Is it me, or does it seem like every article about parenting is really about moms? 10 Ways Moms Screw Up Their Kids! Moms -- It's All Your Fault! Moms, No Pressure, But Everyone's Blaming You if Your Kid Needs Therapy.
What about the dads? THIS. A new, large-scale, international review of research shows that a father's love can have just as much effect (and sometimes more) on a child's development as a mother's. And starting from a very young age, too.
I repeat: Dads, you are not off the hook! Kids need their father's love every bit as much as a mother's love.
Researchers looked at 36 studies from around the world involving some 10,000 participants and found a common theme. They found that consistently, when children feel rejected from their parents they become more anxious, insecure, hostile, and aggressive toward others. Here's how co-author of the review, Ronald Rohner explains it.
In our half-century of international research, we've not found any other class of experience that has as strong and consistent effect on personality and personality development as does the experience of rejection, especially by parents in childhood.
And whether the father's love matters more than the mother depends on how your child sees you. Psychologists working on the International Father Acceptance Rejection Project (yes, someone is doing that!) think that children pay more attention to the parent they think has more prestige or interpersonal power.
So if Dad has a more dominant personality in the home his love -- or lack of love -- with matter more to his kids than their mother's love. It's a sobering thought. True, I think we all knew that dads matter in the first place. We don't need science to tell us that. Except that we kind of do, because people still end up blaming moms for how kids turn out. Now we've got it in writing, in a scientific journal. So the next time someone rolls their eyes at a child's behavior and says, "well her mom..." I'm going to say, "ahem, what about her DAD?"
And it goes the other way. Dads should get more credit when they're emotionally present. Props to you good dads who shower your kids with love and attention. Your love matters just as much as moms'.
Do you think fathers should get more credit and blame for how well-adjusted their kids are?
Image via Qole Pejorian/Flickr
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Comments 32
My dad was useless and so is my son's biological dad. my son''s step-dad is amazing.
In a normal, loving, non-abusive situation, both parents offer different things to their children. Generally, it is the mother who models compassion and gentleness, and the father who models competition and more masculine traits. Girls and boys both need these things. They need to understand that, even if a man isn't overly emotional or demonstrative, he can still show love in other ways. And they need to understand that even if a woman is soft and compassionate, she can still be strong and have a spine. Parents model this for kids, and when one parent is missing, the other must find a way to fill that gap.
So yeah, dads matter every bit as much as mothers.
Parenting is a team sport..... if not possible to do it this way, whoever has the kids must stay on top of the game.
Since fathers can't breastfeed if there is going to be only one parent and the mother is going to breastfeed then the mother is the most important parent. If the mother doesn't breastfeed then the parent that is the better parent is the most important. A child under 3 needs a full time parent. If a child doesn't have a father as long as the older child has two other important people in their life they can thrive - a grandparent, family friend, or other adult. This is what I learned that in grand school developmental psychology courses that the research says.
Yes, I do think the father should be looked at when there is a problem child, especially when the father is the problem to begin with. I believe good fathers are there for their kids. That being said, there are very few good fathers alive to do this. My daughters' father was diagnosed as a sociopsychopath and my father was too self-centered to care. My boys' father was a good father, but he passed away when they were 7 and they became extremely attached to me because of it. One of my daughters, the one with a child and one on the way, has chosen to follow my path... starting with bad choices. I hope she finds someone who is a 'good enough' father to these kids, and who treats her with the respect she doesn't think she deserves.
Yes, of course they do. Everybody in the family matters.
So do genetics. I'd say about equally.
Personally, I think feminism has allowed dads to be more present in the family. They can stay home with the kids, they can split work responsibility with the moms, they are allowed- even expected- to spend time with kids now. The silly anomoly of the 20th century which limited both men and women, is almost over and the ages-old situation where the family works together by all their skills to make their way the best they can is coming back. This should make men feel more important (and yet have more responsibility) and women feel more free, that their kids are not going to live or die by their every action.
BOTH parents matter - what sort of idiot thinks that in the U.S., women prefer to think that fathers don't matter? Completely untrue. That would indicate that women prefer to be single parents - if you've been in that situation - you realize how difficult that is and how much easier another set of helpful hands would be -- nobody chooses to make their life more difficult for no good reason.....
....if it seems like fathers don't matter, it's because there is an epidemic in the U.S. of fathers not being there for their children - be it from learned helplessness, lack of responsibility, cowardice, or learned from previous generations of absentee father household....let's be honest - many fathers feel that babyhood is the "mother's responsibility" because babies require SO much care....sometimes, it isn't until a child is more interactive that dads feel comfortable stepping in. By then, a powerful dynamic has already formed - mother has been making all the decisions and caring for the child so she sees no use for dad and child has formed a bond with his/her mom that is more advanced than with his/her dad, which only intensifies by the father continuing to not play as big of role in his child's life because of the headstart in the mother/child relationship....sometimes it seems dads (and some moms, too) want the powerful bond with their children that is typically seen in mother/child relationships, but don't want to put in the intense work it takes to cultivate that bond -- and find excuses for that (i.e. out of the house job, etc) People say "men aren't as nurturing"....that's bullcorn - men can be just as nurturing as women - we are an intelligent, adaptive race - they just have to put in the elbow grease to do it.