Prior research suggests that mothers and fathers of adolescents (1) differ in their level of parenting engagement, (2) parent their sons and daughters differently, and (3) influence sons and daughters in different ways. In adolescence, mothers engage in more shared activities with their daughters than with their sons, while fathers tend to be more engaged with their sons, have less contact with their daughters, and overall have more distant relationships with their children than mothers (Hosley & Montemayor, 1997). An adolescent’s closeness with or perceived acceptance from the same-sex parent has been found to correlate with higher self-esteem for daughters, and to a lesser degree sons (Burnett & Demnar, 1996). It has been argued that adolescence is a period of gender intensification when time with, and attention to, same-sex parents increases (McHale et al., 2004). Thus, we hypothesize that adolescent gender will moderate the association between fathering and adolescent outcomes, with fathering showing stronger associations with adolescent adjustment for sons than daughters.
