Toddlers are less likely to wake up at night if dads take part in bedtime routines Tetra Images, LLC/Alamy
Darby Saxbe, Bodley Head
DID you know that fathers with smaller testicles experience a stronger response in the brain when they look at pictures of their babies? Or that these men are also rated as more hands-on parents by their partners? Of course you didn’t – but these are among the many unexpected details woven into Darby Saxbe’s Dad Brain: The new science of fatherhood and how it shapes men’s lives.
Saxbe is a psychologist at the University of Southern California who researches parenting, and acknowledges upfront that it might be odd for a woman to write a whole book on fathers. But then, she adds, that hasn’t stopped the many men who research and opine on women’s health.
Saxbe has the expertise, and makes a strong case for understanding dads’ brains: a father’s level of engagement is closely correlated with the wellbeing of both partners and children. When parenting, the whole family needs to be understood and supported.
Saxbe experienced this as a child, after her parents divorced and her father was plunged into solo parenting on the days he had custody. Although she reflects on her own past throughout, the main focus of the book is the new science, including her own work.
Alongside findings from neuroimaging papers, Saxbe shares ethnographic studies, including those showing wildly varying paternal expectations. In the Republic of the Congo, for example, Aka fathers spend much of their time holding and cuddling their infants, even while climbing trees and hunting. They are within arm’s reach of their children almost 50 per cent of the time – in contrast to the Kipsigis people in East Africa, where men believe a baby’s regurgitations and poo can harm their masculinity, and aren’t supposed to see their children in the first weeks after birth.
Globally, while mothers are often physically tied to their children through pregnancy and breastfeeding, there is wide variety in dads’ involvement. Yet fathers are often overlooked in scientific literature: a search for “mothers” returns 10 times more results than for “fathers”, writes Saxbe.
This exclusion can show up early, say when a premature baby is rushed to intensive care and the mother also typically receives extensive post-birth medical attention. The two will be patients in different wards, while the father is left to wander between them, perhaps in shock after witnessing a traumatic birth. But because fathers don’t exist in the system as patients, they are largely off the radar of healthcare workers and few will think to check in on them.
Despite this, fathers are hugely important. An engaged father is strongly linked to a child’s mental wellbeing. This starts young, Saxbe writes: toddlers wake up less often at night when fathers are part of bedtime routines. And there is evidence they play a different role from mothers.
Saxbe is at pains to debunk any oversimplification of this divide. She tells of her confusion at an Instagram post claiming children reach “peak oxytocin” when cuddling with their mothers versus playing with their fathers. She eventually unearthed the small study behind this claim, which found higher oxytocin levels in fathers when they moved their babies around compared with more affectionate touch (and the inverse in mothers), but didn’t actually look at oxytocin levels in the children.
Saxbe’s book is interesting, well-written and rigorous, but falls short in terms of overarching narrative. She starts out watching her father learn to parent, moves on to the underlying science, before looking at the practice of fatherhood. It would be good to have more sense of progression.
The book also shares some of the limitations of the scientific literature, with most research featuring heterosexual fathers. Saxbe is more inclusive, with insights about gay and trans fatherhood, as well as adoption and step-parenting, but the book is overwhelmingly focused on two-parent, heterosexual couples.
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Aka fathers spend much of their time holding and cuddling their infants, even while climbing trees
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Overall, though, Dad Brain is a compelling exploration of fatherhood, showing why it is both crucial and too often overlooked. Dads deserve attention too, Saxbe convincingly argues. This book is for fathers – and anyone who cares about them.
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