Fathering in the Shadows: Indigenous Fathers and Canada's Colonial Legacies

Author(s): Jessica Ball

Source: The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science , Jul., 2009,
Vol. 624, Fathering across Diversity and Adversity: International Perspectives and
Policy Interventions (Jul., 2009), pp. 29-48
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. in association with the American Academy of
Political and Social Science

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 A study of Canadian Indigenous fathers' involvement
conceptualized a temporal horizon within which to situ-
ate challenges and opportunities for caring for children
following decades of colonial interventions that have
diminished men's roles. Through five community-
university partnerships, conversational interviews were
held with eighty First Nations and Me*tis fathers in
British Columbia, Canada. Using a grounded theory
approach, a conceptual model was constructed identi-
fying six key ecological and psychological factors that
combine to account for Indigenous men's experiences
Fathering in the of fatherhood: personal wellness, learning fathering,

Shadows:
socioeconomic inclusion, social support, legislative and
policy support, and cultural continuity. Indigenous
fathers' accounts bring into focus systemic barriers to

Indigenous positive fathers' involvement, including socioeconomic

exclusion due to failures of the educational system,

Fathers and ongoing colonization through Canada's Indian Act, and

mother-centrism in parenting programs and child wel-
fare practices. Policy and program reforms are sug-
Canada's gested to increase Indigenous fathers' positive and
sustained engagement with their children.
Colonial Keywords: fathers; children; Indigenous; Aboriginal;
colonialism; social inclusion; social capital;
Legacies social support; mother-centrism; multi-
generational; Canada

Indigenous1 fathers are arguably the most

By
socially excluded population of fathers around
JESSICA BALL the world. Colonial government interventions
disrupted Indigenous families and communities
and, along with ongoing social inequities, created
unique challenges for Indigenous fathers. Removal
of children from family care and of families from
traditional territories, along with high rates of
incarceration of Indigenous men, have produced
a fissure in the sociocultural transmission of father

roles across generations and created monumental

challenges for Indigenous fathers' positive and
sustained involvement with their children.
Theories of attachment and generativity
suggest that fathering is reproduced through
experiences of being cared for by father role
models during childhood (Cassidy and Shaver
1999). How do men constitute and identify with

DOI: 10.1177/0002716209334181

29
ANNALS, AAPSS, 624, July 2009

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30 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

culturally authentic father roles when they have no experiences of being fathered
and/or have few positive father role models in their communities? Situations that
disrupt the intergenerational transmission of fathering - through government
interventions, pandemics, political conflict, migrant labor, and ecological and
technological disasters - are tragically common across the globe. Understanding
factors that increase or decrease Indigenous fathers' positive involvement in Canada
can contribute to an emerging international literature on the revitalization of
fatherhood following catastrophes (e.g., Hoffman 2004; Richter and Morrell 2006;
Stover and Weinstein 2004). This article is a report on influences on Indigenous
men's ability to successfully care for their children and considers the regeneration
of positive father involvement in sociocultural communities where the meaning
and practice of father care for children has been drastically diminished.
Indigenous fathers' relative absence in children's lives is a lacuna in Canada's
social landscape. A much higher proportion of Indigenous compared to non-
Indigenous men do not have their paternity registered on their children's birth
records (Clatworthy 2004) and do not live with or provide for their children.
Without effective interventions, by 2020, half of the burgeoning population of
Indigenous children in Canada will grow up without a father living in their family
home. While non-co-residence does not always indicate a father's lack of
involvement (Zontini and Reynolds 2007), research has shown a trend toward
decreasing involvement of non-Indigenous fathers, especially in cases where a
father moves some distance away (Florsheim, Tolan, and Gorman-Smith 1998;
Seltzer 1991) or is incarcerated (Nelson, Clampet-Lundquist, and Edin 2002).
Compared to other men in Canada, Indigenous men are much more geographically
mobile (Statistics Canada 2006), nine times more likely to be incarcerated
(Government of Canada 2008), and three times more likely to commit suicide
(Health Canada 2003; Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 1995).

Jessica Ball is a professor in child and youth care at the University of Victoria. She brings the
perspectives of clinical-developmental psychology and public health to her program of research
on determinants of survival, health, and development of young children in Canada and interna-
tionally. Her recent publications and presentations focus on early intervention to promote optimal
child development, fathers' roles, and promising policy reforms and practices to enable intersec-
toral coordination of services for children and families. Direct correspondence to Jessica Ball,
Early Childhood Development Intercultural Partnerships, University of Victoria, School of Child
and Youth Care, Box 1700 STN CSC, Victoria, BC, Canada V8W 2Y2; e-mail: [email protected];
www.ecdip.org.

NOTE: Research for this article was supported by funding from the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada, Community-University Research Alliances program
(File no. 833-2003-1002) and by the British Columbia Ministry of Children and Family
Development through the Human Early Learning Partnership. The views presented here are
those of the author and do not represent provincial or federal funding agencies or Aboriginal
organizations. The author thanks the First Nations fathers who participated in the research;
the British Columbia community partners in the research: LiFwat Nation, Little Hands of
Friendship and Power of Friendship Aboriginal Head Start Programs in Prince George, the
Terrace Child Development Centre Dads Group, and Esketemc Aboriginal Head Start; con-
tributions by team members Ron Tsaskiy George, Candice Manahan, and Leroy Joe; and the
Fathers Involvement Research Alliance of Canada, CURA project, directed by Kerry Daly.

