Do Fathers Matter?: What Science Is Telling Us About the Parent We've Overlooked (27 page)

The same dismissiveness of fathers is seen in advertising, too. Remember those commercials in which Huggies wanted to see if its diapers were tough enough to survive the ineptitude of fathers? “Put Huggies to the test!” the spots said. And how about the post on Clorox’s website that read, “Like dogs or other house pets, new dads are filled with good intentions but lacking the judgment and fine motor skills to execute well”? Setting aside the question of whether dogs or gerbils are filled with good intentions, such ads are funny only if the people watching or reading them are comfortable with the idea that fathers are incompetent. Not all viewers found the spots amusing. Huggies dropped its commercials. Clorox saw the reaction to its commercial and, sensitive to the views of its potential customers, was quick to drop it.

Meanwhile, other companies are beginning to produce ads that paint fathers in a
positive
light—a relatively new development. In 2010, for instance, Subaru ran a series of commercials featuring fathers and kids, including one in which a worried father hands his car keys to a daughter who has just learned to drive. The viewer sees her as a teenager; when the father looks at her, he still sees her as his little girl. Tide and its fabric softener, Downy, produced a commercial that illustrates a father’s role in play, in which the father does the laundry and plays “sheriff” with his daughter, who arrests him. “I got twenty minutes to life,” he says in mock dismay. Unlike the commercials featuring fathers with poor fine-motor skills, this one shows a father who is competent and comfortable with his child.

*   *   *

That’s what I would like to see more of. Fatherhood is about helping children become happy and healthy adults who are at ease in the world and prepared to become fathers or mothers themselves. We often say that doing what’s best for our kids is more important than anything else we do. What’s best for our kids should always include a role for fathers.

Part of what drove me to write this book was meeting my wife, creating a life with her, and getting the unexpected and overwhelming opportunity to take a second shot at raising kids. Has the research on fatherhood opened my eyes to a better way to be a father? In many ways, yes. Does that mean I’m getting it right?

I defer to my children on that.

Notes

The page numbers for the notes that appear in the print version of this title are not in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for the relevant passages documented or discussed.

INTRODUCTION: CLEANING OUT THE ATTIC

When Alex Rodriguez
: George Vecsey, “Thrown by Life’s Curveballs, a Star Missed the Signals,”
New York Times
, Aug. 4, 2013,
www.nytimes.com/2013/08/05/sports/baseball/bedeviled-by-lifes-curveballs-rodriguez-misses-the-guideposts.html?pagewanted=all
.

“the father is an almost irrelevant entity”
: Michael E. Lamb, ed.,
The Role of the Father in Child Development
, 1st ed. (New York: Wiley, 1976), 1.

“the interaction that at least some infants have”
: Ibid., 3–5.

“clear survival value”
: Ibid., 7.

fathers were excited about becoming parents
: Ibid., 25.

whether treating depressed mothers might reduce
: Myrna M. Weissman et al., “Remissions in Maternal Depression and Child Psychopathology: A STAR*D-Child Report,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
295, no. 12 (2006): 1389–98.

the experiment was over
: Lamb,
Role of the Father
, 1st ed., 29–30.

even when fathers are included in research
: Kyle D. Pruett,
Fatherneed: Why Father Care Is as Essential as Mother Care for Your Child
(New York: Free Press, 2000), 6.

This disregard of fathers
: Elizabeth H. Pleck and Joseph H. Pleck, “Fatherhood Ideals in the United States: Historical Dimensions,” in
The Role of the Father in Child Development
, 3rd ed., edited by Michael E. Lamb (New York: Wiley, 1997), 42.

Clorox published a post
: Josh Levs, “Amid Fury, Clorox Pulls Post Insulting New Dads,”
CNN.com
, June 27, 2013,
www.cnn.com/2013/06/27/living/cnn-parents-dads-clorox
.

“companions, care providers, spouses”
: Michael E. Lamb, ed.,
The Role of the Father in Child Development
, 4th ed. (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2004), 3.

“Although diametrically opposed”
: Ross D. Parke and Armin A. Brott,
Throwaway Dads: The Myths and Barriers That Keep Men from Being the Fathers They Want to Be
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999), 4–5.

