Time spent together: through children’s and fathers’ eyes

Fathers’ positive involvement in their children’s lives is linked to their greater academic, social, and emotional prowess, as well as fathers’ own well-being. In our study set in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), we report a mixed-methods study in which children aged between five and eight years (n = 41) were asked to draw a picture showing how they spent time with their father when he came home from work, triangulated with fathers’ (n = 49) own accounts of how they spent time with their children. We present data which suggests a picture of high levels of paternal involvement, particularly with recreational or ‘fun’ activities and less so with more banal, care-related aspects of childcare. The drawings showed strong evidence of positive attachments between father and child, and a high frequency of outdoor and leisure activities depicted. The fathers’ interview data corroborated this, but also frequently mentioned key roles in supervising educational activities which were not represented in the drawings. Several drawings contained symbols of their fathers’ working lives (such as laptops, briefcases, work attire) suggesting that the delineation between work and home was not always clear. The positive attachments and pleasure indicated underline that fathers, as well as mothers, act as nurturers and care-givers, and serve to remind employers to be mindful of fathers’ work-life balance.