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FATHERING IN THE SHADOWS 31
The literature on fathering (Lamb 2004) largely represents the experiences of
fathers of European heritage. Although there is a long tradition in anthropology
of ethnographic research describing fathers' social roles, only a few investigations
have asked Indigenous fathers to give their own accounts of their experiences with
their children. In one study, Hossain (2001) found that Navajo fathers invested
about 60 percent as much time as mothers in direct caregiving. In a quantitative
study of fourteen Ojibway fathers, greater father involvement in caregiving was
associated with better academic achievement and social development among
children, especially among boys (Williams, Radin, and Coggins 1996). This study
suggested an intergenerational modeling effect: fathers who spent more time in
caregiving tasks had themselves been fathered by men who were more involved
in their upbringing. New research from a "Baba" movement in South Africa is
focusing on regeneration of positive involvement of African men with children
and youth and changing notions of masculinity postapartheid (Richter and Morrell
2006). The relative invisibility of Indigenous men in research is mirrored in the
absence of policy aimed at encouraging Indigenous fathers' involvement. As one
support worker acknowledged, "Its not so much that we have failed to reach
Indigenous dads. Its more that we have never tried."
Literature describing cross-cultural variations in fathering beliefs and behaviors
(Harkness and Super 1996; Levine 1994; Toth and Xu 1999) suggests important
differences as well as similarities in the experiences of Indigenous fathers compared
to non-Indigenous fathers. More than 1 million people in Canada identify as
Indigenous, including about 500,000 Status and non-Status Indians living off-
reserve in urban centers and 200,000 First Nations2 living on reserves, mostly in
rural areas; plus 300,000 Metis (mixed Indigenous and European heritage); and
70,000 Inuit living primarily in the High Arctic (Statistics Canada 2006). Significant
cultural, economic, social, and political differences exist among the hundreds of
cultural groups subsumed under the general terms Indigenous or Aboriginal.
The current study took place in British Columbia, home to about one-third of
the Indigenous peoples in Canada, representing more than two hundred culturally
heterogeneous communities and a large urban Indigenous population. The study
begins to explore what kinds of theoretical understandings can encompass and
guide responses to the experiences of Indigenous fathers in different kinds of
circumstances and with various experiences, goals, and needs. A further goal is to
inform policy and programs to support reconstruction of Indigenous families,
parenting, and circles of kinship care for Indigenous children following a historic
apology from the Canadian Government to Aboriginal peoples on June 11, 2008
(Office of the Prime Minister of Canada 2008).

Historical and Demographic Barriers to Indigenous

Fathers' Involvement

Indigenous scholars have chronicled the devastating effects of colonial

government policies over the past century that were aimed, first, at segregating

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32 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

Indigenous peoples from colonial society through a reservation system, and,

subsequently, at forcing them either to assimilate into colonial society or to
subsist on its margins (Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 1996). Systems
of tribal community governance and transmission of cultural knowledge were
prohibited (Chrisjohn and Young 1997). Forced relocations of villages and
dispersions of clans, along with urbanization, have further disconnected
Indigenous people from their heritage language, culture, and clans (York 1990).
Colonial efforts to sever ties between children and parents include the Indian
residential schools where, by 1960, more than half of the First Nations and Metis
children in Canada were confined (Miller 1996). Widespread foster placement
and adoption in non-Indigenous homes have continued from the 1950s to the
present day (National Council of Welfare 2007). Extensive neglect and physical
and sexual abuse of Indigenous children in residential schools and foster homes
have been well documented ( Fournier and Crey 1997) . It is generally acknowledged
that most Indigenous men and women in Canada are either survivors of residential
schools or have suffered "secondary trauma" as a result of being born to parents
who lacked parenting role models (Ing 2000). The multigenerational sequelae of
these early experiences of abuse and neglect are gradually being recognized
(Aboriginal Healing Foundation 2008). Most Indigenous fathers today have not
had the kinds of experiential learning, affection, and play that are the hallmarks
of a middle-class childhood in Euro- Western cultures and that have been
conceptualized in ethological and development theories (Erickson 1950) as
foundational for the kind of psychosocial well-being and role-modeling that
contributes to involved fathering (Cowan and Cowan 2000; Hesse 1999). Thus,
when Indigenous men become fathers, most are venturing into a role and set of
relationships that have little personal resonance.

Method

Research approach. The study was guided by principles and protocols sug-
gested for research involving Indigenous peoples (Canadian Institutes of Health
Research 2007). Following a newspaper announcement about the study compo-
nent focused on Indigenous fathers in British Columbia, the author received
requests from several First Nations communities and programs to participate, as
well as from many individual First Nations fathers. The study was seen as timely
because of the steady increase in Indigenous lone-mother-headed households,
persistence of Indigenous teen pregnancies, and dawning awareness in commu-
nity programs about the need to hear from Indigenous fathers themselves in the
hope of increasing the effectiveness of efforts through family-involving programs
such as Aboriginal Head Start to reach out to Indigenous fathers of young chil-
dren. Partnerships were negotiated between the author and five community
partners, including two First Nations on reserves, two Aboriginal Head Start
Programs, and one Dads Group in small urban centers. One Indigenous father

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FATHERING IN THE SHADOWS 33
was nominated by each community to serve as a paid member of the research
team; to help develop the consent, recruitment, and data collection procedures;
to recruit fathers through posters, door-to-door flyers, and direct contact; and
to interview fathers and convene data interpretation feedback sessions. Details
of the research ethics and community-based research processes are described
elsewhere (Ball and Janyst 2008).

