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• Attachment configurations (security to both mothers and fathers) measured in infancy predict effortful control, compliance, and defiance levels later in toddlerhood. • Infants with secure attachment to only fathers have lower levels of effortful control and higher defiance in toddlerhood than all other attachment configurations. • Infants with secure attachment to only mothers have higher levels of compliance than all other attachment configurations. Infant-parent attachment has been theoretically proposed to serve a key regulatory function for children's emotion, cognition, and behavior, with secure attachment leading to more favorable outcomes, but much of the research supporting this claim has been conducted solely on infant-mother dyads. While research on infant-father attachment has gained traction, studies including fathers often examine their contributions as independent from mothers, which may overlook the interacting influence of multiple attachment relationships on child development. Here, we use a new approach in which we consider infant attachment to both mothers and fathers as a configuration. This study examined whether infant attachment configurations to both mothers and fathers predicted effortful control, compliance, and defiance during toddlerhood. Using data from a longitudinal study on socio-emotional development, 117 infants participated in the Strange Situation, first with their mothers at 12 months, and then again with their fathers at 14 months to assess attachment. When toddlers were 20 months of age, mothers completed a questionnaire assessing toddlers' effortful control, and toddlers were video recorded with their mothers and fathers in a gratification delay and clean-up task during a laboratory visit. Toddlers' compliance and defiance towards parents were coded. Using linear mixed models, attachment configuration in infancy significantly distinguished effortful control, compliance, and defiance in toddlerhood. Infants with a secure attachment only to fathers had significantly lower effortful control and higher defiance at 20 months than the other 3 attachment configurations. In contrast, infants with a secure attachment to mothers were significantly more compliant than infants without a secure attachment to mothers. Our findings provide evidence that when analyzed from a family systems perspective, attachment security (and insecurity) to mothers and fathers may be functionally distinct for children's developing socio-emotional competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study examined how parental caregiving and parent–child closeness are associated with future fathering among 335 Filipino men who are participants in a long‐running birth cohort study. Background Few studies have multidecade longitudinal data to test the pathways through which parenting is transmitted across generations, with most relevant research conducted in the United States, Europe, and other similar settings. The roles of mothers and fathers in shaping their sons' future parenting is particularly understudied despite fathers having the potential to positively influence child health and development. Method: Participants' mothers (Generation 1 [G1]) reported on caregiving during Generation 2 (G2) participants' early life, and the G2 males reported parent–child closeness during adolescence. G2 fathers reported on their own child‐care involvement and the salience of caregiving to their parenting identity. We tested whether parent–child closeness moderated the effect of early‐life care to predict later‐life fathering. Results: G1‐G2 closeness moderated the association between G1 parents' caregiving and G2 fathers' parenting identity (for both G1 parents) and caregiving time (for G1 fathers only). When the G1‐G2 mother–son relationship was not close, there was a negative correlation between G1 maternal care and G2 fathers' caregiving identity. For G2 men who were close to their fathers, there were positive associations between G1 paternal care and G2 fathers' caregiving identity and time, respectively. Among G2 men who were not close to their fathers, the slopes relating G1 paternal care to G2 fathers' caregiving identity and time, respectively, were negative. Conclusion: These findings reflect that developmental experiences with both mothers and fathers are predictive of men's identity as parents in adulthood and that closeness between fathers and sons moderates whether sons' paternal care tends to emulate or diverge from their fathers' caregiving patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TV content has been documented to portray a limited range of gender roles, and to frequently depict fathers as incompetent parents. Accordingly, this study explored whether first-time expectant parents' beliefs about gendered family roles and the importance of fathers to child development were related to their TV use. Participants were 201 individuals (122 women, 79 men) from across the United States expecting their first biological child in a cohabiting heterosexual relationship. Participants completed an online survey assessing weekly TV exposure, exposure to TV programs featuring fathers, perceived realism of TV, use of TV to learn about the world, and beliefs about both fathers' importance to child development and family gender roles. Zero-order correlations indicated that increased exposure to TV in general and to programs featuring fathers, perceived realism, and stronger learning motives were each linked to less egalitarian gender role beliefs in both women and men. Among women, heavier exposure to TV in general and to programs featuring fathers, and stronger learning motives were each correlated with weaker beliefs that fathers were important to child development. Multiple regression analyses, however, indicated that attributing more realism to TV content uniquely predicted more traditional gendered family role beliefs and beliefs that fathers are less important to child development across the whole sample. Even among men with low perceived realism, greater exposure to TV fathers was linked with weaker beliefs that fathers were important to child development. First-time expectant fathers may be especially vulnerable to media messages about father roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]