同时认识到塑造父亲育儿的各种背景系统。未来的育儿干预措施反映了父母和伴侣作为父母的实际经历，可能会进一步增强对促进幼儿健康发展至关重要的养育环境。