Participants. Because community partners wanted to know about Aboriginal

fathers with young children, the study recruited fathers with at least one child
under seven years of age, including seventy-two self-identified First Nations
fathers, seven Metis fathers, and one non-Indigenous father of Indigenous young
children.

Procedures. Data collection had two components: (1) two original question-
naires asking for each fathers demographic characteristics, family composition,
involvement with biological children and the children in their home (if any), and
use of parenting services; and (2) a sixty-minute conversational interview with each
father that was audio-taped and transcribed. Following the advice of fathers on the
research team, interviews were semistructured. The interviewer asked fathers to
describe their household composition, how they balanced work and family, how
they were involved with their children, any experience with programs, and other
general conversational topics. Fathers on the team advised against probing about
experiences with residential school, child welfare, adoption, substance use, mental
health, or other topics known to be common yet sensitive among Indigenous adults.
However, nearly all participating fathers introduced these topics themselves during
the free-flowing conversational interview.

Data analysis. Analysis of the interview transcripts used the grounded theory
approach elaborated by Strauss and Corbin (1990) and previously demonstrated in
family interaction research by the author and colleagues (Ball, Cowan, and Cowan
1995). The author and Indigenous team members worked from line-by-line coding
and theoretical memos to construct a conceptual framework that represented
recurrent themes in fathers' accounts. Several months after their interview, all
fathers who could be recontacted were invited to a gathering at each community
partner site to hear about the data analysis, to help to elaborate the conceptual
model, and to advise on knowledge mobilization strategies. Across partner com-
munities, a total of nineteen of the eighty fathers participated in these sessions.

Results

Participants. The interview began with a seemingly simple inquiry: Who are
the children to whom you consider yourself to be a father? What are their first
names, ages, where do they live, and how are you involved with each of them?

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34 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

Fathers' lengthy and convoluted responses revealed the complex, frequently

changing, and blended composition of most fathers' households. Most fathers
were coresident with one or more children, though they did not uniformly iden-
tify as either a biological or social father of children living full- or part-time in
the same home. Many fathers acknowledged not knowing how many children
they had biologically fathered, and several stated that they had at least one child
with whom they had never been involved. The sample of 80 fathers included 67
(84 percent) who were biological fathers of at least one child under seven years
old: nearly all were currently involved with one or more of their biological
children. The remaining men in the sample (n = 13; 16 percent) were social
fathers of at least one child under seven years old, mostly through coresidence
with the child's mother. The minority of fathers who had no involvement with one
or more of their children at the time of the study generally reported that their
child was in government care or in the sole custody of the child's mother or adop-
tive parent. At the time of the interview, four fathers had no contact with their
children as a condition of their parole or by court order. All the other fathers in
the study had some form of contact with at least some of their children, if only
occasional visits or phone calls.
Table 1 conveys the challenging economic, education, employment, and other
conditions characterizing the sample overall. Yet, as a group, participants
reported more social capital than has generally been found in demographic
studies of this population and, as a result, were probably more empowered to be
involved with their children. Several fathers who took part in the study referred
to themselves as "success stories" and were proud of the quality of relationships
with their children that they had achieved without much help from community
programs, child welfare services, or society as a whole. Many stated that they
sought to participate in the study to show other Indigenous men that "there is
hope" and "if I can do it, you can do it." Some fathers were struggling to sustain
involvement with their child, or their relationships with their children had been
disrupted due to separation, divorce, child protection, or a "no-contact" court
order. They expressed their goal of using the study to "let people know what we
have to go through" and "how many roadblocks are in our path" toward a desired
quality of involvement as fathers.

Key themes. Fathers who gathered to participate in data interpretation in all

the partner communities agreed that the theme of lack of exposure to positive
fatherhood in their childhoods and in their communities best accounted for many
of the challenges they faced when they became fathers. Their overarching vision
for change was for Indigenous fathers to increase their positive involvement with
their children and for revitalization of Indigenous fathers' roles in what some
referred to as "circles of care," "kinship care," or "shared care" of children by
Indigenous peoples in Canada. These terms are often used to contrast with foster
care and adoption placements of Indigenous children in non-Indigenous families,
or to underscore communal or clan-based provisions for child care as opposed to
childrearing centered in nuclear family structures. Fathers saw reconstruction of

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FATHERING IN THE SHADOWS 35
TABLE 1
SELF-REPORTED DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF PARTICIPANTS

Characteristics Percentage Frequency M SD

Identify as First Nations 90.0 72
Identify as M6tis 8.75 7
Identify as non- Aboriginal father of 1.0 1

