There are more newborns who have mothers with bachelor’s degrees as their highest credential than infants who have fathers with the same highest degrees. Having a college-educated mother benefits a child in terms of family stability, freedom from want, and academic achievement.
The more we pretend that fathers are the same as mothers, the more we damage the relationship between men and women.
What can neuroscience tell us about the experience of becoming a father? Is it true that caregiving changes the structures of men’s brains? And, if so, what are the implications for our understanding of fathers’ role in the care of their children?
These are the kinds of questions explored in Dad Brain: The New Science of Fatherhood and How It Shapes Men’s Lives by clinical psychologist (and Fairer Disputations Featured Author) Darby Saxbe, which was published earlier this year.
Fatherhood is changing, and the data now shows that this shift is real. New research from the American Institute for Boys and Men highlights a major trend that many couples are already experiencing in their own homes. After years of stalled progress, gender convergence inside the home has restarted, and fathers are helping drive the change. Men are spending more time caring for their children, taking on household responsibilities, and becoming more engaged in their children’s emotional lives.
There is a deeply held belief—one that is almost never spoken aloud but is ever-present—that professional and family life function like communicating vessels: what one gains, the other loses. Under this logic, balancing motherhood with a high-level career—whether in sports, management, or academia—is not a matter of two projects coexisting, but rather two projects competing for the same scarce resource: time, energy, and the ability to be present.
What are we to make of this odd agreement between career-focused liberal feminists and gender-role-obsessed traditionalists that prospective housewives shouldn’t go to college? Does a woman who wants to be a stay-at-home mother have any business pursuing higher education, even a master’s degree or a PhD? Is a woman who ends up staying home to care for her kids wasting her education?
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