Weekday mornings S’fiso and his wife take turns bathing, feeding and ressing Nkanyezi, then most days he drops her off at day care on hisway to the office. He telecommutes to work once a week so that he can pend time with Nkanyezi.

S’fiso's involvement with his daughter reflects a trend for fathers to take a more active parenting role than in years past. Michael Lamb, PhD, a Cambridge University social and developmental psychology professor and his colleagues point to psychological research across ethnic groups suggesting that fathers' affection and their increased family involvement help promote children's social and emotional development. In turn, researchers are hoping to change the way therapists and the court system view fathers.

The shift in fathers' roles began, Lamb says, around the time when more women entered the work force. Between 1948 and 2001, the percentage of working-age women employed or looking for work nearly doubled–from less than 33 percent to more than 60 percent–according to the Employment Policy Foundation's Center for Work and Family Balance.

As a result, fathers like S’fiso have assumed roles that were formerly mainly the territory of mothers, Lamb says.
"Formerly, fathers did not tend to be too involved with their children early on," he says. "Their relationships were broadly based only later in their children's lives. Now they've become significant child-care providers from early in their children's lives."

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