Ideal Custody Patterns Can Reduce Fatherless Potential

Applying ideal parenting can help children reduce the risk of fathersless. (Unsplash)

JAKARTA Taking care of children, essentially is a joint task of mother and father. However, due to parental work factors, parenting in the family often demands compromise, so that children get the ideal care.

Apart from divorce, the absence of a father or fatherless role in parenting often occurs due to economic factors. For example, fathers who are forced to work with long working hours, more than 12 hours per day, or those who have to monitor because the absorption of work for men in residential areas is insufficient.

The situation as mentioned above is not ideal for parenting. And, this can be seen from Kompas' interviews with parents about the picture of daily parenting.

From qualitative interviews with 13 parents in 12 major cities in Indonesia, such as Medan, Palembang, Jakarta, Bandung, Semarang, Surabaya, and Makassar, it is known that there are differences in the ways parents guide and educate children between fathers who work outside the city, father who work in the city, and father of workers.

Father acts as a breadwinner or worker, while mother takes care of the household is a common thing in the family structure in Indonesia.

Data from the National Socio-Economic Survey (Susenas) of the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) in March 2024, there were 72.8 million children or 91.8 percent of the 79.4 million children in Indonesia living in a family structure with a working father. Of the 72.8 million children, 11.5 million children or 15.8 percent have fathers who work more than 60 hours per week.

Looking at these records, the father worked more than 60 hours a week or five working days, meaning the father had only 12 hours of interaction with his family.

This condition has the potential to eliminate the role of fathers in children's lives or in other words fatherless, according to psychologist in Jakarta, Widya S S Sari. Moreover, if the father does not interact with the child.

"The urban life style and economic pressure, especially residents of Jakarta, Depok, Tangerang, and Bekasi (Jabodetabek), make father's working hours long," said Widya.

With a work pattern like this, it can be described that the father who lives in Jabodetabek only arrives home at 21.00 WIB. At that time the child may have gone to sleep, and when the father left for work in the morning, the child had not yet woken up.

Different stories with family whose father works out of town. In a situation like this, like it or not, the role of daily care is mostly held by mothers, while the quality of the relationship between the father and child is maintained through remote communication and moments when the father comes home.

Modellong distance marriage (LDM) or distance marriage like this has big challenges, not only in parenting, but also in marriage.

Implementing ideal parenting also has challenges for families who live on one roof, but both parents are both workers. In this condition, when parents accompany their children is usually limited.

Sharing balanced roles is not easy. In a qualitative survey of psychologists conducted by Kompas throughout last July-August, it was not easy to adopt parenting from cooperation between mothers and fathers at most is said to reduce the risk of being fatherless.

In addition, prioritizing democratic parenting, meeting the emotional, physical, and spiritual needs of children and co-parening (joint parenting method for divorced parents) is also a choice.

Tidak bisa apa hanya menyerahkan tanggung jawab kepada ibu hanya karena ibu rumah tangga yang bertanggung jawab untuk membentuk anak supaya baik. Sebab, yang namanya pola penjauh adalah hasil kerja sama antara ibu dan ayah bisa ditangkap oleh anak, ujar Ella Titis, psikolog di Surabaya.

Ella continued, effective communication with children at all times is needed. For example, a father who works can communicate with a child on the sidelines of his spare time.

"The term tug-of-war is like a kite. Children should not be too restrained, but also not be released like that. Control remains with parents who teach which values are wrong and correct," explained the psychologist at the Menur Mental Hospital, Surabaya, it.

As for the father of the worker who lives separately from the family, communication can be circumvented by using communication technology, for example making video calls every father has free time. In addition, giving small gifts to children can also be a form of father's attention.