Living on-reserve 45.0 36

Aboriginal children

Age 38.00 11.89

Living off-reserve 55.0 44
Number of children identified as theirs 3.29 2.13
Number of children in home 2.08 1.49
Number of adults in home 2.11 0.90
Living with a spouse or partner 55.0 44
Highest level of education
Some high school 36.4 29
High school diploma 21.3 17
Trade/college certificate or diploma 2.5 18
Some university 11.3 9
Other 3.8 3
Bachelor degree or higher 5.1 4
Total household income
Under $10,000 15.0 12
$10-19,000 12.5 10
$20-39,000 20.0 16
$40-59,000 13.8 11
$60-79,000 10.0 8
$80-99,000 2.5 2
Over $100,000 2.5 2
Refused 23.8 19
Receiving institutional financial assistance 32.5 26
Partner receiving institutional financial 8.8 7
assistance
Currently employed or self-employed with 61.3 49
an income
Partner currently employed outside the 37.5 30
home

Physical or mental disabilities or special 27.5 22

needs

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36 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

FIGURE 1
RECIPROCALLY INTERACTING FACTORS IN THE ECOLOGY OF
INDIGENOUS FATHERS' INVOLVEMENT

Temporal Horizon

(f inclusion
Socio-economic Socialinvolvement
positive support for >w
j

" "Xx Fathers'

f X Fathers' XX^ f
/ Involvement in \
f
Personal ^
wellness \ ^ Now / support for involvement

\/\J
A \^ > Future Generations^/ i

Learning fathering Cultural

. interaction
Direct father-child
nf T^continuity
• Role models
• Direct instruction

circles of care within a temporal frame as part of a process referred to by

Indigenous peoples in Canada as a "healing journey" for Indigenous peoples as a
whole, laying a strong foundation of Indigenous fatherhood "for generations yet
to come."3 They also confirmed a conceptual framework that identified key influ-
ences on the degree and nature of their involvement with their children, illus-
trated in Figure 1.
Like Bronfenbrenners (1979) concept of the chronosystem, inclusion of a
temporal horizon in the framework encompasses fathers' understandings of the
sociohistorical conditioning of their challenges, recognizing the long shadow cast
by colonial government interventions in Indigenous societies, and the desire to
"turn things around." This multigenerational view, extending both backward and
forward in time, was the most salient theme in the fathers' accounts. In addition,
the conceptual framework includes six domains of influences that were frequently
invoked in fathers' accounts: (1) personal wellness, (2) learning fathering, (3) socio-
economic inclusion, (4) social support, (5) legislative and policy support, and
(6) cultural continuity. The fathers' accounts suggested that these domains are
reciprocally interactive. For example, recovery from addictions (personal wellness)
enables sustained labor force attachment (socioeconomic inclusion) and income
generation (socioeconomic inclusion) and decreases the probability of addiction

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FATHERING IN THE SHADOWS 37
relapse (personal wellness). Fathers' accounts had many examples of how these
factors interact to enhance or deter their involvement and how they could affect
positive fathers' involvement among Indigenous peoples as a whole. In ecological
models, person and environment variables are bilateral. In this case, a fathers
positive involvement can affect changes in the ecological conditions (for example,
engaging with a child in a sports program can increase opportunities for social
support). It can form a mutually causal cycle with an overall negative or positive
impact on the quantity, quality, and continuity of fathers' involvement now and,
potentially, in future generations. The following sections draw links to converging
theory and research to illustrate the potential utility of this framework.

Fathering out of "thin air." Sixty-nine fathers (86 percent) referred to the
theme of disrupted intergenerational transmission of fathering. The generative
fatherhood model (McAdams and St. Aubin 1998), as well as theoretical frame-
works drawing on ethological research and investigations of attachment, empha-
size the ongoing transmission of fathering through father-child relationships
across generations (Cassidy and Shaver 1999; Hesse 1999). Some evidence sup-
ports a multigenerational effect, whereby highly involved fathers are more likely
to have sons who are highly involved with their own children (Williams, Radin,
and Coggins 1996). As described earlier, due to the fracturing of Indigenous
circles of care during the hundred years of Indian residential schools, many
Indigenous fathers have no positive experiences of being fathered.
The impacts of historical trauma on Indigenous men, as well as the vestiges and
potential rekindling of communal caregiving roles, must be integrated into emerg-
ing constructions of Indigenous fatherhood and family organization. A develop-
mental, lifespan perspective (e.g., Hawkins and Dollahite 1997) cannot fully
accommodate the significance of these sociohistorical challenges and changes in
the lives of Indigenous peoples as they came under colonial rule and as the process
of truth and reconciliation is just beginning (Aboriginal Healing Foundation
2008). A majority of fathers in the study explained how their own childhood expe-
riences without a father or with abusive fathers and father figures, including step-
fathers and priests in residential schools, set the stage for their journey as fathers.
One father described how he feels he has to draw an image of fatherhood

out of thin air. ... He just wasn't there. Really I had to raise myself. I just came crawling
into my life after residential school as a grown person without any idea what that meant.
I crawled around in the gutters and on the streets until I went to prison and got into a
treatment program. So I'm on my feet but really there isn't much to draw on. I make it
up as I go, one day at a time.

Many fathers stated emphatically that they did not want to be like their
own fathers.

