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Nsamenang, A. BameFathers, Families, & Child Well-Being in Cameroon: A Reviewof the Literature.Pennsylvania Univ., Philadelphia. National Center on Fathersand Families.Annie E. Casey Foundation, Baltimore, MD.2000-07-0019p.National Center on Fathers and Families, University ofPennsylvania, Graduate School of Education, 3700 WalnutStreet, Box 58, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6216. Tel:215-573-5500; Fax: 215-573-5508; e-mail:[email protected]. For full text:http://www.ncoff.gse.upenn.edu.Information Analyses (070)MF01/PC01 Plus Postage.*Children; *Cultural Influences; *Fathers; ForeignCountries; *Parent Child Relationship; Parent Influence;Parent Responsibility; Parent Role; Sex Differences; *WellBeingCameroon; Division of Labor (Household)

This review discusses fatherhood in Cameroon in the contextof anthropological, sociological, and psychological literature. With a focuson the family, the review examines the image and role of the father, thedivision of labor by gender, and the changing value of the Cameroonianfather. The review notes that Cameroonian culture assigns the bulk of familysubsistence work to women and siblings. While this culture sanctions thefather's authority over the family and its resources, it fails to specify hischild care role. Evidence for the effects of father presence on children ispreliminary, and considerable work remains to be done. (Contains 30references.) (Author/KB)

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Fathers, Families, & ChildWell-Being in Cameroon:A Review of the Literature

A. Bame Nsamenang, Ph.D.Human Development Resource

Center (HDRC),Bamenda, Cameroon

National Center onFathers and Families

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONOffice of Educational Research and Improvement

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1

National Center on Fathers and Families

NATIONAL CENTER ON FATHERS AND FAMILIES

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA,

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

3700 WALNUT STREET, Box 58PHILADELPHIA, PA 1 91 04 -621 6

BEST COPY AVAILABLE

Fathers, Families, & ChildWell-Being in Cameroon:A Review of the Literature

July 2000

by

A. Bame Nsamenang, Ph.D.Human Development Resource

Center (HDRC),Bamenda, Cameroon

National Center onFathers and Families

The opinions expressed in this paper are those ofthe author and do not necessarily reflect the opinionthe Human Development Resource Centre (HDRC),

MCNational Center on Fathers and Families

Graduate School of EducationUniversity of Pennsylvania3700 Walnut Street, Box 58Philadelphia, PA 19104-6216

Telephone: 215.573.5500Fax: 215.573.5508Httpi /www.ncoff.gse.upenn.eduE-mail: [email protected]

Director: Vivian L. Gadsden, Ph.D.

3

PREFACE

Not since the 1960s and 1970swhen research in the field was at a peakhave familyissues captured as much attention or sparked as much wide-scale debate as they have inrecent years. Casting its net to address a variety of problems that fall outside the typicaldomains of psychology and sociology (where much of the early work was located), re-search on families is part of a growing interdisciplinary focus which is no longer simplyimplicated in questions about family development. Rather, the present interdisciplinaryfocus of the field attempts to respond to massive changes in the needs, structures, povertylevels, and formation patterns of families and the policies that are designed to remedy theincreasingly complex problems they face.

A significant and compelling part of research on families over the past 20 years ex-plores the impact of father involvement and father absence on children's developmentand complements much of the existing research on issues in other arease.g., female-headed households, poverty, social welfare, and public policy. In particular, the potentialimpact of family support legislation, national welfare reform agendas, and persistent sys-temic problems at local and state levels lend a sense of urgency to the research discussionabout father participation in families. What is noticeably lacking in these discussions, how-ever, is a focus on programs that serve fathers and families and the voices of practitioners.

The issues defining and surrounding research and practice on fathers and families arecomplex. Nested in each issue are multiple layers of questions about the problems facingyoung fathers, mothers, and families; the needs of programs and the practitioners whowork in them; changes in national, state, and local policies; and the nature of the tasksfacing society. Although there is substantial discussion about the impact of father absence,research studies provide only modest evidence for the negative consequences of fatherabsence on children and typically attribute these negative effects to reduced family in-come resulting from separation or divorce. There are only sparse data on families thatdeviate from "traditional, intact" family forms such as families headed by adolescent oryoung, adult never-married, and/or poor mothers. Research on families of color, outsideof poverty studies, is still conspicuously meager in the knowledge base.

The work of the National Center on Fathers and Families (NCOFF) uses the strengthsand voids in these research discussions as a launching pad to develop a framework forresearch, practice, and policyto promote the building of a field in which the needs ofchildren and families are the core of the discourse and research and practice cohere tocraft the language and activities associated with that discourse. NCOFF aims to bringtogether these issues within a research and collaborative effort on behalf of children andtheir families.

Established in July 1994 with core funding from The Annie E. Casey Foundation,NCOFF's mission is to improve the life chances of children and the efficacy of families by

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Fathers, Families & Child Well-Being in Cameroon: A Review of the Literature

facilitating the effective involvement of fathers. Developed in the spirit of the Philadel-phia Children's Network's (PCN) motto, "Help the children. Fix the system.", NCOFFseeks to increase and enrich the possibilities for children, ensuring that they are helpedand that the system allows for and encourages the participation of fathers in their children'slives. NCOFF shares with PCN and other field activities the premises that children needloving, nurturing families; that mothers and families in general need to be supported inproviding nurturance; and that family support efforts should increase the ability of bothparents and adults within and outside the biological family to contribute to children'sdevelopment and well-being.

NCOFF's mission is developed around seven Core Learnings. The Core Learningsprovide the context for NCOFF's research agenda. This research agenda is intended tosupport the field in the development, conduct, and advancement of research, practice,and responsive policies. Research activities are designed to synthesize work from mul-tiple disciplines, provide current analyses, and examine emerging conceptualizations inthe field. In this and all of its work, NCOFF recognizes that the scope of need in the fieldrequires a variety of approaches and the commitment and collective effort of differentcommunities.

