Do We Really Need Dad?
Posted on 18. Jun, 2010 by Brian Reid.
In honor of Father’s Day, the Atlantic Monthly has decided to rain on the dad parade with a piece titled “Are Dads Necessary?” (In fairness to the Atlantic, it’s from their July issue, so they’re not actually trying to besmirch dads on Father’s Day. I think.) The Atlantic’s answer, in short: Nope. No dads needed.
The argument that’s put forth by author Pamela Paul is pretty simple: the data on how great fathers are is massively compromised by the fact that studies that show the advantage of fathers tend to have comparisons that are not quite right: comparing a traditional two-parent family to one with a single mom doesn’t mean that you can attribute any differences to dads, specifically. Paul goes on to say that apples-to-apples comparisons of traditional families with, say, lesbian couples (or single moms with single dads) demonstrate that dads actually don’t fare all that well.
I have a couple of issues with the general argument, as well as one caveat that is important to get in here as quickly as possible: I don’t believe that the only possible stable family unit has one mom and one dad. There are dozens and dozens of parental styles that can be filled by all kinds of people, from biological parents to step-parents to grandparents to foster parents to mentors or siblings or uncles or whatever. So I don’t think it’s fair to argue that fathers (or mothers) are a “necessary” component in all cases.
But … the literature on the importance of father involvement is so large and so consistent that I am willing to cede certain methodological flaws (I’m also willing to bet that those flaws are not as universal or as fatal as Paul makes them out to be). I’d love to get the take of an Aaron Rochlen or Kyle Pruett here, but I’m pretty sure that we’ve seen apples-to-apples comparisons of involved dads versus uninvolved dads. And — no surprise — kids with involved dads do better.
The traditional-families-versus-lesbian families (even the single-mom vs. single dad thing) is a red herring in all of this. I can’t imagine that Paul is calling for an end to heterosexual childrearing or suggesting that custody should never go to fathers. No, the practical, social question for most of us is “how do we craft a family that will maximize the change of loving and happy kids?”, and the answer is, in the majority of cases, “get dad involved.” I’m not aware of a scrap of research that contradicts this in anything but abusive households.
(I don’t want to dismiss or diminish the research on same-sex couples. Indeed, I hope data on the parenting styles of same-sex parents makes it easier for same-sex couples to marry and adopt.)
In addition, there is no question that, historically, dads are “better” now than they used to be when it comes to engagement with their children, so the literature of a decade or two ago is less and less relevant. So while Paul may have great fun musing on the idea that dads aren’t “necessary,” but she gets to gloss over the fact that dads are certainly important in a huge number of families (and getting more important). But that’s not nearly as much fun to write about, I guess.
UPDATE: It’s been a long week, so this post isn’t as passionate as it probably should be. Cameron Phillips had no such problem, and you should absolutely go read his take on this.
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The Pampers Boycott is *Off* (For Now)
Posted on 18. Jun, 2010 by Brian Reid.
I don’t know how they did it — maybe they got some genetic material off of a coffee cup or something — but the Pampers people have figured out that I actually have a Y chromosome. From my inbox:
Hello BRIAN,
Remember when you taught the baby how to high five? Or the time the two of you jumped into puddles together? Or how about when the finger paint ended up everywhere but the paper? We know you and your little one enjoy all kinds of adventures together. And adventures mean stories. So share your funniest, wackiest, or most loving story of you and your baby in honor of Father’s Day. …
Yes, Pampers has sent me a gender-correct mass mailing. And so they will be spared my ire. Unless they start calling me a mom again.
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Slate Says Dads Are Liars (And Why That’s Good)
Posted on 17. Jun, 2010 by Brian Reid.
So I thought yesterday’s piece on dads and hormones was likely to be the most fascinating piece I read on fatherhood during this Father’s Day week. But Slate gave it a run for its money with an article that suggests that the results of a recent Boston College study that showed that dads are getting closer to 50-50 when it comes to the kids is bunk.
The BC findings — based on self-reported information (this is important) — said that dads spent about 3.3 hours a day with the little ones, a finding that author Katherine Reynolds Lewis points out is far, far more rosy than would be suggested if you looked at more rigorous measures of how much time dads spend with their kids.
In all fairness, no one doubts that dads are more involved than they used to be — this is reflected in every study using every methodology. Katherine’s point is that dads are now inflating their child-care hours when researchers ask: proof that fathers think being daddy is important. So important, they’ll even fudge the extent of their involvement. It wasn’t all that way. Per Katherine:
When [Ellen] Galinsky was studying New Jersey factory workers in the 1980s, she knew from her research that they were heading home so their wives could make the night shift at the hospital, for instance, but they would lie to their co-workers and say they were going out drinking. “It wasn’t OK in their macho world to say, ‘I’m going to tuck in my children,’ ” she recalled.
So this Father’s Day, lets lift a glass to celebrate the strange but happy trend of dads wanting to be seen as spending lots and lots of time with their kids.
(Standard whine: Katherine takes the current Census stats at face value, which I think is unwise. But I’ll let that one pass.)
(Standard disclaimer on Katherine: for the better part of three years, she sat across from me in the Bloomberg DC newsroom. I consider her a friend. But I also think she’s a great reporter and a thoughtful commentator on modern parenthood, and I like to think that’s a perfectly objective assessment.)