He was abusive. I was only a year old when he left, and so I don't know if I ever saw it
or experienced it [being fathered]. He left
he were more involved. After he died, I had dreams of him and he didn't recognize me.
There was a lot of stuff that I had to deal with as I grew up. But, I knew that was not

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38 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

what I wanted for my children. I wanted my children to have a father and to understand
the joys and rewards of having both parents in their lives.

Research with Indigenous fathers offers opportunities to test a compensation

hypothesis, whereby men who regret not having a positive relationship with their
father may try to redeem the father-child relationship as fathers with their own
children.

Personal wellness

Indigenous men have the highest rates of mental illness, addictions, and sui-
cide among ethnic groups in Canada (Kirmayer, Simpson, and Cargo 2003).
Dimensions of personal wellness figured prominently in fathers' narratives,
including their struggles with depression, suicidal thoughts/attempts, substance
misuse, violence, and other problems. Several fathers volunteered that they had
completed one or more treatment programs for substance misuse or anger man-
agement. Some described how participation in these programs had helped them
to approach their relationships with partners and children with more "respect"
and "equality" and participation. Fathers who were positively involved with their
children described caring for their children as part of their "healing journey."

I'm a recovering alcoholic and addict, and I'm just trying to learn how to relate to my
kids and how to help her [ex-partner] in whatever way I can, one day at a time. . . . Every
day that I'm with my girls is another day to make amends and to try to give them, and
my ex- and myself something positive.

Similar outcomes were described by Irvine and Klocke (2001) in their study of
non-Indigenous men involved in a 12-step program.
Whereas some non-Indigenous men blame women for their lack of a sense of
place within their families or societies (Ferber 2000; Gavanas 2004), few
Indigenous fathers in this study blamed women for barriers to being effectively
involved fathers. Some fathers explained that colonial legacies had exerted
different but equal challenges for Indigenous women and spoke of the need for
both Indigenous women and men to achieve "balance" and "wholeness" by
following a traditional healing path to recovering their Indigenous knowledge
and their capacities to parent and live together as families.
Twenty-two fathers (27 percent) reported that engaging with their children
evoked painful memories of childhoods that had been punctuated by abuse or
family violence; death of a parent; or abruptly changing circumstances, such as
being taken away to residential school or apprehension by child protection
services. Eighteen fathers (22 percent) referred explicitly to "growing up" in the
context of caring for their children. Some fathers reported that playing with their
children helped them to work through the loss of their own childhood.
While it is probably not helpful to understand Indigenous fathers within what
some have called a "deficiency paradigm" (Hawkins and Dollahite 1997), at the
same time, Indigenous fathers' accounts suggest that their challenges should not

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FATHERING IN THE SHADOWS 39
be underestimated. Even though many referred to themselves as "success stories"
relative to other fathers in their communities, some participants were pessimistic
about the future for Indigenous fatherhood in terms of recovering Indigenous
forms of family life and men's roles as teachers, guides, providers, and guardians
of the spiritual life of the family. They pointed to the pervasive abuse of alcohol,
high rates of early school leaving, dependence on income assistance, domestic
violence, and suicide among Indigenous men and the associated large numbers
of Indigenous children raised solely by mothers or by the state.

Learning fathering

Forty-nine fathers (61 percent) focused their interview primarily on experiences

of beginning their involvement with their children and learning to be a father. The
biological fact of becoming a father often did not instigate identification with
fatherhood. Nearly half of the fathers had little or no contact with their firstborn
child. Most were involved with children who came later, usually through a subse-
quent partnership. These patterns contrast sharply with findings of studies involv-
ing European-heritage fathers indicating that the birth of their first child typically
has an immediate, momentous impact (e.g., Palkovitz, Copes, and Woolfolk 2001).
Some fathers explained that when their first child was born, they did not see them-
selves as having the prerequisite qualities being involved fathers.

Back then, I didn't have any communication skills like normal fathers had. The affection
of a loving father-child relationship, like normal fathers have, like kissing your younger
children. I only learned years later, that that was what it takes to love a child. Over the
years, I have learned to love myself. Then I'll be able to learn to love my child. There
was nothing like that when I was growing up in a residential school. Because I was in
residential school until I was eighteen years old, so I really didn't learn anything. No love
and no hugs from the priests or the nuns. I just came out cold.

Many fathers described conditions that catalyzed their initial engagement with
their child, including efforts to improve personal wellness; pressures from part-
ners and other family members; learning to manage relationships with other
adults involved with their children to sustain contact with their children; and the
absence of a child's mother due to her death, disappearance, incarceration or
departure. Bravery was a term used by several fathers as they described needing
time, healing, and social support to "get up the courage to reach out to my kids."

Father-child interactions. A majority of fathers described "what it took" to

learn to be a father through "trial and error" in their interactions with their child:
"learning as I go" and "try to get to know them, and let them get to know me."
"My father was not around, so you have to learn right from the beginning, when
you have a baby sitting right there in front of you and you have to be a dad."
Many fathers explained that, in playful interactions with their children, they
were overcoming shortcomings of their own development as children and
"opening myself up to being able to love them."

