Northwest Education Magazine: Winter 1997

WE LIVE IN AN ERA of increasing fatherlessness-when male role models are desperately needed. But we also live in a time of fear, when men who are involved with children are somehow suspect. Consciously or unconsciously, many childhood education professionals shy away from hiring male workers or encouraging male involvement in the classroom.

James Levine, Director of the Fatherhood Project at the Families and Work Institute in New York City, wants to change all that. His book, Getting Men Involved, recently published by Scholastic Inc., which also puts out the magazine Early Childhood Today, shows how men can be more a part of early childhood education and how schools can help them do it.

"The book is designed for education professionals," says Levine, "but also for parents who want their children's school to be father friendly."

The publication of this book coincides with the launch of Levine's Male Involvement Project, a nationwide campaign funded by major foundations to get men more active in the lives of young children through early childhood programs.

A father of two and a day-care worker in the 1960s, Levine tells of his original inspiration: "It was 1968 and I was dressed as the Great Pumpkin. To the 20 preschoolers gathered at my knee, it wasn't an unusual sight: It was circle time at Halloween and I was their teacher. To the children's parents it was very unusual. 'What do you really do?' they wanted to know. It is a question that never would have been asked of a woman. That moment a quarter of a century ago changed my view of the world."

Levine argued then, as he does today: "We will never find a solution to child care if we keep defining it as a women's issue instead of a family issue."

MEN AREN'T EXACTLY LINING UP to get involved with their children's preschools or day-care facilities, and child-care and educational professionals are justified in their irritation at male contentment with current stereotypes.

But some of the resistance also comes from women. While doing his national search for exemplary programs, Levine received a call from a woman who directs a preschool program in Kansas. "I've heard about your project," she said, "and I just don't understand why anybody would want to get more men involved. All our teachers are women, and we're doing just fine."

In calling for greater male involvement, Levine is not suggesting that women aren't doing or can't do a good job. But "the stereotype that women alone should care for children or that they alone are capable of caring for children limits the opportunities and talents of both sexes," he writes. "It leads women disproportionately into the caring professions without exploring a broader set of career options, and it keeps men from broadening their career options to the caring professions, despite their interests and abilities."

It also, as he points out, "perpetuates the devaluation of women and children, linking them together in a feminine world that is deemed less serious and important than the world of 'masculine' activities."

As men become more involved in early childhood programs, he predicts, there will be tensions between men and women that neither anticipated. "But there will also be new opportunities for dialogue and understanding."

Male involvement in a child's earliest years is essential if the role of fatherhood is to be seen, by the culture, as a quality that transcends insemination. When Levine uses the words "father" and "men" in the book, he means any significant male in a child's life-an uncle, grandfather, mother's friend, or volunteer, as well as the biological, step, or adoptive father.

"There is an enormous amount of father hunger among children in America: children who don't have a father living at home, as well as children whose fathers' work limits their contact. Getting more men involved in the early education of children won't restore the missing father in these children's lives, he writes, but it will help replace a narrow definition of fatherhood, "a vague abstraction or a stereotyped image taken from television-with a concrete and fuller sense of nurturant manhood."

HERE ARE SOME OF THE STEPS Levine recommends to attract and keep men involved in their children's preschools and other early childhood learning environments.

Say it loud. "Make clear on all announcements that children's fathers and significant men in their lives are welcome at your program. If mom and dad are both in the home, don't just address the letter to her, address it to him, too."

Say it often. "Your message about male involvement won't be convincing if you just say it at the first parent meeting." Follow through, throughout the year.

Display images of men. The halls and offices of one preschool described by Levine are lined with photos of kids and families-men and women. Because men are so naturally part of the pictures, the photos make a statement: "This is what we expect. This is 'normal.'"

Just ask. Some men do not participate simply because, unlike mothers, they are not asked to. "You have not because you ask not," says one preschool teacher quoted by Levine. Find out what men want. Levine suggests that preschool staff ask casual questions to find out what men want, and what they can offer. Take a male interest survey. Keep your eyes open. For example, a man's work clothes might suggest how he spends his day-and how he might help the school program.

Set up a men's discussion group. Offer fathers the space and opportunity to get together informally and just talk. Don't set the agenda for them.

ASK MEN TO HELP with specific jobs. "Often there is a particularly hard job that nobody at the center wants to do," Levine says. "Who can you call? The monthly men's group!"

Recognize hidden resistance from staff. "While it's likely that everybody on a staff will think it's a good idea to get men more involved in a program, that's not necessarily how they feel," according to Levine.

Recognize hidden resistance from mothers. At a Baltimore preschool, a mother's group met weekly for a year before staff realized the need to set up a men's group. "Again and again the women's discussion kept coming back to the anger they felt about men," says Levine. "Only after they felt safe talking about it among themselves could the women create a dialogue with men, which made them realize the men might need a special support group, too."

Recognize hidden fears of men. Often, what shows as male indifference is really a cover-up for deep-seated fears, according to Levine. "Some men feel incompetent with their kids; some fear they'll be rejected; some fear women have a special natural ability with children that they'll never have. Still others may have been abandoned or rejected by their own fathers and are acting out a repeat cycle."

Reach out to men from the community. Local businessmen, professional organizations, churches and synagogues, police, firefighters and high school students all make great resources for volunteers who can serve as role models to children.

These are just a few of the suggestions in Levine's book. Yale University"s Edward Zigler, one of the founders of Head Start, says the book "has broken new ground" and "should be on the shelves of every early childhood program in the country."

And perhaps on every father's bookshelf.

-Richard Louv

Getting Men Involved, which is not sold in bookstores, can be obtained by calling Scholastic Early Childhood products, at 800- 631-1586, or by writing for it c/o The Family and Work Institute, 330 Seventh Ave., 14th Floor, New York, NY 10001.

Richard Louv is senior editor, KidsCampaigns, and columnist for The San Diego Union-Tribune.

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