Mothers: Influential agents in father-child relations

One hundred forty-four mothers and fathers completed structured, standardized questionnaires that assessed mother's personal characteristics (developmental history, responsiveness, and sex role orientation), contextual domains (satisfaction with marriage, employment status, and social support), maternal attitudes about the importance of and satisfaction with spouse's involvement in childrearing, maternal support for father's involvement, children's characteristics (age, sex, problem behaviors), and father's involvement and satisfaction. Results from analyses of variance showed that the age of the child and maternal support were the strongest predictors of fathers' involvement and satisfaction, but ecological domains, maternal attitudes, mothers' personal attributes, and children's characteristics also contributed reliably to variations in fathering.