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40 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

When I am with my children I am playing, always playing. When I had my first child, it
was the first time I had ever played. Before I went to residential school, I was raised by
my uncle and auntie, and they were always drunk, and I don't have any memory of play-
ing. And in residential school, well they just beat the Jesus out of you, and there was no
playing there. So having my kids, I am making up for lost time I guess.

Role models: fathers. Fathers described actively searching for clues about how
to "do fatherhood." Many emphasized being able to observe other fathers,
including fathers in sitcoms and even in home improvement programs on televi-
sion, as opportunities to learn what to do as a father. Some fathers specifically
pointed to shifting gender roles as a pathway to reconstructing circles of care at
a community level. A few described incidents when they had seen a father taking
good care of their child and learned by watching what they did, or where they
had modeled caring for their child and contributed to social change.

I've actually seen dads pushing their daughters in baby carriages around and I didn't see
that too much before. I can't say that I influenced that but since I've started doing it
here, more people have been doing it. I've actually seen other mothers saying, "Well,
how come he stays home with his daughter and how come you don't do that?" Actually,
it's happening more. Our circle has always been like that with our children. Men and
women and the whole community pitching in to raise our children.

Role models: mothers. Learning how to be fathers from their own mothers or
from their female partner was a theme in 13 percent of fathers' accounts. Most
of these fathers were raised primarily or exclusively by their mothers.

I have fathered the complete opposite to how I was fathered, completely. I learned a lot
from my mother and how she parented, but it is completely opposite from how my
father parented. I have looked at a lot of the good things from my mom and duplicated
that. like reading to him and teaching him about different countries, languages and
stuff. My mom did all of that sort of stuff with us kids.

Direct instruction. Eleven fathers volunteered examples of being told by

their partner or another family member what to do with their baby or young
child. These fathers expressed considerable receptivity to direct instruction. In
responses to a questionnaire about programs that the father would attend if
offered for free in their community, the three most popular program topics were
Understanding Children's Development, Promoting Your Child's Health and
Safety, and Getting Your Child Ready for School. Fathers also identified a need
for information packets and digital media explaining child health; safety; dental
care; teaching techniques for preschoolers; and ways for fathers to handle new
situations with their children, especially with daughters (e.g., bathing, toileting,
leisure time interests, and puberty).

Socioeconomic inclusion

Indigenous men in Canada have the highest unemployment, greatest poverty,

lowest education, highest homelessness, highest mobility, lowest marriage, and

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FATHERING IN THE SHADOWS 41
lowest household incomes among population groups in Canada (Statistics Canada
2006). Fathers in the study who identified poverty as a barrier to fathering and
family well-being attributed this to various government policies and interventions.

We don't have much. We are losing our rights. Whether it be hunting or fishing, we lose
everything. And our people seem to be getting poorer and poorer. There is no end in
sight. Soon as you get a little bit ahead, the government puts up a policy. A never-ending
battle with colonialism.

Socioeconomic exclusion interacts with other factors to produce high rates of

physical and mental illness, suicide, transience, and low self-worth. Fathers who
were living apart from their children variously described how being poor affected
their involvement, for example, being unable to relocate to live near their chil-
dren, being unable to cover transportation costs to visit their children regularly
or at all, and being unable or less inclined to access programs that may be avail-
able for fathers or families.

The poverty and the cultural aspect make it a little harder to access services. Aboriginal
young families, in general, in my own experiences I have found that they are a little more
transient, moving from town to town or house to house. They are not as fixed, regardless
of how many kids they have. And the poverty issue makes for the same hardships as for
non- Aboriginal families who are poor, but culturally Aboriginal families are less apt to
go for services that are not specifically for Aboriginals.

Some fathers in the study described feeling inadequate or ashamed of not being
able to provide a suitable living space, food, clothing, recreation, or entertain-
ment for their children.
Poverty accounts in part for the overrepresentation of Indigenous children in
Canada's child welfare system.4 Compared to other children, Indigenous children
are twice as likely to be removed from family care as a result of neglect rather
than abuse or other concerns (Trocme et al. 2003). Neglect is often a result of
poverty, lack of education, poor parenting skills, and fathers or mothers stress or
illness. In turn, poverty reduces the prospects of fathers' or mothers' being able
to retrieve a child who has been removed from the home and placed in the
protective custody of the government. When a child is removed, former custodial
parents receiving income assistance are cut back to the level for accommodating
a single person, which makes it difficult to provide a suitable home for the return
of the child. When parents are separated, mothers who retain custody of children
and who are poor may be highly transient, making it difficult for a father to find
his children to sustain his relationship with them.
The conditions that characterize many Indigenous fathers' lives have been
identified in research involving non-Indigenous fathers as creating significant
barriers to positive and sustained father involvement (e.g., Roopnarine et al.
1995). Indigenous fathers' elusiveness in their children's lives and in programs for
families tends to be perceived by the Canadian public as indicative of their
indifferent attitudes (Claes and Clifton 1998; Mussell 2005). Yet, these fathers'
narratives challenge racialized stereotypes of Indigenous fathers as constitutionally

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42 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

irresponsible, self-involved, or promiscuous men who do not want to be involved

with their children. Socioeconomic exclusion interacts with lack of positive father
roles models, lack of social support, and low self-esteem to produce a poor
prognosis for positive and sustained involvement with children. At the same time,
perhaps ironically, dislocation from the world of work may also make it more
possible for men to be involved in caring for children.

