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June 9, 2008Mom's Behavior Key to Dad's Involvement in Child Care |
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From Ascribe Newsfeed: Mothers play an important role in determining how much fathers get involved in taking care of their infants, according to new research. A study of 97 couples found that fathers were more involved in the day-to-day care of their infants when they received active encouragement from their wife or partner. In fact, this encouragement was important even after taking into account fathers' and mothers' views about how involved dads should be, the overall quality of the couple's parenting relationship, and how much mothers worked outside the home. In addition, fathers' beliefs about how involved they should be in child care did not matter when mothers were highly critical of fathers' parenting. "Mothers are in the driver's seat," said Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, co-author of the study and assistant professor of human development and family science at Ohio State University. They were asked how often the mother responded to the father's parenting behaviors with encouragement (for example, telling the father how happy he makes the child) or criticism (for instance, by looking exasperated or rolling her eyes). Couples also completed questionnaires that examined how much the fathers were involved in child care, and how well the couple got along when dealing with the baby. Finally, the researchers videotaped the couple interacting together with the baby to see how involved fathers were in taking care of the baby and how competent they were in caring for the infant. While some scholars have suggested that such "gatekeeping" occurs, the research hadn't been done to confirm it.
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