Men and child raising
An interesting paper came out today looking at fathers and how involved they are with taking care of their babies.
The paper tried to look at why some fathers do not seem to engage with baby-raising. It argues that (in their U.S. sample) the encouragement of the mother was more important than whether the men wanted to help. So men who wanted to help but were criticised or shut out of the process disengaged. Men who were encouraged got engaged in the process, even if they hadn’t been that interested.
This isn’t a causational study, so things likely go in both directions, but still very interesting nonetheless and worth a read:
Summary: Mom’s behavior impacts father’s child rearing: study (reuters)
Medium detail: Mom’s Behavior Key To Dad’s Involvement In Child Care (press release)
(I tried to find a link to the paper, but the issue isn’t out yet.)
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