Do Fathers Matter?: What Science Is Telling Us About the Parent We've Overlooked (30 page)

9. WHAT FATHERS DO

“is a human universal”
: Richard Wrangham,
Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human
(New York: Basic Books, 2009), 130–35, 139, 146, 148–49, 150, 154, 177.

Neanderthals developed cooking 200,000 years ago
: C. Loring Brace cited in Rachael Moeller Gorman, “Cooking Up Bigger Brains,”
Scientific American
, Dec. 16, 2007,
www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=cooking-up-bigger-brains
.

In that long prehistoric era, fathers taught
: Barry S. Hewlett and Shane J. MacFarlan, “Fathers’ Roles in Hunter-Gatherer and Other Small-Scale Cultures,” in
The Role of the Father in Child Development
, 5th ed., edited by Michael E. Lamb (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2010), 413–31.

Changes in work and family life in the United States
: Kim Parker and Wendy Wang, “Modern Parenthood,” PewResearch Social and Demographic Trends, Pew Research Center, March 14, 2013,
www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/03/14/modern-parenthood-roles-of-moms-and-dads-converge-as-they-balance-work-and-family
.

men experience more conflict between work and family
: Ellen Galinsky et al., “Times Are Changing: Gender and Generation at Work and at Home,” Families and Work Institute, 2008 (revised August 2011),
www.familiesandwork.org/site/research/reports/Times_Are_Changing.pdf
.

Americans work longer hours
: Joan C. Williams and Heather Boushey, “The Three Faces of Work-Family Conflict: The Poor, the Professionals, and the Missing Middle,” Center for American Progress,
www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/report/2010/01/25/7194/the-three-faces-of-work-family-conflict
.

they feel they’re being pushed harder at work
: Kerstin Aumann et al., “The New Male Mystique,” Families and Work Institute,
www.familiesandwork.org/site/research/reports/newmalemystique.pdf
.

The difficulty that fathers face trying to fulfill
: Carolyn Pape Cowan and Philip A. Cowan,
When Partners Become Parents: The Big Life Change for Couples
(New York: Basic Books, 1992), 94, 104.

some men are indeed strangely detached from their families
: Annette Lareau, “My Wife Can Tell Me Who I Know: Methodological and Conceptual Problems in Studying Fathers,”
Qualitative Sociology
23, no. 4 (2000): 407–33,
www.jennyjvalentine.com/7900%20PDFS/My%20Wife%20Can%20Tell%20You%20Who%20I%20Know%20-%20Article.htm.pdf
.

Fathers also grapple with social attitudes
: Victoria L. Brescoll and Eric Luis Uhlmann, “Attitudes Toward Traditional and Nontraditional Parents,”
Psychology of Women Quarterly
29, no. 4 (2005): 436–45.

many fathers take only some of their paternity leave
: Ibid., 440.

what’s often called maternal gatekeeping
: Sarah M. Allen and Alan J. Hawkins, “Maternal Gatekeeping: Mothers’ Beliefs and Behaviors That Inhibit Greater Father Involvement in Family Work,”
Journal of Marriage and Family
61, no. 1 (1999): 199–212,
www.jstor.org/stable/353894
.

“Some women both cherish and resent being”
: Sarah J. Schoppe-Sullivan et al., “Maternal Gatekeeping, Coparenting Quality, and Fathering Behavior in Families with Infants,”
Journal of Family Psychology
22, no. 3 (2008): 389–98.

They asked ninety-seven couples
: Ibid.

downward spiral in marital satisfaction
: Cowan and Cowan,
When Partners Become Parents
, 16–22.

question we should ask about father absence
: Paul R. Amato and Julie M. Sobolewski, “The Effects of Divorce on Fathers and Children,” in
The Role of the Father in Child Development
, 4th ed., edited by Michael E. Lamb (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2004), 348.

children are born to parents who aren’t married
: Mathematica Policy Research, “Building Strong Families,” January 2005,
www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/PDFs/bsfisbr3.pdf
.

All the current figures are far higher
: Gretchen Livingston and Kim Parker, “A Tale of Two Fathers: More Are Active, but More Are Absent,” PewResearch Social and Demographic Trends, Pew Research Center, June 15, 2011,
www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/06/15/a-tale-of-two-fathers
.

