Rising to the Challenge: Fathers’ Role in the Negotiation of Couple Time

Abstract

In order to understand the relationship between fatherhood and leisure, we believe that it is important to take a systemic perspective that examines the way in which relationships within the family affect leisure choices. Although the literature on gender and free time offers important insights into the different individual entitlements that women and men have to use time, they put less emphasis on the relationship negotiations that occur within families. We were particularly interested in the way that men in families negotiate couple time with their partners. In this analysis of 14 dual‐earner couples with young children (3–12 years old), we looked at the role that men play in the negotiation of couple time. Specifically, we examined the processes of initiating and scheduling couple time, dealing with expectations of spontaneity and romance, and arranging childcare. We found that in creating couple time, participants faced many challenges including uncertain social support, the stressful demands of daily living, unclear couple time preferences and meanings, and ambivalence regarding their desire for traditional courtship in the context of egalitarian parenting. Fathers played an important role in instigating couple time whereas mothers played a significant role in its implementation; our discussion explores various power dynamics at play in this co‐construction of couple time.

Keywords:

• scheduling
• time control
• intimacy
• couple leisure
• childcare

Notes

1. Excerpted from interview with male partner of couple #5, segment starting on line 26. References to joint interviews list the gender of participant being quoted first; i.e. ‘11mf’ indicates a reference to the male in a joint interview with couple #11.