This Monograph is intended to highlight critical and emerging topics in the field thathave received minimal attention and that complement issues identified in the NCOFFFather Lit Database, Briefs, critical literature reviews, and research reports. The Databasecombines citation lists, annotated bibliographies, and abstracts of research articles, re-ports, and volumes that focus on issues implied in the Core Learnings. All NCOFF docu-ments are written and reviewed by scholars representing multiple disciplines and researchinterests in fathers and families. Information about the NCOFF Database, the literaturereviews and analyses, working papers, and other NCOFF documents and activities is cur-rently available through our website.

Embedded in NCOFF's mission is a vision in which fathers, families, and communi-ties are positioned to ensure the well-being of children and are able to translate their hopeand the possibilities that accompany that hope into human and social prosperity. A well-coordinated national effort on fathers and families will give support and a collective voiceto programs, encourage research, and contribute to responsive policy formulation. Such avehicle would provide the appropriate context for experience-sharing among researchers,practitioners, and policymakers; identification of basic research, program, and policy-re-lated issues; surfacing of new research issues; and increased opportunities for communi-cation, cooperation, and collaboration.

Vivian L. GadsdenDirector


tit

SEVEN CORE LERRNINGS

Fathers care even if that caring is not shown in conventional ways.

Father presence matters in terms of economic well-being, social support, and childdevelopment.

Joblessness is a major impediment to family formation and father involvement.

Existing approaches to public benefits, child support enforcement, and paternity estab-lishment operate to create systemic obstacles and disincentives to father involvement.The disincentives are sufficiently compelling as to have prompted the emergence of aphenomenon dubbed "underground fathers"men who acknowledge paternity andare involved in the lives of their children but who refuse to participate as fathers inthe formal systems.

A growing number of young fathers and mothers need additional support todevelop the vital skills to share the responsibility for parenting.

The transition from biological father to committed parent has significantdevelopmental implications for young fathers.

The behaviors of young parents, both fathers and mothers, are influenced signifi-cantly by intergenerational beliefs and practices within families of origin.

The seven Core Learnings are at the heart of NCOFF's agenda for research, practice,and policy and are a framework for the field. They represent the knowledge and expe-rience of practitioners who confront complex problems facing fathers and families andare consistent with research across multiple disciplines. They offer an important lensthrough which policymakers might learn more about the implications and impact oflegislation and policy decisions on the lives of large numbers of fathers, mothers, chil-dren, and families. Within them are captured salient issues experienced and felt deeplyby a range of fathers and familiesfrom those who are financially secure to those whoare the most vulnerable to poverty and hardship.

The Core Learnings were identified immediately prior to NCOFF's inception by front-line practitioners in a series of survey and focus group activities conducted by the Phila-delphia Children's Network and NCOFF. Formulated first as seven hypotheses drawnfrom practitioners' experiences in programs serving fathers and families, each hypoth-esis was tested against existing published research and policy studies. As each hypoth-esis was borne out in the literature, it became a Core Learning. A library of informationwas developed for each. The resultant seven libraries now constitute the NCOFFFather Lit Database and include over 8,000 citations, annotations, and abstracts of re-search, available online via the Internet and on CD-ROM.

6CISMI*LIX000111001001.1110,01001V


iv

National Center on Fathers and Families

FATHERS, FAMILIES, & CHILD WELL-BEING:A Review of the Literature

byA. Bame Nsamenang, Ph.D.

Human Development Resource Centre (HDRC), Bamenda, Cameroon

©2000 National Center on Fathers and Families

Abstract

This review discusses fatherhood in Cameroon in the context ofanthropological, sociological, and psychological literature. With a focus on thefamily, the paper examines the image and role of the father, the division of labor bygender, and the changing value of the Cameroonian father. Cameroonian cultureassigns the bulk of family subsistence work to women and siblings. While itsanctions the father's authority over the family and its resources, it fails to specifyhis childcare role. Evidence for the effects of father presence on children ispreliminary, and considerable work remains to be done.

7

i..1.i=KR1:..


FATHERS, FAMILIES, & CHILD WELL-BEING IN CAMEROON:

A Review of the Literature

by A. Bame Nsamenang, Ph.D.

The purpose of this review is toreconstruct the image and role of thefather in the context of the

Cameroonian family from scanty anthropological,sociological, clinical and impressionistic literature.It is an attempt to paint the image and role of theCameroonian father in family and childdevelopment in the language of current scientificthinking on fatherhood. Relative to European andAmerican research, this is a small-scale review, anoverview of the diverse images of fatherhood thatare underrepresented in the literature. It is clearthat the cultural imperatives and ethnotheoriesthat pertain to family life and the paternal role inCameroon are structured by worldviews andepistemologies that differ remarkably from theEuro-American versions that frame contemporaryfathering research. The paper also endeavors tocraft an agenda for future fathering research inCameroon in anticipation of cross-nationalcollaboration. Although the primary focus of thepaper is on fathers, it does not exclude mothers,because "To consider the status of either sexwithout reference to the other is to distort thereality we are trying to understand" (Fortes, 1950,p. 363).

African fathers in general, and Cameroonianfathers in particular, have had little opportunityto be heard by researchers. By contrast, NorthAmerican and Western European fathers havebeen studied extensively. The image of the Euro-American father as sensitive, involved andnurturant (e.g., Fleck, 1984; Lamb, 1987) hasbecome a "universal" yardstick against which allother images of the father must be compared.Thus, a Eurocentric image of the father has becomethe basis for public policy on family and childwelfare. This image and the policy guidelines itengenders have been imported uncritically toCameroon and other sub-Saharan countries.However, the variety of views on parenting in thescientific literature are not always in agreementwith the values or reality in Cameroon (Goodnow,

1988; Maccoby & Martin, 1983). Given that theliterature reviewed here has been presentedlargely from a Western perspective, the image offatherhood in Cameroon on its own terms remainsto be charted.