Fewer fathers are living with
: Amato and Sobolewski, “Effects of Divorce,” in Lamb,
Role of the Father
, 4th ed., 353.

fathers had little or no effect on mortality rates
: Peter B. Gray and Kermyt G. Anderson,
Fatherhood: Evolution and Human Paternal Behavior
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 122.

a major contributor to crime and juvenile delinquency
: Cynthia R. Daniels, ed.,
Lost Fathers
:
The Politics of Fatherlessness in America
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 4.

data linking fatherlessness to adverse consequences
: Ibid., 36.

“on the whole, two parents—a father and a mother”
: David Popenoe,
Life Without Father
:
Compelling New Evidence That Fatherhood and Marriage Are Indispensable for the Good of Children and Society
(New York: Free Press, 1996), 147.

The most important and immediate consequence
: Daniels,
Lost Fathers
, 36–39.

Families with unmarried parents often defy
: Sara S. McLanahan and Marcia J. Carlson, “Welfare Reform, Fertility and Father Involvement,” Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, working paper no. 01-13-FF, draft, Aug. 6, 2001,
http://s3.amazonaws.com/zanran_storage/www.northwestern.edu/ContentPages/6513017.pdf
.

produce wiring changes in the brains of their pups
: Wladimir Ovtscharoff, Jr., et al., “Lack of Paternal Care Affects Synaptic Development in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex,”
Brain Research
1116, no. 1 (2006): 58–63,
www.diyfather.com/files/paternal_care.pdf
.

AFTERWORD: FATHERS MATTER

“As a matter of fact, you
do
need”
: Alana S., “Taboos and the New Voiceless Americans,” FamilyScholars.org, May 20, 2010,
www.familyscholars.org/2010/05/20/taboos-and-the-new-voiceless-americans
.

“I don’t buy it”
: Kyle D. Pruett,
Fatherneed: Why Father Care Is as Essential as Mother Care for Your Child
(New York: Free Press, 2000), 74.

“The fathers’ custody activists claim”
: National Organization for Women Foundation, Family Law Ad Hoc Advisory Committee, newsletter, Fall 2012,
www.nowfoundation.org/issues/family/FamilyLawNewsletter-Fall2012.pdf
.

“A father’s involvement is crucial”
: “Fatherhood and Family Law: The Myths and the Facts,” The Liz Library,
www.thelizlibrary.org/site-index/site-index-frame.html#soulhttp://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/017.htm
.

“If a person is not involved in the lives”
: Marcia A. Pappas, NOW–New York State, speaking on the Joint Custody Bill before the New York Senate, March 28, 2006,
www.ancpr.com/2006/03/28/now-ny-speaks-on-joint-custody-bill
.

in which a worried father hands his car keys
: “Baby Driver,” Subaru commercial, 2010,
www.ispot.tv/ad/Y99V/subaru-baby-driver
.

a commercial that illustrates a father’s role in play
: “Tide and Downy Presents: The Princess Dress,” product commercial, 2013,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCYwAOCLiTA
.

Acknowledgments

While writing a book is often a solitary affair, I could not have written this one without the help of many scientists, friends, colleagues, and, of course, my family. My family and friends provided support and their own stories and experiences. And many of the researchers responsible for the important findings on fatherhood presented in this book took time from their own jobs to help me with mine. Without their guidance, I could never have put this story together.

I got the idea for
Do Fathers Matter?
in 2004, during a Journalism Fellowship in Child and Family Policy at the University of Maryland under the supervision of Carol Guensburg. I’d planned to write something about children, but the discussions with Carol and the other fellows led me to shift my focus to fathers—and I’m glad I did.

My agent, Beth Vesel, was a partner from the start. She helped shape the book when all I had was a long file of notes, clips, and scattered interviews. My editor at Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Amanda Moon, has been as excited about this book as I have, which made the process of editing and revising truly collaborative. She’s smart, a sharp editor, scientifically literate—and nice. That’s a rare combination. I could not have finished this book without Amanda’s support and expertise.

Mariette DiChristina, the editor of
Scientific American
, enthusiastically supported the publication of
Do Fathers Matter?
under the Scientific American imprint of FSG. Kaja Perina, the editor of
Psychology Today
, gave me a comfortable home for
About Fathers
, my blog on the science of fatherhood. The wise counsel, connections, emotional support, and fellowship of the distinguished writers who make up the Invisible Institute in New York were invaluable.

