I believe that fathers are important in attachment. There is evidence that suggesting that when fathers take on the role of being the main caregiver they begin to adopt behaviors more traditional with mothers. Tiffany Field (1978) videotaped 4-month old babies in face-to-face interaction with father as primary caregivers and mother as secondary caregivers, and fathers as secondary caregivers and mothers as primary caregivers. Like moms, primary caregiver fathers spent more time imitating, holding, and smiling at infants than the secondary caregiver fathers. This is important when developing an attachment with the baby. This implies that dads can be the more nurturing/caring attachment figure. What is crucial to the attachment relationship is how caring/responsive the caregiver is not the gender of the parent. Das induce more excitement and tend to play more physically than moms. Fathers reacting correctly to a child’s expression predicts positive social and emotional models of behavior later in adolescence and childhood. This predicts that dads instill a sense of confidence to explore with relationships (Berk, L, 2006). Farrel believes that dads teach children to respect other’s boundaries and set clearer boundaries than mothers. Kids see their dad as powerful and authoritative (Franz C., et al 1990). In the context of single parenting, children were better off in the custody of the dad (Clark-Stewart & Hayward 1996). In Asian school boys the highest correlation with aggression in guys is a bad relationship with the father (Ang, R., 2006).
However research into the role of fathers in attachment is confusing because some psychologists are interested in understanding the roles of fathers as secondary attachment figure (tend to see dads behaving differently than moms) while others are interested with fathers as primary caregivers (find that dads can take on a