Social support

Some fathers explained that to sustain contact with their children, they needed
time to learn to manage relationships with their children's mothers, extended
families, foster parents, and family service workers. Only one-quarter of the
fathers reported using any parenting resources, and for most, it was confined to
accessing printed information. However, some fathers identified child care
programs as a support for their parenting role, and six of the nineteen fathers who
participated in feedback sessions claimed that child care programs were the best
access point for father outreach and support initiatives. They also suggested that
parenting programs need to be led by men, preferably Indigenous, who
understand the conditions affecting their involvement in family life.
Many fathers in the study described a bias favoring mothers in home-school
outreach, community programs, and government services. The five fathers in the
study who were raising their children as lone parents described their sense of
being left without help to figure out how to raise their child, whereas they
perceived that there were program and social supports for mothers. Many
investigators have discussed the need to transform the motherhood-first paradigm
that drives a variety of forms of social support for parenting (Rohner and
Veneziano 2001; Hodgins 2007).

Legislation and policy

Fathers described encountering roadblocks to accessing paperwork and notary
services for registering their paternity on children's birth records, accessing legal
advice to establish or enforce shared custody or visitation with a child after
separation or divorce, or accessing treatment services or parenting supports to
meet criteria for the return of a child from government care. Accessing
government documents is more complicated for Indigenous than non-Indigenous
fathers in Canada because of their legal status. The affairs of members of First
Nations fall uniquely under federal rather than provincial jurisdiction. Their
rights are governed by Canada's 1985 Indian Act, which holds them as "children
before the law."5 As such, they enjoy fewer rights, services, and supports, and far
more barriers to accessing information, compared to other Canadians.
For Indigenous fathers, if the mother is non-Indigenous, mothers are typically
given custody. Several fathers who had lost custody of one or more children
expressed their view that: "When you go to court, it doesn't matter what the

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FATHERING IN THE SHADOWS 43
situation is, the courts are always in favor of the women." On a similar note,
among fathers who had limited or no contact with one or more children who
were in government care, many described in various ways their sense of being
intimidated or helpless to establish working relationships with child welfare
workers, to access legal advice, or to manage the transportation and scheduling
required to sustain contact with their child.
Regarding paternity registration, one father described how his pregnant
partner moved from their remote settlement to a town some two hundred
kilometers away to be near medical facilities before the birth of their child. He
was not present to sign the birth record, which is crucial because First Nations
fathers must have their signature on a birth record witnessed to establish
paternity of a First Nations child (Mann 2005). Barriers to registering paternity
that the father identified included lack of funds to have his signature notarized as
required, lack of transportation to complete legal paperwork', and a reluctance to
engage with government bureaucrats over the signing of legal documents - a
practice that historically has not served Indigenous peoples. This fathers account
sheds light on some of the reasons for the much higher rate of nonregistration of
paternity on the birth records of Indigenous compared to non-Indigenous
children in Canada (Clatworthy 2004). Research with non-Indigenous fathers has
shown that fathers who voluntarily register their paternity on their child's birth
record are more likely to provide financial support and to be involved with their
child (Argys and Peters 2001; Bergman and Hobson 2002), even after parents
separate (Mincy, Garfinkel, and Nepomnyaschy 2005). The absence of the
fathers name on birth records has been found to be a risk factor for infant
mortality (Gaudino, Jenkins, and Rochat 1999).

Cultural continuity

The need for a cultural frame around support services for Indigenous fathers
and for positive reflections of Indigenous men in caregiving roles was also found
to be important. Several fathers identified the need for print materials and
programs specifically tailored for Indigenous fathers. Many participants in the
research expressed regrets about not being able to share their cultural and
linguistic heritage with their children.

Knowing about your culture has a huge impact on your parenting because if you have
no knowledge of where you come from or your roots, it leaves a gap in your child's
upbringing, their identity, self-esteem, and self worth.

Jobs that traditionally enabled Indigenous men to constitute culturally authen-

tic father roles as breadwinners and teachers of skills, cultural histories, and
ceremonies are rapidly vanishing. For example, as access to land and jobs in
industries depending on natural resources have diminished, few Indigenous
fathers have the means to take their children out on trap lines, fishing boats, or
hunting grounds.

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44 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

The Aboriginal male, their job title used to be hunting and gathering. They used to have
to hunt and if you weren't hunting or fishing you were preparing to go hunting, fishing,
gathering food, making shelters and doing all those thing. So, that whole thing with the
Europeans coming in and wiping it all out
took away the language, or tried to take the language away. They took the entire role of
the male in the Aboriginal community away so that left a big empty gap for males. They
didn't know what to do, where to go, what to say, when to say it, or anything. They had
to fit in and women had to play another role in telling the male what to do, but the
women kept their jobs. The women looked after the kids; they did all the food prepara-
tions and things like that. That stayed. The women fit in a lot easier than the men I think.
It wasn't easy for women, but they had certain jobs that they were able to do. Whereas
the men, they had to go off, they had to go and learn how to build certain kind of houses
and they had to relearn how to live in society, how to get a wife and what to do as a
husband, as a father and as a member of a community.

