Exploring Single, Stay-at-Home, and Gay Fathers' Perspectives on Their 4-12 Year Old Children's Outdoor Risky Play

Parental perspectives on risk and danger are important to consider in leisure and child injury prevention research, as they influence children’s adoption of safety strategies and influence how children approach risk and danger. Despite single, stay-at-home, and gay fathers’ increasing numbers and the important roles they play in their children’s development, there has been a lack of research on their perspectives on children’s engagement in outdoor risky play until now. This research is comprised of two studies, which were informed by poststructural feminist theory. In the first study, I used semi-structured and photo-elicitation interviews and critical discourse analysis to explore single, stay-at-home, and gay fathers’ perspectives of their 4-12 year old children’s engagement in outdoor risky play and how they relate to tension-filled discourses of “good” fathering. In the second study, I also used semi-structured and photo-elicitation interviews, but I explored single, stay-at-home, and gay fathers’ perspectives of masculinity and its influence on their understanding of their children’s outdoor risky play. Taken together, the findings from both studies showcase the important roles that single, stay-at-home, and gay fathers play in their children’s outdoor risky play and leisure experiences.