“We need to help all the mothers”
: Barack Obama, Father’s Day Remarks (transcript),
New York Times
, June 15, 2008,
www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/us/politics/15text-obama.html?pagewanted=all
.

1. THE ROOTS OF FATHERHOOD: PYGMIES, FINCHES, AND FAMINE

Certain monogamous titi and night monkey fathers
: Sarah Blaffer Hrdy,
Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 88.

Human fathers might not show
: Harriet J. Smith,
Parenting for Primates
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 71. Hrdy,
Mothers and Others
, 161–64.

But we have some hints, sifted from
: Barry S. Hewlett,
Intimate Fathers: The Nature and Context of Aka Pygmy Paternal Infant Care
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991), 157–62.

the increasing size of the human brain
: Richard Wrangham,
Catching Fire
:
How Cooking Made Us Human
(New York: Basic Books, 2009), 119.

But being born earlier had a cost
: Hewlett,
Intimate Fathers
, 151–65.

13 million calories’ worth of breast milk
: Hrdy,
Mothers and Others
, 101.

Agriculture was invented only
: Ibid., 73.

The Aka’s skill at foraging and hunting
: Hewlett,
Intimate Fathers
, 11–14.

Aka infants are held almost constantly
: Ibid., 32.

If an infant fusses or urinates
: Ibid., 33.

Aka fathers spend 47 percent of their day
: Ibid., 126.

part of dads’ nights out
: Ibid., 140.

a father named Yopo
: Ibid., 103–104.

do a lot of their child care in the evenings
: Ibid., 89–90.

“because they can communicate their love and concern”
: Ibid., 172.

The first glimmer of this phenomenon
: Emily Anthes, “The Bad Daddy Factor,”
Pacific Standard
, Dec. 10, 2010,
www.psmag.com/health/the-bad-daddy-factor-25764
.

Swedish researchers were drawn to Överkalix
: L. O. Bygren et al., “Longevity Determined by Paternal Ancestors’ Nutrition During Their Slow Growth Period,”
Acta Biotheoretica
49 (2001): 53–59,
http://depts.washington.edu/lairdlab/pdfs/BygrenEtAl2001.pdf
.

historical records of harvests in Överkalix
: M. E. Pembrey et al., “Sex-Specific, Male-Line Transgenerational Responses in Humans,”
European Journal of Human Genetics
14, no. 2 (2006): 159–66.

mothers who overeat or are obese
: Sara Reardon, “Dad’s Diet May Give Children Diabetes,” Science NOW, Oct. 20, 2010,
http://news.sciencemag.org/health/2010/10/dads-diet-may-give-children-diabetes
.

alterations in the workings of 642 genes
: Sheau-Fang Ng et al., “Chronic High-Fat Diet in Fathers Programs Beta-Cell Dysfunction in Female Rat Offspring,”
Nature
467 (2010): 963.

fathers’ high-fat diets had produced
: Michael K. Skinner, “Fathers’ Nutritional Legacy,”
Nature
467 (2010): 922,
www.bio.davidson.edu/genomics/2011/Bio309_papers/Father_legacy_comm.pdf
.

feeding male mice a diet
: Benjamin R. Carone et al., “Paternally Induced Transgenerational Environmental Reprogramming of Metabolic Gene Expression in Mammals,”
Cell
143, no. 7 (2010): 1084–96,
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3039484
.

exposed adult male mice to chronic stress
: David M. Dietz et al., “Paternal Transmission of Stress-Induced Pathologies,”
Biological Psychiatry
70, no. 5 (2011): 408–14,
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3217197
.

another example of the grandfather effect
: Lorena Saavedra-Rodríguez and Larry A. Feig, “Chronic Social Instability Induces Anxiety and Defective Social Interactions Across Generations,”
Biological Psychiatry
73, no. 1 (2013): 44–53.

increased startle response to the same odor
: Brian G. Dias and Kerry J. Ressler, “Parental Olfactory Experience Influences Behavior and Neural Structure in Subsequent Generations,”
Nature Neuroscience
, Dec. 1, 2013,
www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nn.3594.html
.

exposing lab rats to a fungicide
: Begley, “Sins of the Grandfathers,”
Newsweek.com
, Oct. 30, 2010,
http://mag.newsweek.com/2010/10/30/how-your-experiences-change-your-sperm-and-eggs.html
.

they looked at large populations of male workers
: Tania A. Desrosiers et al., “Paternal Occupation and Birth Defects: Findings from the National Birth Defects Prevention Study,”
Occupational and Environmental Medicine
69, no. 8 (2012): 534–42.

