Non-resident dads more involved in their kids’ lives than before

NEW YORK - According to a new research, dads who don’t live with their kids are taking more involvement in their lives than before.

“There are fathers that are very involved. There are some that are not. We have this image of the non-resident dad, and for some, that’s the deadbeat dad,” the New York Daily News quoted Pennsylvania State University sociologist and demographer Valarie King as telling USA Today.

Unlike earlier divorced non-resident dads, today fathers are more involved with their children than ever. When Penn State sociologist and demographer Paul Amato researched changes in non-resident father-child contact over the past 30 years, he found substantial increases in the amount of contact - from 37 percent in 1976 to 29 percent in 2002.

The highly involved dads tended to have kids who were older at the time of the break-up. They were likely to have been married at one time and to have paid child support. Keeping contact with children for these dads was difficult earlier because of personal rifts with mothers, or the distance. But now, custody laws have made their lives easier.

Perhaps the best predictor of whether a dad will stay involved, according to Philip Cowan, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California Berkeley, is if he gets along with the mother.

“They don’t have to love each other or like each other,” Cowan told USA Today.

“But they do need to co-parent and collaborate.”

The work was published in the journal Demography. (ANI)