A Cultural Model of Parenthood as Engineering: How Caregiving Fathers Construct a Gender-Neutral View of the Parent Role

Abstract

Despite the growing impact of the therapeutic discourse on family life, there is limited research on how it affects lay understanding of parenthood, beyond concerns with gender roles. Drawing on a case study of caregiving fathers in new family forms, we delineate an emerging folk model of parenthood as engineering. It construes parental caregiving as lay expertise in emotion management, which includes active planning and vision, pursuit of information, time management, and emotional engagement. The cultural shift toward parenting as expertise is reinforced by fathers increased participation in child care, as men are often viewed as lacking “natural” maternal competence and more dependent on deliberate acquisition of expertise. Notions of engineering may not be as salient among heteronormative parents who are less compelled to actively reconstruct established familial structures. While this folk model underscores a gender-neutral ideal nested in liberal ideology, the actual shift raises renewed questions about gendered power relations.