The Fathering Debate

Fathering and fatherlessness: Challenges for the new millennium

Abstract

In May 2000, at the invitation of the Christchurch branch of NZAP, Rosemary Du Plessis contributed a paper exploring the sociological realities of fathering and fatherlessness to a panel discussion entitled 'The Contextual Realitiesof Psychotherapy in the New Millennium'. Members of NZAP working from a variety of theoretical foundations were later invited to respond to the implications of this paper for psychotherapists, their clients and the work of psychotherapy. The paper and members' responses to it follow.

In the last decade there has been a considerable amount of writing about 'fatherlessness', 'father hunger' and 'fatherhood'. Fathering activists have argued that issues relating to fathering are challenges that individuals, families, communities, political parties, state bureaucrats and those in the helping professions must confront in 'the new millennium'. This paper examines some recent assertions offered in the United States and in New Zealand about a fathering 'crisis' and appropriate responses to it. The aim is to highlight some issues associated with fathering and fatherlessness that may be relevant to those working as psychotherapists at the beginning of a new century. A long-term interest in the policies of gender provides a background to the discussion of fathering politics offered in this paper.