I heard this story from
: James P. Curley, interview with the author, Jan. 4, 2011.

2. CONCEPTION: THE GENETIC TUG-OF-WAR

analysis of the history of the Y chromosome
: Nicholas Wade, “Genetic Maker of Men Is Diminished but Holding Its Ground, Researchers Say,”
New York Times
, Feb. 22, 2012,
www.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/science/y-chromosome-though-diminished-is-holding-its-ground.html
.

Surani was a young developmental biologist
: M. Azim Surani, interview with the author, Aug. 3, 2013; and Surani, interview with Alan Macfarlane, June 19, 2009,
www.alanmacfarlane.com/DO/filmshow/surani1_fast.htm
.

Surani’s colleagues didn’t believe
: Ilona Miko, “Gregor Mendel and the Principles of Inheritance,”
Nature Education
1, no. 1 (2008): 134,
www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/gregor-mendel-and-the-principles-of-inheritance-593
.

a direct challenge to this principle
: Ibid.

the ability of the fetus to alter
: David Haig, “Genetic Conflicts in Human Pregnancy,”
Quarterly Review of Biology
68, no. 4 (1993): 495–532.

discover the first imprinted gene
: Thomas M. DeChiara et al., “A Growth-Deficiency Phenotype in Heterozygous Mice Carrying an Insulin-like Growth Factor II Gene Disrupted by Targeting,”
Nature
345 (1990): 78; T. M. DeChiara et al., “Parental Imprinting of the Mouse Insulin-like Growth Factor II Gene,”
Cell
64, no. 4 (1991): 849–59.

mothers’ powerful counterweapon
: Bernhard Horsthemke, “Of Wolves and Men: The Role of Paternal Child Care in the Evolution of Genomic Imprinting,”
European Journal of Human Genetics
17, no. 3 (2009): 273–74,
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2986180
.

explain the origins of some mental illnesses
: Christopher Badcock and Bernard Crespi, “Battle of the Sexes May Set the Brain,”
Nature
454 (2008): 1054.

a cure … for Angelman syndrome
: Arthur L. Beaudet, “Angelman Syndrome: Drugs to Awaken a Paternal Gene,”
Nature
481 (2012): 150–52,
www.uam.es/personal_pdi/ciencias/jmsierra/documents/Beaudet2012Nat.pdf
.

3. PREGNANCY: HORMONES, DEPRESSION, AND THE FIRST FIGHT

Two years after they married
: Carolyn Pape Cowan and Philip A. Cowan,
When Partners Become Parents: The Big Life Change for Couples
(New York: Basic Books, 1992), 1.

The study included seventy-two couples
: Ibid., x.

what happens to fathers during pregnancy
: Ibid., 52, 57, 53, 65, 67.

“Almost every expectant father told us”
: Ibid., 65.

enter school feeling loved and supported
: Kyle D. Pruett and Marsha Kline Pruett,
Partnership Parenting: How Men and Women Parent Differently—Why It Helps Your Kids and Can Strengthen Your Marriage
(New York: Da Capo, 2009), 22.

did less of the family work at home
: Cowan and Cowan,
When Partners Become Parents
, 100.

The changes that occur in men
: Ibid., 52.

One of the key hormones
: Katherine E. Wynne-Edwards, “Why Do Some Men Experience Pregnancy Symptoms Such as Vomiting and Nausea When Their Wives Are Pregnant?”
Scientific American
, June 28, 2004,
www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-do-some-men-experienc
.

They recruited thirty-four couples
: Anne E. Storey et al., “Hormonal Correlates of Paternal Responsiveness in New and Expectant Fathers,”
Evolution and Human Behavior
21, no. 2 (2000): 79–95.

testosterone was highest in fathers who
: Jennifer S. Mascaro, Patrick D. Hacketta, and James K. Rilling, “Testicular Volume Is Inversely Correlated with Nurturing-Related Brain Activity in Human Fathers,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
, early online edition, Sept. 4, 2013,
www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/09/04/1305579110
.