‘Fathering’ — a century of change and what endures

From politics and history to deep personal memory, a comprehensive examination of fatherhood in Australia reveals how much has changed and how much remains unchanged. Jim Kable reviews Fatherhood: An Australian History.

PATERNITY IS is a much-needed contribution to parenting literature in Australia, focusing on aspects of fathers and fatherhood. References range from those born in the second half of the 19th century to 2025, the year of publication.

The book includes interviews with Australians about their fathers (both sons and daughters), the men who became fathers in the generations covered, and the fathers of those born here or elsewhere. But the most poignant and moving of the First Australian fathers, their tragedy and triumph over the culturally worst genocidal and racist policies of the colonial era, some would argue, continues to this day.

(Thank you Peter Read And John Maynard(to share their expertise on these topics, among others.)

And towards these days Bluish and his family – and especially his father and his father’s portrayal against Homer The Simpsons or Peppa PigBoth are fathers of bumbling autumn men – and in times of COVID-19 and the latest contemporary iteration of the “new” father (post-Great War of the 1920s) and contemporary “new” fathers “at home” (negotiating parenthood – the who, how and when) in light of government policy and family support or lack thereof.

From Combine Harvester Decision and the “male breadwinner” model, with the introduction of equal pay in 1975 and the abolition of the so-called family wage, income support, childcare and expansion of parental leave, Australia’s policy environment has improved significantly – but mothers still bear the brunt of the costs of parenting, housework and their careers.

Following the acknowledgments and a note on punctuation/first-person narratives is an important introduction and the first of 15 “portraits” distributed throughout the book.

Five chapters follow:

Fatherhood Between the Wars (1919-1939);

Fatherhood in World War II and Postwar Reconstruction (1940-1949);

Fatherhood in Prosperous Times (1950-1972);

Fatherhood in Turbulent Times (1973-1995); And

Fatherhood to the Twenty-First Century 1996-).

It then concludes with a summary and a forward-looking Epilogue. Almost 400 pages. This is followed by a copious and meticulous section of Notes, References and Index, covering another 65 pages.

The book invites the reader to think a lot. Let this reviewer do so, as someone who was born in the final year of Part II, with both my parents born in the middle years of Part I and their parents in the late 19th and early 20th Century.

My beloved maternal grandfather was the second-to-last child of 16 siblings born in rural Kent; his father, then 50 years old, was born in 1843; her mother ten years later. His formal education lasted until the age of 11. After working in the countryside and working on the railways, he arrived in Western Australia in 1912, not quite 19 years old. After living in Wickepin for a year, he decided to return to England, but worked his way through, first coming to Sydney where there was a lot of work, building a green at the Mosman Bowling Club, starting the construction of the new Helensburgh Railway Station and finally working as a flour miller at Botany.

With the outbreak of the Great War, he was unable to enlist until late 1915, when the minimum height limit was abolished and he served with the AIF in France and Flanders. She suffered near-inevitable gunshot wounds (GSW) and shrapnel wounds and was sent back to her lover and marriage in Sydney in late 1917, where the child died in childbirth a day later.

He later met my grandmother, whose mother died of tuberculosis before he was three in 1905, and his father (who came from a cattle and dairy pioneer family from 1860s Fiji) when he was seven; He was later brought up in Camperdown/Newtown by one of his mother’s sisters and her husband, a shopkeeper, until his marriage. My mother was the third child and first daughter of eight children.

She has become a mother of sorts to her young children herself, and speaks of frequently missing school to stay home and help her asthmatic mother. In fact, at the age of 14, his father took him out of school and went to Domestic Service at his boss’s house, despite his teacher begging his parents to be allowed to stay at school.

He would just keep getting married. This was his destiny. His father’s logic. Later there were some jobs in restaurants around town, but after her marriage, two children, and her widowhood at 21, cleaning and housework became her source of income, especially beyond the compensation case and her remarriage to a man who eventually became just my war-torn, overbearing stepfather.

But when I was in my 50s, my mother told me that my extremely dark-skinned, handsome father—unusually for the time—was going to carry me and refused to hand me over to any of the aunties who were screaming to pick me up. He would say I was his. I didn’t take my first steps until I was 16 months old, my little brother was one month old then.