Among the scientists who spent a lot of time with me explaining their work and saving me from potential errors were C. Sue Carter, Carolyn Pape Cowan, Philip A. Cowan, James P. Curley, Bruce J. Ellis, Catherine Franssen, David Gubernick, David Haig, Barry S. Hewlett, Sarah Hill, Michael E. Lamb, Kelly G. Lambert, Dolores Malaspina, James P. McHale, M. Azim Surani, James E. Swain, and Lynne Vernon-Feagans.

I also received help from Natasha J. Cabrera, Marcia Carlson, Catherine Dulac, Ruth Feldman, Ellen Galinsky, Jay Gingrich, Sara McLanahan, Herbert Y. Meltzer, Vicky Phares, Kyle D. Pruett, Abraham Reichenberg, Sarah J. Schoppe-Sullivan, Stephen J. Suomi, Myrna M. Weissman, and Richard Wrangham.

David Smith, a research librarian formerly at the New York Public Library, helped with my initial research. Tim Grahl of the Out:think Group helped me plan a social media strategy to reach the broadest possible audience with the book. Annie Gottlieb did a splendid job of not only copyediting the manuscript but also checking a lot of the scientific detail—and another set of eyes on that is always a good thing to have. Also helping with copyediting, proofreading, and production at FSG were Mareike Grover, production editor, and Debra Helfand, managing editor.

My parents and my children provided an entirely different kind of help. My father and my mother showed me, by example, what it means to be a parent, and my children taught me everything else I needed to know. I’m afraid I am a slow learner, and I’m grateful to both my parents and my children for their patience.

I can’t imagine how I could have written this book without the support, the editing and reediting, and the love of my wife, Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn. Writing
is
a solitary affair—Elizabeth and I often communicate from room to room by e-mail—but she was with me all the way. That made the work much more satisfying, and truly enjoyable.

Index

The index that appears in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your e-book. Please use the search function on your e-reading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.

absent father

acceptance

achondroplasia

adoption

advertising; bumbling father stereotype

Africa

African-Americans

agriculture; crop failure; prehistoric; rise of

Ainsworth, Mary

Aka pygmies

alcohol

Alio, Amina

American College of Medical Genetics

American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology

amygdala

anemia

Angelman syndrome

animals; pheromones; research studies.
See also specific animals

anthropology

anxiety; of new parents; separation

Apgar scores

archaeology

attachment theory

attention deficit disorder

attractiveness

Australia

australopithecines

autism; increase in; older fathers and

Badcock, Christopher

Baker, Alexander

Ball, Lucille

Barash, David P.

Bar-Ilan University

Barlow, Denise P.

baseball

Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome

Becoming a Family Project

behavioral problems

bicycle

bipolar disorder

birds; fathers

birth defects

birth weight; low

biting

blackbirds

blood pressure; high

blood sugar

Bowlby, John

brain; absent father and; cry-response circuitry; gender differences; hormones; imprinted genes; infant; oxytocin receptors; prehistoric; rodent studies; schizophrenia and; size; testosterone and

Braun, Katharina

Brazelton, T. Berry

breast-feeding

Brescoll, Victoria

Broders, Hugh

Bronfenbrenner, Urie,
The Ecology of Human Development

Brott, Armin A.

bumbling father stereotype

Cabrera, Natasha J.

California mouse studies

California State University, Fullerton

Canada

cancer; prostate

Caplan, Arthur L.

Carlson, Marcia J.

Carter, C. Sue

cartoons

Cell

Census Bureau

cerebral palsy

cesarean section

child care; division of labor; maternal gatekeeping

children; absent father and; acceptance from parents; Aka; animal; attachment theory and; attractiveness of father and; behavioral problems; birth of; death of; depression in; effects of coparenting on; externalizing behaviors; fathers and; father’s health connected to; imprinted genes; joint custody of; language development; mental illness of, and older parents; nighttime care for; obese; older fathers and; parental behavior shaped by; play with father; prehistoric; preschool; reading to; socialization of; survival of; toddlers; transition to elementary school