A few fathers identified cultural activities and involvement in Native

Friendship Centres and in Aboriginal Head Start programs as culturally safe and
father-friendly avenues to engage with their children and to develop their own
cultural and heritage language knowledge and skills to pass along to their chil-
dren. Some fathers referred to "circles of care" as an important aspect of cultural
renewal, consistent with their historically collectivist communities, in which
deeply intertwined relationships among family members provide a network of
care for children, as opposed to the nuclear unit of care characteristic of Western
European family life.
Thirty-six percent of fathers offered positive forecasts for Indigenous fathers'
involvement, and many viewed it as an important avenue for recovery of
Indigenous peoples' health or Indigenous ways of life following historical
disruptions. "I look at all these young people experiencing that family life, with
fathers involved as much as the rest, and I have such a sense of hope. It means
we're turning things around."

Discussion

Indigenous fathers in Canada remain on the margins of mainstream society

with no previous research or focused social advocacy dedicated to them.
Indigenous children are greatly overrepresented in the child welfare system in
Canada (Ball 2008; National Council of Welfare 2007), while Indigenous fathers
are greatly underrepresented in family life and other normative social institu-
tions in Canada. Indigenous fathers underscored the need for long-term invest-
ments in policy reform and programs to reduce structural, personal, and social
barriers to Indigenous fathers' involvement. Extreme socioeconomic exclusion,
oppression under Canada's Indian Act, and mother-centric biases in parenting
and childcare programs and in child welfare and custody practices no doubt deter
many Indigenous fathers from initiating and sustaining connections with their
children (Ball & George, 2006). The multidimensional conceptual framework
presented here suggests numerous entry points for effecting positive change.
Equitable access to children by Indigenous fathers after separation, divorce, or

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FATHERING IN THE SHADOWS 45
placement of children in foster and adoptive homes requires policy reforms and
funding to implement provisions that may already be articulated.
The current exploratory study uncovered strong motivation on the part of First
Nations and Metis fathers to tell their stories, to be "found" in relationships with
younger and older family members, and to construct pathways toward engaged
and sustained fathering for themselves and for Indigenous peoples collectively.
The large population of Indigenous men who are homeless, incarcerated, and
have other circumstances that typically disrupt father-child relationships also
needs to be considered in developing conceptual models, research, and
interventions that address their experiences, needs, and goals in relation to their
children.

Because of colonial government interventions that placed many of these men

or their parents in residential schools that were rife with abuse, most participating
fathers had no exposure to positive father role models when they were growing
up. Their accounts suggested that they were determined to become effective
fathers and to stay involved with their children in spite of the relative lack of
social or economic support and in the face of legislation, policies and social and
health services that favor mothers. As one father said, "I don't have much support.
Its just me, myself, and I." They described searching for clues about how to
father and how to engage with children anywhere they could find them. Their
stories are reminiscent of the challenges that Daly (1993) found among fathers
who faced a void with respect to identifiable and meaningful father role models.
Indigenous fathers' stories point to the need for investments in programs for
fathers, including social fathers, delivered by fathers, with an initial emphasis on
helping fathers understand what children need and how, concretely and with few
resources, fathers can meet their needs.
Longitudinal qualitative research with a small number of Indigenous fathers
could illuminate different trajectories in response to the births of their children
over time; the interacting effects of fathers, children, and other family members
upon one another; the social and psychological processes that enable men to
develop empathy for children and for their children's mothers in the absence of
a personal experience of an emotionally nurturing family; and fathers' readiness
to participate in different kinds of support programs at different times during
their fatherhood journeys. Research with Indigenous men struggling to
reconstitute fatherhood in the shadow of colonial legacies can shine new light on
pathways that compensate for and repair fault lines in the transmission of positive
father-child bonds across generations, by illuminating and refining our
understandings of ecological factors that promote continuity or change.

Notes

1. The terms Indigenous and Aboriginal are used almost synonymously in Canada to refer to people
who identify themselves as descendents of the original habitants of the land now called Canada. The term
Aboriginal was coined in the 1800s by the Canadian colonial government, leading many people to prefer
the term Indigenous because of its connection to a global advocacy movement of Indigenous peoples who
use this term, notably the Maori in Aotearoa/New Zealand.

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46 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

2. First Nation is a term that can apply both to individuals and to communities. First Nations com-
munities are culturally distinct, federally registered entities composed mostly of Status Indians living on
lands reserved for them by the federal government.
3. "Generations yet to come" is a common saying among First Nations peoples in Canada or, more
completely, "It took seven generations for colonial policies to bring us to the nearly depleted state we are
in today, and it will take seven generations to rebuild our pride, our cultures, and our Nations."
4. Estimates suggest that between 30 to 40 percent of children in government care in Canada are
Indigenous and that there is a greater number of Indigenous children in care today than there was during
the height of the residential schools movement in the 1950s (Ball 2008; National Council of Welfare 2007).
An additional large number of Indigenous children have been permanently placed in adoptive homes.
5. Originally enacted in 1876 by the Parliament of Canada, the current Indian Act governing First
Nations peoples was amended in 1985 to restore Indian status to people who had lost it through various
federal government policies which were recognized as unfair.

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