Talking With Moms About Engaging Dads: Info Fact Sheet 18

Mothers play a central role in how fathers are involved with their children. They can facilitate or hinder the father’s involvement, based on their inclusion or exclusion of the father in childrearing, parenting time, and other opportunities for father engagement. The nature and extent of gatekeeping plays an important part in the coparenting relationship between parents.

For fathers, the single most powerful predictor of fathers’ engagement with their children is the quality of the men’s relationship with the child’s mother, regardless of whether the couple is married, divorced, separated or never married. In some instances, fathers’ commitment to their children only holds when mothers also believe the father’s role is important