The traditional childcare role of theCameroonian father is nonspecific and notroutinized, whereas the mother's is to keep thehome, perform other domestic tasks and, moreimportantly, to oversee and supervise siblingcaregiving rather than provide direct childcareherself (Nsamenang, 1992c, p. 426). Thus, theextent of child-to-child caretaking and thesocialization of children by other children inCameroon is substantial far more extensive andperhaps developmentally more critical than directmaternal or paternal care. The extent to whichcurrent Eurocentric theorizing captures thepeculiarities of this type of childcare isundoubtedly negligible.

The theoretical anchor-point of this review isthat parenting always occurs in a specificecoculture, defined by geography, history, and thesociocultural system (Nsamenang & Lamb, 1994).Whereas physical environments and the socialfield provide culturally meaningful experiencesto parents, the cultural system offers parents theideas and scripts that permit and foster theenactment of the parental role. Parents derive theirideas and values from folk wisdom, ontogeneticexperience, and expert knowledge (literature andprofessional persons) (Harkness, Super, & Keefer,1992). The "directive force" of these sources ofideas and values varies across individuals andsocieties, depending on such background factorsas worldview, social history, education, religion,and place of residence (e.g., Nsamenang & Lamb,1994), thereby fostering different roles and rolechanges for fathers over time and across societies.Cultures express the value of the family throughthe manner in which procreation and child rearingare inserted into family life (Nsamenang, 1996).

Fathers, Families & Child Well-Being in meroon: A Review of the Literature

1

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To a certain extent, the parental role is theformal expression of the function of the family(Bernard van Leer Foundation, 1984). Accordingto Kessel (1995), family contexts are often veryimportant in determining what is normal andwhat facilitates and/or hampers effectiveparenting. The work of Hewlett, Shannon, Lamb,Leyendecker, & Scholmerich (1998) andNsamenang (1992a, 1992b; Nsamenang & Lamb,1993, 1994) identifies some of the conduits bywhich context influences parenting behaviors. Thechild, the parent, and the social and culturalcontext constantly interact with and, therefore,influence each other. Scarr (1985) argued cogentlythat facts do not have an independent existencebecause the human mind is constructed in aspecific cultural context. Thus, a "parentalidentity" (Goodnow, 1988, p. 289) is created, atleast in part, by the cultural [family] context inwhich parents come to know their roles.Consequently, during ontogeny, Cameroonianmales and females develop "a sense of groupmembership that carries with it some obligationto acquire the kinds of ideas and knowledgeappropriate to being a mother or father"Goodnow, 1988, p. 289).

While there is not a solid body of research thatcovers the range of issues the scientific literaturehas associated with fathers, some themes that areconsistent with trends in the literature arediscernible from the scanty available evidence.This review is organized according to these trendsin the literature. My first focus is on the familybecause, as a basic societal unit, the familyconstitutes an appropriate framework withinwhich to better understand the parental role.

THE FATHER IN THE FAMILY CONTEXT

rT1 he family has been universallyacknowledged as a natural unit of society

and en primary responsibility for thedevelo ment and well-being of individuals,especially the nurturing and protection ofchildren. The world has not yet discovered a bettersystem to replace the family in this role. Thus, in1989, the United Nations Convention on the Rightsof the Child emphatically stated that the child, forthe full and harmonious development of his or her

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personality, should grow up in a family unit. Thefamily is still the most natural environment forhuman development and is likely to remain so. Itis, however, important not to over-idealize thefamily, at least in its assumed traditional stableform, since it now seems to be in crisis, as can beseen from statistics worldwide (Bernard van LeerFoundation, 1984). For instance, "In the familysystem of every human society, incompletefamilies emerge due to various reasons -demographic, economic or social: such as thedeath or divorce of a spouse, partition of thefamily, or migration" (UNESCO, 1991, P. 11). Inthe case of sub-Saharan Africa, the extendedfamily, while it still exerts considerable influence,is increasingly losing control over individualwelfare and family security (Fafunwa, 1980).Broadly perceived, the family is a social institutionof two or more persons united by either biological,jural, affiliative, adoptive, or consensual ties(Desai, 1994). Family relationships and householdcomposition vary widely across societies, but inWestern cultures nuclear families predominate.The dominant family pattern in Cameroon is theextended or joint family. Although descent ismainly patr eal, there are a few matrilineal


3

cultures, like the Kom, and most people maintainclose ties to their maternal relatives. Fundamentaldifferences in the paternal role and in father-childinteractions are to be expected between societieswith matrilineal and patrilineal socialization aswell as among industrial, urban, and ruralagrarian societies (Greene, Hearn, & Emig, 1996).

In most societies, the ideal way to have healthyand socially connected children is to limitprocreation to the marital couple (Feldman-Savelsberg, 1994). In Cameroon, the payment ofprestation (a dowery payment) legalizes themarriage contract and establishes a husband'spaternity rights. Accordingly, a man who has notpaid prestation on a woman forfeits any claim onchildren born to her (Nsamenang, 1987a).Children born to a woman whose prestation hasnot been paid belong to the woman's family oforigin. The marriage contract ramifiesrelationships beyond the two spouses to theirfamilies and sometimes to their communities. Theman and his wife or wives usually are not the onlyadult members of the household. Adult relativesand friends are sometimes part of the household.In some cases, a man's or woman's children froma previous marriage, pre-marital relationship, orso-called outside partner are also bona fidemembers of the household (Ellis, 1978). Besidesthe biological offspring, some households alsoshelter children of relatives (Hake, 1972). Whenall the children are added to the adult members ofthe household, a picture of a very large familyemerges. The number of children per West Africanhousehold ranges from 4.5 in Cameroon to 7.0 inmost countries of the region (Ware, 1983). Becausefamily sentiment is passionate, isolated nuclearfamilies are rare. In extended or joint families,children are exposed to multiple adult figures, butin nuclear families, they have a limited set of adultand sibling models. However, the number ofsingle parent (mother-only, and less often, father-only) families, and families with teenage fathersis increasing.

