Father’s Day was recently celebrated, bringing families together to thank their male progenitors for the support and (sometimes) caring love they give to their offspring.

Despite its being a commercially-tainted event — like Mother’s Day and Halloween devised for US shopping markets — with gifts of booze, socks, shirts and electronic devices being proffered, the underlying goal is to single out the unique contribution dads make to the upbringing of their children, to honour them and thank them. For some, it’s sincere fun; for others it’s a tongue-in-cheek affair.

In a recent book, titled Fathering: An Australian History (MUP, 2025), co-authors Alistair Thomson, John Murphy, Kate Murphy and Johnny Bell, with Jill Barnard, choose their title wisely. It’s not ‘fatherhood’ as a role to be played; it’s the active process of “fathering” in a changing context which they document, with evidence from key studies, diaries and collected letters from fathers and their children that reveal the realities and complexities of being a father.

The irony is that despite much social change, fathers have been trapped in a dominant role — that of “breadwinner” — which has left little time for engaged fathering as such. The conventional image of the good family, where dad earns an income to feed, clothe and house his stay-at-home wife and children, has been reinforced over and again. The Harvester basic wage judgment of 1907, government tax offsets for dependent wives and children, transfer payments such as child endowment (Menzies, 1919) and family allowances were all premised on the assumption that women should not be in paid work and the responsible male should be the responsible breadwinner.

The book examines fathering in different epochs: Between the Wars 1919-34; Fathering in World War 11 and Postwar Reconstruction, Fathering in Prosperous Times (1950-720, Fathering in Turbulent Times (1973-95 and Fathering into the 21st century. Using vivid case studies as well as less revealing survey data, the authors draw a picture of persistent gender role differentiation, the demands of work life leaving little time for kids, efforts by men to be more involved in their children’s lives, post-war traumas, domestic violence and the limits of feminist fathering.

The male breadwinner model was firmly in place in the inter-war years, men working long hours, handing over part of their pay to wives for “housekeeping”, many wasting the lot on booze, with wives and children hanging out at the pub to collect some money before it was all gone. But breadwinning was seen as the father’s contribution to personal care, the key way a father could show his love and responsibility. The book’s accounts reveal much about what fathers did with, and for, their children, much less about how they felt about fathering. Reticence and duty seem to have prevailed.

The Great Depression deprived many men of contact and time with their children, as did World War II, with many children unable to recall what their father meant to them, others traumatised by the return of a strange man to a household led by mothers and, in many cases, subject to domestic violence from men suffering post-traumatic stress disorder and a sense of displacement. But letter writing provided a means of expressing emotional attachment, both to wives and children and rising affluence in the post-war reconstruction years gave many men more time to be with their children, teaching them how to ride a bike, make toys, play games, focus on schoolwork. It was usually the fun part of children’s lives, seldom a direct expression of affectionate engagement.

Public policy (and prevailing attitudes) drove women out of the workplaces they had occupied during the war and back into their traditional role as housewives and carers. A man who could not “provide” was scorned and this was the high point of the so-called nuclear family, with more people married and having children than ever before.

The prosperous times did not last, of course, and a single wage proved inadequate, but male unemployment and the pay inequality gap meant some women could earn more than their husbands. Feminism drove the practical need for women to earn a second income and in the 1970s-80s there emerged a new trend for a “new father” to take on the at-home caring for children role. They were mocked by others as poor providers, bludgers and downtrodden sooks, even resented by some lone mothers’ groups who did not want their role usurped.

Policy attempts to prop up the old model, such as tax concessions for dependent spouse and children and means-tested family allowances were debated at length in the 80s and no-fault divorce pushed up the numbers of marital breakdowns, causing major disputes round the rights of fathers versus mothers to custody of, and access to, children. Fathering for many men became that of weekend entertainer or of a damaging refusal to pay child maintenance.

The story of Indigenous fatherhood is fraught with racism: Aboriginal missions undermined both contact with children and the authority of fathers, who were deemed a bad influence on their children, trying to teach traditional ways. Because of the Japanese threat in the north, many Indigenous women and their children were evacuated to southern missions; Aboriginal men who had served were not eligible for land settlement grants post-war and fathering in any form became almost impossible. Pushed off country, family ties were lost and many were unable to reestablish links after the war ended. Grog left many families destitute, with women as the only port of stability.

It probably also led to more scepticism on the part of many children about the institution of marriage and having children at all.

Battles over custody and access have plagued the Family Court system since its inception, with men’s groups claiming bias against the right of fathers to see their children and counterclaims that access is denied by divorced mothers because of prior male violence and/or a failure to pay child support. Countries such as Denmark are currently legislating to prevent unjustified denial of access, but the issue rests on whether it is the rights of the parent or the rights of the child that matter most. Shared parenting is tricky, and most children benefit from the differing contributions of fathers and mothers. Fathering is clearly impossible without regular contact with the child and the evidence from this book shows most men do want to play some part in their children’s lives, though the quality of fathering leaves much to be desired.

The book is a moving testament to the desperate attempts on the part of many men and their children to forge a closer relationship with one another and a reminder that prevailing gender norms continue to be a barrier to more engaged parenting from both sides.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.