Marginalize or Valorize: A Two-Case Study of Parental Essentialism and Fathers’ Social Location

Abstract

The idea that children need a mother and a father to thrive is a hegemonic ideology of parenting, yet research finds that children do equally well in families with two parents of any gender. Prior research has not addressed how social location shapes parents’ engagement with gender essentialist ideologies of parenting. Filling this gap, we analyze ethnographic and interview data based on the experiences of poor fathers of color and mostly white, wealthy gay fathers. This two-case study uniquely reveals how class, race, and sexuality shape fathers’ relationships to parental essentialism. Fathers experience it as either a source of empowerment that valorizes them as worthy parents or a source of marginalization that denies their ability to raise healthy children. We theorize how this dual response reveals the salience and dangers of essentialist discourses in spaces where men grapple with gendered and heteronormative ideologies of masculinity, fatherhood, and families.