By birth and marriage, Cameroonian fathersand mothers become members of extensive socialnetworks in which kin and supportive friends andneighbors endeavor to promote a sense ofcommunity. The language expressing social valuesand role expectations is not merely rhetorical butmorally obligatory, instructing family members tobehave and act according to cultural scripts

(Nsamenang, 1992a). Children do not belongsolely to their biological parents. Kinsmen areexpected to be interested and to take responsibilityfor the care of the children of relatives. They maybe subjected to pressure and sanctions, at least theloss of face and the emotional discomfort of nottruly belonging to the group, if they depart toowidely from the expected roles (Nsamenang,1989b). In other words, social values anticipatemutual and supportive fellowship involvingcooperation in raising children and promotingpersonal welfare and the security of persons andproperty (Nsamenang, 1989a). The availability ofsurrogate fathers in this type of social networkprobably renders father absence less traumaticthan in social systems in which this type of supportdoes not exist.

Although the communitarian spirit and theextended family still thrive, in urban settingsdistant kin are less often part of the householdtoday than during previous times. However,individuals still maintain contact with a fairlywide circle of kin so that complete isolation ofnuclear families is very rare indeed. Most citydwellers still keep some contact with extendedmembers of their families in the rural world. Forexample, a survey of Nso families (Nsamenang,1992a) revealed that 46% of households wereextended, thus casting some doubt on the sensein the literature of the ubiquity of extendedhouseholds in traditional West African societies.With only 32.6% of rural families against 60.8% ofurban families housing extended members, theextended household system appears to be moreof an urban than a rural phenomenon. This trendis consistent with the increasing rate of ruralexodus. The stress inherent in urban life, thescarcity of bed space and the need for supportivefellowship in such circumstances induce many aCameroonian moving into the city to live in thevicinity of kinsmen. One of the most dramaticchanges in family life is in sleeping arrangements.Many mothers, fathers and children now sleep inthe same house and some mothers and fathersshare the same bed, but in previous times theyslept in separate houses or huts. These changeshave important consequences, albeit uncharted,for all members of the family, whether fathers,mothers or children, but they are more adverselyfelt by children (Nsamenang, 1992a).


4

Although the basic forms and functions of thefamily have survived across millennia of historyand cultural evolution, they now co-exist,sometimes competing, with the multiple imagesfrom "modernity" (Nsamenang, 1998),particularly in urban centers. The fact that someof the strands that make up the traditional socialnet have not disappeared bears witness to theability of the indigenous system to remain flexiblyrecalcitrant in the face of the modifying influencesof modernity (Goheen, 1996). In a certain sense,the indigenous system is adjusting to rather thanbeing replaced by Westernization, as is commonlyassumed. Both the continuities and changes arerelated to the ways in which men, women, andchildren are coping with the existential demandson family life and the parental role (Nsamenang,1992a). The benefit or curse of social flux and rolechanges has not been uniform throughoutCameroon. Various communities and regions didnot and still do not have the same family structureand patterns of parental roles and did not react toor are not reacting in the same way nor reflect thesame attitudes to the changes. Have the changesaffected the image of the father?

.91,117.

THE IMAGE OF THE FATHER

ameroon, like most sub-Saharan Africa,is a male-dominated society that puts

women in a subordinate position to men, althoughsome communities reserve some leadershipstatuses, like the queen mother and the queen offertility, to women. But in some domains of life,men and women are eligible for the same kinds ofpositions, as in prophecy, divination, andindigenous medicine (Nsamenang, 1987a). Mostwomen's decisions, however, affect mainly thewomenfolk and the resources they control,whereas most men's decisions bind both men andwomen and the entire society. The father'sposition in the community largely determines thesocial status and lifestyle of his family; his successaccords to his wife and children their primarystatus and prestige (Nsamenang, 1987a). Thetraditional father filters societal values andexpectations to the family by "covering" membersof his family and acting "in spatial and socialrealms outside the kitchen" of his wife (Feldman-Savelsberg, 1994). He is also the one person who

sets and enforces standards of behavior andcontrols family decision-making, including filialmarital choices. The father assumes a crucial rolein problem solving and protection of the familyby exercising a moderating influence on familyinteractions with the external world. He isexpected to be the first person to be consulted orinformed of any trouble or major change in achild's life. He can, and often does, call on hischildren for assistance at any time and can evenintervene, without being seen to be intruding, inthe affairs of a married child, particularly his son(Nsamenang, 1992a).

The emergent cultural image of the father isthat of an esteemed member of the society; theacknowledged head and focal authority of thefamily. Tchombe's (1993) intergenerational studyshows that the power structure of theCameroonian family varies according to whetherthe family is nuclear, polygynous, or single parent.Nevertheless, culture backs the father's authorityand permits him to literally dominate thepersonalities of members of the family. A typicalCameroonian father exerts considerable influenceand wields enormous control over familyresources and is expected to control what happenswithin the family, to the extent of deciding whetheror not his wife or children should engage inactivities outside the home (Nsamenang, 1987a).Any deviation from the expectation threatens aman's status, giving him the leeway to handlechallenges to his authority as insurrections. Inprinciple, the father's authority continues beyonddeath (Nsamenang, 1989a) because the ancestorsare believed to influence the living long after death(Ellis, 1978; Goheen, 1996). The objective of thefather's authority, however, has never been toindulge in self-gratification, but rather to promotethe welfare of the family and the best interest ofchildren, although blissful ignorance sometimesthwarts some of his best intentions. In previoustimes, a father could forbid his erring wife everto see his children (Green, 1976). But today the dueprocess of law is expected to determine thecustody of children in favor of the child's bestinterest. As far as this process is concerned, if inthe past the father's rights were upheld, thenjustice was thought to be done. But today, the lawis concerned with the rights of everyone - men,women, and children.

