Do Fathers Matter?: What Science Is Telling Us About the Parent We've Overlooked by Paul Raeburn Page B
Authors: Paul Raeburn
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and emotionally for their children, as many felt their traditional fathers had not been for them. “This is what men look forward to about having a baby,” wrote the Cowans, “and it is what they worry about while they are waiting.”
These men have the right idea. But they needn’t wait until their children are born to get involved. A father who helps his pregnant partner buy supplies, takes her to doctors’ visits, and sees the fetus on an ultrasound or hears its heartbeat is more likely to be involved with his partner and baby after the birth than one who doesn’t have that kind of involvement. This is true even of fathers who don’t live with their partners. Fathers who are involved during pregnancy are also more likely to play with and read to the baby, and generally to help take care of the baby. They are more likely to find employment if they are out of work. And if they live elsewhere, they are more likely to move in with their partners. These ripple effects are good for the parents and for the children.
Wanting to be involved, however, doesn’t always translate into being involved. When expectant fathers are asked how they expect to divide chores and child care once their baby is born, most say they expect mothers to do more, but think they will make a substantial contribution. Six months after their children are born, most say mothers are doing more than expected and they are doing less. Part of the reason could be that fathers are too quick to accept that they are less important to their children than mothers are. It could also be that, as with Ron and Candice, they and their partners disagree about what kind of relationship the father should have with his children. This raises an important question: Is it possible to intervene with families to get fathers more involved? Can the beliefs of expectant parents be changed so that they put more value on the relationships of fathers with their kids? What effect will that have on the children?
The Cowans partnered with another husband-wife research team, the Yale child psychiatrist Kyle D. Pruett and Marsha Kline Pruett, a clinical psychologist at Smith College in Massachusetts, to find out. They knew that fathers are often excluded from efforts by family service agencies to promote healthy pregnancies, and they wanted to see whether changing that approach could elicit more downstream participation in family life by the fathers. So they devised a program of sixteen weekly sessions for expectant couples to help them work on their relationships both as partners and as parents-to-be. They offered the program to 289 couples from low- and middle-income Mexican-American and European-American families in five California counties.
Previous research had identified some of the factors that helped fathers become more involved with their families and children. Among them were many we’ve already discussed: the quality of the relationship between the parents, their mental health and stress levels, and the patterns they had witnessed in their own parents and grandparents. Various groups, including government agencies and religious organizations, had devised fatherhood workshops of some sort. Most were led by male speakers and counselors. The problem with these programs, according to the Cowans and the Pruetts, was “that the single most powerful predictor of fathers’ engagement with their children is the quality of the men’s relationship with the child’s mother, regardless of whether the couple is married, divorced, separated, or never married.”
The researchers tried offering their program to fathers only, and also to mothers and fathers together, to see which might work better. The program, based on an earlier intervention developed by the Cowans, included exercises, discussions, and short presentations led by male and female pairs of mental-health professionals. The discussions covered parenting, the couples’ relationships, and stresses and support outside the
These men have the right idea. But they needn’t wait until their children are born to get involved. A father who helps his pregnant partner buy supplies, takes her to doctors’ visits, and sees the fetus on an ultrasound or hears its heartbeat is more likely to be involved with his partner and baby after the birth than one who doesn’t have that kind of involvement. This is true even of fathers who don’t live with their partners. Fathers who are involved during pregnancy are also more likely to play with and read to the baby, and generally to help take care of the baby. They are more likely to find employment if they are out of work. And if they live elsewhere, they are more likely to move in with their partners. These ripple effects are good for the parents and for the children.
Wanting to be involved, however, doesn’t always translate into being involved. When expectant fathers are asked how they expect to divide chores and child care once their baby is born, most say they expect mothers to do more, but think they will make a substantial contribution. Six months after their children are born, most say mothers are doing more than expected and they are doing less. Part of the reason could be that fathers are too quick to accept that they are less important to their children than mothers are. It could also be that, as with Ron and Candice, they and their partners disagree about what kind of relationship the father should have with his children. This raises an important question: Is it possible to intervene with families to get fathers more involved? Can the beliefs of expectant parents be changed so that they put more value on the relationships of fathers with their kids? What effect will that have on the children?
The Cowans partnered with another husband-wife research team, the Yale child psychiatrist Kyle D. Pruett and Marsha Kline Pruett, a clinical psychologist at Smith College in Massachusetts, to find out. They knew that fathers are often excluded from efforts by family service agencies to promote healthy pregnancies, and they wanted to see whether changing that approach could elicit more downstream participation in family life by the fathers. So they devised a program of sixteen weekly sessions for expectant couples to help them work on their relationships both as partners and as parents-to-be. They offered the program to 289 couples from low- and middle-income Mexican-American and European-American families in five California counties.
Previous research had identified some of the factors that helped fathers become more involved with their families and children. Among them were many we’ve already discussed: the quality of the relationship between the parents, their mental health and stress levels, and the patterns they had witnessed in their own parents and grandparents. Various groups, including government agencies and religious organizations, had devised fatherhood workshops of some sort. Most were led by male speakers and counselors. The problem with these programs, according to the Cowans and the Pruetts, was “that the single most powerful predictor of fathers’ engagement with their children is the quality of the men’s relationship with the child’s mother, regardless of whether the couple is married, divorced, separated, or never married.”
The researchers tried offering their program to fathers only, and also to mothers and fathers together, to see which might work better. The program, based on an earlier intervention developed by the Cowans, included exercises, discussions, and short presentations led by male and female pairs of mental-health professionals. The discussions covered parenting, the couples’ relationships, and stresses and support outside the
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