Do Fathers Matter?: What Science Is Telling Us About the Parent We've Overlooked by Paul Raeburn Page A
Authors: Paul Raeburn
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recognized from the outset was that they should investigate parents’ relationships during the mothers’ pregnancy. Research had suggested that the personalities of the parents, their thoughts about intimate relationships, and the quality of the marriage were all important. But McHale thought there was another ingredient that researchers had overlooked. “The missing element was parents’ perspectives on what family life ought to be like and what they hoped to create individually and together with their partner in the new family.”
McHale, who says his work was inspired by the Cowans, recognized that a key ingredient to family health that had been missing from prior research was an understanding of the coparenting alliance adults formed with respect to their children. The idea behind his study—and one that was borne out by his research—was that when parents have a strong alliance, children show fewer signs of stress, marital relationships are stronger, and children have better relationships with their peers. Other researchers had studied coparenting in divorced families, in which parents try to work out arrangements that reduce conflict, but nobody had looked closely at families in which the parents are still together. In many families, “both parents have good relationships with the kids, but still the kid is in turmoil, and it’s often because of the coparenting relationship … Two parents can hate each other and try to win the child’s affection and loyalty.” This kind of chronic child-related conflict often leads to a poor outcome for the child, as one might expect. Many divorced families fit this pattern, but so do one in five intact families, according to McHale.
One of the first things he found was that the coparenting beliefs of parents-to-be were shaped by their experiences with their own parents and families growing up. “My family always had family days on Sunday,” said one parent, Candice. “I want us to be doing the same things, too, as a family.” Her husband, Ron, agreed with her about Sunday dinners, but not about child care. “She’ll handle most of the child-care responsibilities,” he said. “She’s going to be a stay-at-home mom, and I’m hoping she’ll change all the diapers.”
Candice said, “I’ll be the primary caregiver during the day, but when he gets home, he’ll take over … I think he’ll be a very involved dad because his father wasn’t.” Ron said his parents “argued about us kids a lot. I don’t want us to re-create the kinds of arguments that I always used to experience between my parents.” Clearly, unless they begin to talk about their coparenting, Ron and Candice are set up for a serious confrontation about Ron’s obligations as a father. McHale called the disagreements “potential flashpoints.”
McHale and his team assessed depression and marital satisfaction in the expectant parents at the beginning of the third trimester before their child’s birth. They were surprised to discover far more strain than they had anticipated. Forty percent of the mothers and 22 percent of the fathers scored high on a test designed to assess depression. After examining the survey results, the researchers hypothesized that the tests may have actually reflected not depression as much as general anxiety about impending parenthood. “At a minimum, a great many parents in our sample were experiencing jitters,” McHale wrote. “Quite often these were significant levels of jitters, and many experienced much more than that.” Marital satisfaction was less of an issue, with only a handful reporting problems. But when the researchers added up all the numbers, they found that at least one parent in half of the families reported concerns with symptoms of depression or strains in their marriage.
* * *
As the Cowans, McHale, and others talked with expectant fathers, one thing that emerged was the determination of the fathers to “be there” both physically
McHale, who says his work was inspired by the Cowans, recognized that a key ingredient to family health that had been missing from prior research was an understanding of the coparenting alliance adults formed with respect to their children. The idea behind his study—and one that was borne out by his research—was that when parents have a strong alliance, children show fewer signs of stress, marital relationships are stronger, and children have better relationships with their peers. Other researchers had studied coparenting in divorced families, in which parents try to work out arrangements that reduce conflict, but nobody had looked closely at families in which the parents are still together. In many families, “both parents have good relationships with the kids, but still the kid is in turmoil, and it’s often because of the coparenting relationship … Two parents can hate each other and try to win the child’s affection and loyalty.” This kind of chronic child-related conflict often leads to a poor outcome for the child, as one might expect. Many divorced families fit this pattern, but so do one in five intact families, according to McHale.
One of the first things he found was that the coparenting beliefs of parents-to-be were shaped by their experiences with their own parents and families growing up. “My family always had family days on Sunday,” said one parent, Candice. “I want us to be doing the same things, too, as a family.” Her husband, Ron, agreed with her about Sunday dinners, but not about child care. “She’ll handle most of the child-care responsibilities,” he said. “She’s going to be a stay-at-home mom, and I’m hoping she’ll change all the diapers.”
Candice said, “I’ll be the primary caregiver during the day, but when he gets home, he’ll take over … I think he’ll be a very involved dad because his father wasn’t.” Ron said his parents “argued about us kids a lot. I don’t want us to re-create the kinds of arguments that I always used to experience between my parents.” Clearly, unless they begin to talk about their coparenting, Ron and Candice are set up for a serious confrontation about Ron’s obligations as a father. McHale called the disagreements “potential flashpoints.”
McHale and his team assessed depression and marital satisfaction in the expectant parents at the beginning of the third trimester before their child’s birth. They were surprised to discover far more strain than they had anticipated. Forty percent of the mothers and 22 percent of the fathers scored high on a test designed to assess depression. After examining the survey results, the researchers hypothesized that the tests may have actually reflected not depression as much as general anxiety about impending parenthood. “At a minimum, a great many parents in our sample were experiencing jitters,” McHale wrote. “Quite often these were significant levels of jitters, and many experienced much more than that.” Marital satisfaction was less of an issue, with only a handful reporting problems. But when the researchers added up all the numbers, they found that at least one parent in half of the families reported concerns with symptoms of depression or strains in their marriage.
* * *
As the Cowans, McHale, and others talked with expectant fathers, one thing that emerged was the determination of the fathers to “be there” both physically
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