Fathers, Families & Child Well-Being in Cameroon A Review of the Literature

The primary responsibility of a man's wifewas, and in large measure continues to be, to bearhim children (especially males). Men have a greatdesire to father many children. It is believed thata childless man has wasted his life, and thereforemen are especially anxious to father children. Asa result, Cameroonian men would prefer to die inpoverty and be survived by children than to diechildless but rich (Nsamenang & Loasebikan,1981). For Cameroonians, to leave no heirs is theworst calamity that could befall a man (Jahn, 1961).

Culture acknowledges and sanctions theauthority of the father over his family, but fails tospecify a routine childcare role for him. Theapparent scientific neglect and/or devaluation ofthe role of the Cameroonian father in family lifeand the development of children stands in sharpcontrast to the social visibility and high esteemaccorded the father in the culture.

DIVISION OF LABOR

Tn traditional Cameroon, the conjugal pairis a productive socioeconomic unit in which

men and women play different butcomplementary roles (Nsamenang, 1987a).Children are acknowledged participants in thefamily subsistence activities, organized such thata horizontal distribution of work by gender iscombined with a vertical distribution betweenadults and the young (Boserup 1970). The divisionvaries greatly among different populations, fromthe foragers (hunter-gatherers) of the southeasternrainforest, through the farming peoples of theinterior plateaus, and nomadic herders in the farnorth, to the consumer populations in city slums.Men and women do farm work under differentconstraints and have differential access toresources (Boserup, 1970). It is therefore morereasonable to conceive of a traditional farmer notas an individual male or female but as a man andwoman in a symbiotic farming relationship (Hill,1978). While men and women in somecommunities contribute equally to subsistence, inmost societies women produce the bulk of foodcrops and provision the household. Agriculturalcrops are gendered and "male restrictions onfemale mobility structure access to the market inways which shift the business advantage to men"(Turrittin, 1988, p. 583).

When men, women, and children workedtogether for family subsistence, family memberswere close to each other and children had a clearpicture of their parents' lives. Traditionaleducation kept children in contact with parents,their social context and the activities of daily life(Encyclopedie de la Republique unie duCameroun, 1981), permitting them to learn fromtheir parents' interactions how to develop anidentity as a husband/father or wife/mother. Butas today's parents have one foot at home and theother outside the home, many children find itdifficult to develop a comprehensive image of theirparents. This is made worse by the fact thatparents do not necessarily have to organize theirfamilies to depend entirely on family productivityto satisfy basic needs; they may purchase therequisite goods and services with earnings frompaid employment or the sale of crafts and produce.As many of the skills needed for functionalcitizenship are learned within the context ofinstitutional education, most children are nolonger assigned to a life work and trained for itby parents or mentors. The implication of all thisis that children and parents are spending longerperiods of time away from each other. Of course,this modern lifestyle exerts a heavy toll on familymembers, particularly the children. For instance,children's participation in intimate familyinteraction, especially with their fathers, has beendrastically curtailed.

In the old gender division of labor, only men'swork was considered suitable to be paid.Although most women, particularly ruralmothers, worked longer hours in food productionand domestic labor and engaged in more physicallabor than men (Ware, 1983), their work was notdefined as labor that could be paid. But today,women are increasingly being drawn inunprecedented numbers out of the home andfarms into the world of paid work. Some womenhave even taken up occupations that were oncereserved for men. The participation of both menand women in the paid labor force has wroughtsignificant changes in family life, particularly inthe image and role of the father. The father isincreasingly becoming simply one of the familyinstead of its undoubted head and focal authority.Father's authority is still considerable,nevertheless, but his powers are eroding rapidlyas other members of the family are gaining instatus and independence by virtue of personal

Fathers, Families & Child eing in Cameroon: A Review of the Literature

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achievements. As many of today's children mayincreasingly be in possession of "the power ofknowledge in the face of their parents'helplessness" (Feldman-Savelsberg, 1994, p. 469),fathers are finding it difficult to act as guides andcompanions to their children. The role of thehusband as protector has also declined. Forexample, if a wife is threatened or attacked shemay resort to the security service rather thandepend on her husband (who may actually be theaggressor). The father's resources are no longerthe sole means for family survival because somewomen are now earning higher incomes or haveaccess to better resources than their husbands(Nsamenang, 1987a). Because tradition places theresponsibility to feed the family on the mother,the Bangante (a Bamileke kingdom in theGrassfields of Cameroon), like the Cameroonianfather (Feldman-Savelsberg, 1994), is not and hasnever really been the sole provider. As a result,mothers, especially in polygamous homes, do notexpect to be totally maintained by their husbands.Instead, they find independent ways to supportthemselves and their children (Nsamenang,1992a). It is not that Cameroonian men areuninterested in the welfare of their families. Ratherthey are not traditionally held responsible for thefamily's daily food security (Goheen 1989).

THE PATERNAL ROLE

Family patterns and the ways in whichcultures specify the roles of men and

women show a great deal of variability which, inturn, introduces variation in patterns of motheringand fathering. The welfare of African childrendepends on the niches in which they live ratherthan solely on their parents. Cameroonianchildren occupy a wide variety of ecoculturalniches that are high on mutual support but lowon centrally organized social security services. Aminority of the children grow up as members ofthe modern city elite, while the vast majorityinhabit urban squatter settlements and ruralpeasant communities. The risk of mortality duringchildhood is considerable for a number of political,climatic, and economic reasons (Nsamenang &Dawes, 1998). Many deaths are caused bymalnutrition and a lack of immunization andhealth care facilities (Nsamenang, 1992a). Many

children do not complete primary school, andmany fail due to the psychological consequencesof malnutrition and the adverse conditions of theschools themselves. Frequently the demand onchildren's labor does not mesh well with schoolingbased on European timetables (Serpell, 1993). Thisresults in a conflict of interest between thedemands of schooling and those of familysurvival. Patterns of schooling also reflect thegender divisions of Cameroonian communities.For instance, whereas 44.9% of males and 37.3%of females receive primary education, only 14.6%of males and 8.9% of females receive secondaryeducation. Amain reason for this is that girls beara heavier burden of both the household activitiesand the care of siblings than boys (Nsamenang,1992c).