I was hoping my dad would pick me up. And then he left. His father was the seventh of nine; The two older siblings had passed away in Cobar in the mid-1880s. He was born in 1890 in what would soon become Parkes. A little man. Those who read between the lines of family stories show that older siblings were bullied.

His own father had lost his mother before he was one year old, he was the 15th and last child and was born and raised by an older brother and a wife, yet his father had died when he was six. In 1916, he joined the military again after the minimum height requirement was abolished; He was only five feet tall. He met his wife during treatment at GSW, where he was teaching in the Scottish Borders. They married just before he was repatriated; He followed her to Australia by May 1919.

Their child, my father, was the youngest of fraternal twins; Their birth in 1927 resulted in a total of six siblings. Although my maternal grandfather was a man who set the law of parenting as he understood it, he was loved by his children and even his grandchildren and lived to be 91 years old. Just like my grandmother.

And I stayed with them when I finished primary school when I was 11, and again on my first annual holiday when I was at university at 17. And I listened to or otherwise engaged in some of their stories. It was this grandmother, with my grandfather’s support, who sent me a number of encyclopedias, classic literature, and a world atlas to encourage my educational success.

When I was 11 years old, I stayed with my grandmother and grandfather. Both grandparents were pretty close neighbors at the time. My Scottish grandmother began telling me stories about my father and his famous ancestral connections, and my grandfather joined in with his tales. And although he had me help him in his vegetable gardens in a nearby shady valley, he was also pinching and twisting my upper arm for no reason I could discern. Somehow I knew I shouldn’t have reacted. What was it about? I have no idea, but years later when I told my mother about this, she said she saw him do the same thing to his wife at the dinner table.

My Scottish grandmother pretended not to notice either. There were stories from his twin sister that their father would beat my father, another little boy, and my grandmother too if he intervened. His war neurosis would see him playing the spirited, mournful harmonica and embarking on gold-digging expeditions across the central west of NSW. At that time and the period in the NT during the Second World War his family in Sydney were considered their happiest, his presence clearly creates a lot of stress and tension.

I have taught at all levels in Japan for many years. From age 40 or so until my retirement at age 60. In our first “Getting to Know You” lessons, one of the first questions new classes ask is always “How many children do you have?”

Now I think back and am amazed that I immediately knew how to answer this way: “Well… there were three! A girl and (fraternity) twin boys. All three were stillborn prematurely.”

When the meaning was realized, there were sad faces everywhere. How do we save the moment? “But my wife and I have some nieces and nephews. And a few of my godchildren (explanations of these terms), as well as all my former students in Australia and here in Japan – including all of you. You are “my” children (their own parents are not excluded either), my pedagogical children.”

My little brother had two children. I observe his son with his two young children, whom he shares with their mother, his former partner. He keeps the boys for half the week, roughly after school on Friday until Monday morning; The time he can take them during school holidays may vary. He is very much “with them”: visits the local animal shelter or sports practices, does school interviews, and enjoys a very easygoing relationship with them. They are preparing their meals. Reading to them before bed. I saw no drama or tantrums during my visits. I was very impressed.

And of course, there’s also the opportunity for me to be a mentor. My 77th birthday is next month. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t communicate with one of my students, our godchildren on this side of the equator or the other, or others.

My childhood mentor was my mother’s long-term employer, and his birthday coincidentally happened to be the same as mine. And the one who seriously cares about me, my school reports, and my future. Letters and gifts, books and stamps that warned me about the world were also part of it. And he left right around the time I turned 18. Suddenly. Never forgotten.

Thank you University of Melbourne Press and its writers Paternity For the opportunity to read this beautiful book and to think deeply about the various ways fatherhood exists now and can emerge.

Fatherhood: An Australian History Alistair Thomson, john murphy, Kate Murphy, Johnny Bell And Jill Barnard published by University of Melbourne Press.

This book was reviewed by an IA Book Club member. If you want to buy free get high quality books and your review It was published On IA, subscribe to receive your email free IA Book Club membership.

Jim Kable is a retired teacher who taught in rural and metropolitan areas of NSW, in Europe and later for extended periods in Japan.

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