In Chapter 2, I discussed the borderwork that some advice authors undertake, attempting to demonstrate which particular aspects of childrearing that only fathers carry out. Some authors also betray an anxiety that fathers will be completely excluded from their children’s lives. William Small, for example, writes of his concern that media representations of single mothers give ‘the impression that a daddy is not necessary’ (2017, x). John Dennis notes that one of the most common phrases on television when a sportsman, or an actor or just a person in the street is interviewed is ‘Hi mom’ (2015, 17). Yet, fathers loom large even in their absence in these advice books. It is claimed that good male role models will suffice, but many of the authors still write to and about the missing father, making these books ‘sites in which discourses on fathering are reconstructed and reproduced’ (Hunter, Riggs, and Augoustinos 2020, 151). As Hunter et al. argue, it is important to ‘consider the implications of such discourses’ (2020, 151). Not only do they affect fathers and the way they approach caregiving, but they may also affect and shape the way mother readers care for their sons.

Beginning with a brief overview of how societal attitudes towards fatherhood have changed over the last century, including how fathers have been represented in media and popular culture, I then move on to an analysis of how fathers are presented in the advice books, with a particular focus on the privileging of fathers over mothers. The chapter then concludes with a brief analysis of advice books aimed at (single) fathers raising daughters. I juxtapose them as regards type of advice given, reader address and parental sexuality. As will be evident, the most striking difference is the way the father reader is assured of his centrality in his daughter’s life. Many of the books are read as an attempt to persuade the father to involve himself with her, which is quite different from the message given to the mothers.

Fathers in Times of Change

In historical and sociological investigations of fathers and fatherhood, there is an intriguing movement, where the figure of the authoritative father is shunted ever backwards.