Fathers play a critical role in childhood niches,not so much in the direct care of children, but morethrough the influence they exert on the niches,even when absent. Fathers are an important linkbetween children and the social network of kinand neighbors, a group whose importance isreflected in the care of the child growing up in asociological field of kin. In this field, fathers andmothers play different roles in educating andsocializing children. The educational andsocializing roles of fathers center mainly on theirstatus and activities as the central authority of thefamily, the family's life-line to the world outsidethe home, and the family's economic support andprotector (Nsamenang, 1987a). The principal roleof mothers revolves around societal reproductioncomprising childcare, home keeping, foodproduction and feeding the family. Mothers areresponsible for uninterrupted care of andattachment to children, particularly infants.Although mothers make most routine decisionsconcerning childcare and domestic chores, theydefer major family decisions such as children'seducation and use of resources to their husbands.Mothers tend to handle minor discipline problemsmore often than do fathers because of their greateravailability and access to children. In general, thefather intervenes only when the mother's effortsat discipline fail or when crises erupt. But theculture does not sanction paternal involvement inroutine childcare. A father who is tender andnurturant toward infants and young children, likethe Aka forager father (Hewlett et al., 1998), isregarded as effeminate or otherwise behaving

Fathers, Families & Child Well-Being in Cameroon: A Review of the Literature13

7

inappropriately (Nsamenang, 1987a). Since theroutine care of infants and toddlers in most ethniccommunities traditionally falls on mothers, fatherstend to maintain some emotional distance fromchildren during their early years of life. Until theyare about 4 years of age or so, boys and girls aretended to by mothers (Nsamenang, 1992c), withdistinctions regarding dress, cuddling andexpectations of gender-appropriate behaviors.

Across cultures and ecologies, some fathersprovide extensive resources and attention tochildren, but others provide little or nothing(Hewlett, 1992). What is the father's and mother'sresponsibility or role in childcare in Cameroon?The allocation of resources and attention tochildren in many a Cameroonian ethniccommunity is determined by age, gender,generation, and laterality, that is, whether thechild's rights derive more from the father's ormother's lineage (Nsamenang, 1989a). The wayin which fathers and mothers conceive of childrenand development influences the way they raisethem. The socialization values of Nso parents innorthwest Cameroon, for example, shows greateragreement than disagreement, but there issignificant infra- cultural variation among variousparental cohorts by religion (African theologyChristianity, and Islam), generation(grandparental vs. parental), habitat (rural vs.urban), gender (fathers vs. mothers), andeducational history (schooled vs. unschooled)(Nsamenang and Lamb, 1995). Childcare andeducation in Cameroon are organized aroundfamily life. The family was and still is the primaryinstitution within which men, women, andchildren sustain the survival and well-being ofmembers and the society (Nsamenang, 1992a).This brings into focus the pertinence of Sharp's(1970) warning against the abrupt disruption ofthe traditional African family that is still the bestguarantee of the African child's welfare andeducation. This warning becomes more relevantin the face of increasing rather than decreasinglevels of abject poverty and inadequate or poorlyprovided public services. For instance, thebeneficiaries of the Cameroon family securityscheme are workers in paid employment. Thispolicy discriminates against and excludes the largemajority of the most needy segments - non-working and peasant families. The extent to whichfathers on the scheme use direct cash payments

for the benefit of the focal population childrenand their mothers - is in doubt (Nsamenang,1992a). For example, working fathers are granteda 3-day paid paternity leave on the birth of theirbabies, but many of them use it for socializing withfriends, ostensibly in celebration of the child'sbirth (Nsamenang, 1992c).

In line with societal expectations, fathers raisetheir children to be respectful and obedient andto succeed at school (Nsamenang, 1992b;Nsamenang & Lamb, 1994). Paternal concern withschool success, though not strictly an indigenousmotive, derives from a cultural valuation of socialcompetence. To attain this goal, fathers,particularly rural fathers, tend to be stem and strictin training. Accordingly, fathers are quite liberalin the use of punishment (Nsamenang & Lamb,1993), which perhaps explains why many motherssometimes invoke the image of absent fathers toerring children (Nsamenang, 1992b).

Parents are struggling to handle the conflictbetween traditional and modern directivesregarding parenting, a state of affairs that isconfusing for many parents. This scenario hasbeen complicated by social and economicdemands that require men, especially urbanfathers, to spend more time away from homerather than doing things with children to earn thelabel of "good father." Consequently, somechildren are growing up with only vague ideas ofwhat a father really is. Bronfenbrenner (1974) seesthis trend as a betrayal of children.

One outcome of faulty or inadequate fatheringis an increasing incidence of childpsychopathology (Nsamenang, 1987a). Thecompeting demands of traditionalism andmodernity are also taking their toll on the maritalcouple. In the case of the Bamenda Grassfields,Nsamenang (1987b) reported that mothers andfathers have accused each other of infidelity,abdication of parental responsibilities, andexcessive consumption of beer. Whereas mothersclaimed that fathers no longer provided adequatesecurity to the family, fathers complained that theirwives had become uncaring, marketing away thebulk of the harvest and squandering the moneyin luxury clothing. Although both fathers andmothers acknowledged the economic necessity ofwomen's paid employment, they differed on howthe proceeds should be used. While men wished


8

to uphold the traditional precept of controlling theuse of their wives' wealth (Kaberry 1952;Nsamenang 1987a), most of the mothers insistedon using their money themselves. Most men werethreatened by their wives' gains in economicindependence and loathed this trend (Nsamenang,1987b).

Basic questions about the role of the fatherremain unanswered. For example, what exactlycan the father do to earn from his family andchildren the status of a good father? One plausibleway to handle the challenge facing parents asincreasing numbers of mothers are spending moretime away from children on wage labor, is to forgenew conceptions of the family and the parentalrole. This may be facilitated, not impaired, by arevision of the gender division of familyresponsibility necessitating an increase in paternalinvolvement in the domestic sphere and direct careand supervision of children. What are the possibleimplications and repercussions on parents,children, families, and the society of increasedfather involvement in childcare? What satisfactioncan fathers derive from involvement and how doesit affect the marital couple and the welfare offamilies, particularly the well-being of children?

THE FATHER'S ROLE INCHILD DEVELOPMENT

Parental beliefs and values "play a directiverole in shaping the developmental niche

and consequently the development of [children's]behaviors" (Super et al., 1994, p. 3). The valueparents place on the child determines how theyperceive children and how they raise boys andgirls. For example, more Nso mothers than fatherssupported the notion of girls being the weaker sexand the need for protection of girls. Accordingly,more mothers than fathers endorsed thedifferential socialization of boys and girls(Nsamenang, 1992b). Whereas Nso mothers weremore likely than fathers to endorse the disciplineof children by beating, fathers were more likelythan mothers to report that the experience ofadversity could help children (Nsamenang &Lamb, 1995).

It seems reasonable, on the basis of all this, toexpect that variations in family patterns mayshape parental roles. In fact, parenting patterns

vary according to cultural values and theparenting ethos they engender (Nsamenang,1996). Acuna and Rodrigo (1994) have discussedhow children's activities are related to parentalbeliefs. Nsamenang and Lamb (1994, 1995) haveexplained how the socialization values of Nsofathers and mothers, particularly expectations andstrategies for providing reinforcement, influencethe anticipatory socialization of children into adultroles and their guided participation in the workof the family and community.

The values of Cameroonian parents create theconditions that permit children to spend more timewithin the peer culture than in parent-child dyads,as is typical in other cultures. Consequently, mosttoddlers in Cameroon learn more from each otherthan from their parents or other adults( Nsamenang, 1992c; Nsamenang & Lamb, 1994,1995). In this way, the responsibility for thedevelopment of toddlers falls less on parents,especially fathers, who "raise" them and more onchildren themselves "coming up" (Heath, 1983)or emerging within the peer culture (Nsamenang& Lamb, 1995). Within this culture, knowledgeand skills filter from adults through older childrenas they engage in joint explorations and problemsolving (Nsamenang & Lamb, 1995). Parentalvalues thus indirectly prime or socialize the normsthat foster children's self-emergence and creativity.

A prototype of this version of development isthe evocation in The African Child of Camara Laye's(1977) boyhood and emergence into adulthood inrural and urban Guinea and France. This form ofindirect parental influence is effective because amechanism of self-regulation exists within thepeer culture due to the power inherent in theexpectations and directives of absent parentswhose direct intervention is no longer needed(Nsamenang & Lamb, 1995; Zempleni- Rabain,1973). Maccoby (1992) confirmed indirect parentalimpact on children in her review of thesocialization literature when she stated that eventsthat occur in the context of parent-child interactionaffect children's social behavior in other settingsand at later times. We thus feel that mostCameroonian fathers influence their childrenindirectly.

Preliminary empirical evidence onCameroonian fathers indicates that they aresignificant to children, even when absent

15Fathers, Families & Child Well-Being in Cameroon: A Review of the Literature

9

(Nsamenang, 1992b). For example, Nsamenangand Laosebikan (1981) described how pathogenicpatterns of fathering contributed topsychopathology and academic under-achievement in children. Their therapeuticregimen involved interesting fathers of thedisturbed children in therapy and fostering cordialfather-child interactions. Their report reveals thatthe prognosis for children of involved fathers wasbetter than that of children whose fathers did notparticipate in the therapy. Some of theparticipating fathers even wished they could relatemore intimately to their children ( Nsamenang &Laosebikan, 1981). Nsamenang (1987a) haspresented case studies of adolescents whodeveloped emotional disturbances consequent touncertain paternity and father absence. In one casethe adolescent's mother refused to disclose hisfather's identity; the teenager progressivelybecame emotionally unstable. In another case, afather was absent during his son's childhood andalthough he was available during his teen years,the adolescent was disturbed by the discriminationhe experienced in his polygamous home in whichhis mother was not one of the wives.

The author (Nsamenang, 1983) carried out anintervention study to improve the quality offathering experienced by a group of adolescentstudents in Bamenda. Findings indicate that theintervention package, Father InvolvementTraining (FIT), introduced significant differencesin fathering between the experimental and controlfathers and a concomitant improvement in theemotional adjustment of the adolescents whosefathers received the experimental treatment. Theexperimental teenagers further reported morecordial and humane interactions with their fathersthan did the adolescents in the control situation.Furthermore, a finding from a program that trains"lay counselors" to provide psychosocial supportto HIV/AIDS victims and their families indicatesthat participating fathers claimed that theexperiential nature of the program has sensitizedthem to become more responsive to their children( Nsamenang & Lukong, 1998).

Although the Cameroonian father hassomehow been forgotten by social scientists, he isby no means an insignificant figure in the lives ofhis family and children. The evidence for paternal

effect is preliminary and more empirical work inthis direction remains to be done so thatinterventions to improve the quality of fatheringcan be effected.

CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS, ANDRECOMMENDATIONS: CRAFTING ARESEARCH AGENDA FOR THE FUTURE

hildcare in Cameroon, as in much of sub-Saharan Africa, is not a parental

prerogative; it is a social and collective enterprisein which parents and kin, including older siblings,peers, and sometimes neighbors and friends, areactive participants (Nsamenang, 1992a). Thewelfare of the Cameroonian family does notdepend solely on the father; traditionally,Cameroonian mothers and their children are activecontributors to family security and welfare. Thechildbearing and childrearing literature typicallylocates the primary responsibility for childcarewith mothers. But in Cameroon as in much of WestAfrica, children spend more time and engage inperhaps more significant interactions in the careand guidance of other siblings than in othercultures (Nsamenang, 1992c; Weisner, 1989).Nsamenang (1992a), for instance, has reported that67.2% of Nso girls and 65.2% of boys participatedin giving care to younger siblings.

The family scene in Cameroon today is in totalflux, and most people are trying to reconciletraditional ways with the modern norms of familylife. In some cases, children are moreknowledgeable about modern lifestyles than theirilliterate or less educated parents. This isconfusing both parents and children and makingit more difficult for many parents to be role modelsor to teach their children "the correct ways of theworld." The continuity and change in fatherhoodand motherhood would be better illustrated if newlines of research could record the authentic voicesof fathers alongside those of mothers. Althoughit is obvious that human males and females differin biological features, efforts to understandmaternal and paternal behaviors have focusedpredominantly on maternal characteristics. Maleshave generally not been included in parentingresearch by design and therefore have not been

Fathers, Families & Child Well-Being in ameroon: A Review of the Literature

10

asked about their family life and parental roles.Whenever men have become the focus of research,non-Western men, poor and minority men inWestern societies, and unmarried fathers who donot live with their children are rarely heard. Thishas produced very biased information about menin general and fathers in particular (Greene,Hearn, & Emig, 1996), thereby drawing a lopsidedpicture of human parenting. Further bias in theportrait emerges from the fact that the questionsasked of male respondents often follow a femaletemplate, thus failing to capture adequately themale experience. Even when the right questionshave been asked of men, studies often fail to elicitvalid responses because the instrument and themethods of gathering information do not addressthe experiences of the respondents. Theimplication is that cross-cultural studies require avariety of data collection techniques and aconceptualization that is sufficiently sensitive tothe experiences of all fathers, especially thedifferent roles and expectations for fathers asproviders, protectors, educators and markers ofchild development across various cultures(Greene, Hearn, & Emig, 1996).

In order to craft a national and cross-nationalresearch agenda to address the huge diversity inhuman fatherhood, family patterns, and norms forchild well-being for the next millennium, alearning posture and creative vision are required.This should begin with a willingness to accept thelimitations of current perspectives and anopenness that permits attention to the experiencesof all fathers in all contexts. Researchers wouldbenefit by not ignoring Wright's advice "to lookfor alternatives to the traditional views, not so thatthose views may be necessarily displaced, but sothat we may come to wider, fuller understanding"(Wright, 1984, p. xiv) of the variety that exists tobe discovered. We need to look at all forms of thefamily and fatherhood, no matter how diverse,and learn what we may from them; even if welearn that a certain view is worthless, we wouldhave, in the true spirit of science, learnedsomething important (Wright, 1984). A learningposture renders absurd the a priori conclusion thatcertain ideas and/or lifestyles, say the African, are"more or less wrong about the facts" of life(Riesman, 1986). It is in this light that the tendencyto present Western ideas as the only rational and

rdversally valid ones (Tangwa, 1996) becomes

ethnocentrism, par excellence. With a learningposture, the diversity in fatherhood is not regardedas an aberration in search of a solution, but naturalvariation in human parenthood. Genuine andrespectful collaboration in cross-national researchwill not permit one group, say, Westernresearchers, to determine a priori what is to beconsidered standard. The Euro-American imageof the father should cease to be used as thestandard for comparison of all experiences offatherhood and on which to base fathering policy.

The acceptance of the non-Western or peculiarnature of African or other developing world familypatterns and modes of fathering on their ownterms is a sine qua non for genuine and respectfulcross-national research collaboration. A mereacceptance that other cultures can make acontribution in the field accords an inclusive frameof reference that permits the conceptualization offatherhood in its global diversity. The effort willbecome more fruitful only if the research anddonor communities in the developed world acceptand integrate researchers in the developing worldas co-partners, albeit with poorer resource-basesand an inhospitable research environment(Nsamenang, 1995), into collaborative researchteams. At the same time, it is worth noting thatthe scientific ethos is a Western intellectual attitudeto which developing world psychologists areacculturating.

An appropriate research agenda ought toinclude an exploration of the extent to whichtraditional family and parental values are beingrenounced or the degree to which they havechanged or are changing. Other areas of researchfocus of considerable interest are father-childinteractions (in societies with matrilineal andpatrilineal socialization), children's perceptions oftheir fathers, how paternal involvement affectsmarital interactions, and adolescent fatherhoodand role transitions. Additional worthwhile topicsfor research include taboos, patterns of fatheringin adult-centered versus child-centeredcommunities, individualistic and interdependentsocieties, nuclear and extended families, andmultiple forms of fatherhood, including but goingbeyond the biological father to include secondaryand surrogate fathers, and the circumstances thataffect fathering.

1 7


It is useful to include fathers and mothers ofdiverse ages, backgrounds, and socioeconomicstatus within an applied and collaborativeinterdisciplinary but participatory researchframework (Nsamenang, 1996). The way toimprove the accuracy of addressing all versionsof the fathering experience, especially inCameroon, is to borrow wisely and gain usefullyfrom an extended family of theoretical andmethodological traditions in relevant disciplinesrather than from a single disciplinary tradition(Walsh, Tobin, & Graue, 1993). Progress wouldbe made if the search for relevant theories andappropriate methodologies focused on creativelyconstructing "a new understanding of theory inclose proximity" (Valsiner, 1997, p. viii) tofathering in context.

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