The Art of Manliness - June 19, 2015


#119： Do Fathers Matter？ With Paul Raeburn


Episode Stats


Length

30 minutes

Words per minute

183.42516

Word count

5,638

Sentence count

340

Harmful content

Misogyny

9

sentences flagged

Hate speech

8

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

On this episode of the Art of Manliness podcast, Brett McKay talks with science writer Paul Rayburn about his new book, Do Fathers Matter? about the role that fathers play in their children's development.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
00:00:18.440 So this Sunday is Father's Day, so I thought it'd be great to do a podcast dedicated to
00:00:22.100 dads.
00:00:23.180 And my guest today published a book where he wanted to answer the question or figure out
00:00:28.400 the answer to the question, do fathers matter?
00:00:31.640 His name's Paul Rayburn.
00:00:32.840 He was a science writer at the AP News.
00:00:34.520 And what Paul found when he started answering this question is that there isn't a lot of
00:00:38.100 research out there, scientific research, about the roles fathers play in their child's development.
00:00:44.240 There's a ton of research and information about the role of the mother, right, from conception
00:00:48.520 all the way to adulthood, but there isn't that much out there about dads.
00:00:51.720 And he wanted to figure out why that is.
00:00:53.920 And then he wanted to remedy that and highlight what the research is saying, the importance
00:00:58.100 that fathers play in their child's life.
00:01:00.780 So today in the podcast, we're discussing, do fathers matter?
00:01:04.000 What science is telling us about the parent we've overlooked with Paul Rayburn.
00:01:07.620 So let's do this.
00:01:16.080 Paul Rayburn, welcome to the show.
00:01:18.460 Thank you.
00:01:19.100 Nice to be here.
00:01:19.680 So your book is called Do Fathers Matter?
00:01:23.080 And one thing you discovered when you're researching this book about whether fathers matter or not
00:01:30.660 is that there really wasn't a lot of research out there about fatherhood.
00:01:35.900 Why is that?
00:01:36.920 And have things gotten better?
00:01:39.360 Yeah.
00:01:40.160 Why is that?
00:01:41.380 Good question.
00:01:42.100 I mean, I don't have a scientific answer for why fathers have been overlooked.
00:01:46.120 I use that in the subtitle of the book, The Parent That Science Has Overlooked.
00:01:50.540 Um, I think it's just a question of tradition.
00:01:54.980 You know, we, for so long, um, the mother in most families was home all day, taking care
00:02:01.240 of the kids.
00:02:02.120 Father was away all day at work at the office or the mill or the factory.
00:02:06.300 And so it seemed clear enough that mothers had the primary role with kids.
00:02:12.620 They spent all the time with the kids.
00:02:14.640 They taught the kids how to tie their shoes and all those things.
00:02:17.740 And maybe dads showed up a few years later to teach kids how to play baseball.
00:02:20.560 But otherwise, um, most of the tricky stuff fell to moms.
00:02:24.900 So if you look at that scenario and, and lots of families say, well, moms must be more important
00:02:30.280 for kids.
00:02:30.860 I mean, look at all the things they do.
00:02:32.700 But I think that was just an accident of our economic system and the way things worked out,
00:02:37.040 that fathers were away, mothers were home.
00:02:40.060 Um, and it turns out both parents are important, equally important.
00:02:44.340 I wouldn't argue that fathers are more important, but the, the mere fact that at least traditionally
00:02:49.160 they were out of the home during the day doesn't make them less important.
00:02:53.380 Uh, yeah, I thought it was interesting.
00:02:54.440 One of the, uh, you highlight this research that you found, uh, it's from the early part
00:02:59.160 of the 20th century where, you know, an observer was watching a mother interact with a child.
00:03:04.040 And then the note was, uh, mother handed baby off to father observation ended.
00:03:11.060 End of experiment.
00:03:12.300 End of experiment.
00:03:13.020 The mother, right.
00:03:14.260 And then, and then the, uh, the mother hands the baby to father and they say, okay, well,
00:03:18.020 there's nothing interesting going to happen here.
00:03:19.400 Let's, uh, you know, turn off the video recorder.
00:03:21.760 We're done.
00:03:22.160 Yeah.
00:03:22.920 So, I mean, have, so have things gotten better though?
00:03:25.160 I mean, have, have the researchers already looking into the influence of fathers on children
00:03:29.720 and also the influence of children on fathers?
00:03:32.620 Well, the answer is yes.
00:03:34.200 Now it's interesting the way science proceeds, you know, I think we, we all naively believe
00:03:39.680 that when scientists find out interesting things, uh, we all become aware of that.
00:03:44.040 And, you know, there's lots of science and medical news and papers and online and all over
00:03:48.280 the place.
00:03:48.660 And so we figure that when interesting things are discovered, we're probably going to hear
00:03:53.020 about them, but that's not really the way it works.
00:03:55.480 It turns out there are pockets, all kinds of pockets in science where people do research
00:04:00.200 and the public never really finds out about it.
00:04:02.720 And that's exactly what happened with the father of the research.
00:04:05.660 So when I started working on the book, I wasn't sure if there was enough research on
00:04:08.780 fathers to, to fill a book for starters.
00:04:11.640 I, as, you know, as it turns out, I could have filled two or three, I think, but I didn't
00:04:16.100 know that.
00:04:16.620 And the reason was that there's a group of people, it's a growing group, but started off
00:04:22.700 as a small group in the late seventies, early eighties, who thought fathers might be important
00:04:26.660 and started doing research.
00:04:28.460 And they mostly talked to each other.
00:04:30.520 They published their findings in journals that, uh, reporters don't read, even science
00:04:36.700 reporters don't read.
00:04:37.800 And so this body of research piled up.
00:04:40.360 It's a gold mine for me when I discovered it and knew I had something important to write
00:04:44.140 about because most of this was new material, even if some of it had been discovered a while
00:04:48.980 ago.
00:04:49.420 So, um, I don't quite know why that happened, but I'll give you one funny story.
00:04:53.800 Um, you know, one of the, one of the things that people know about father's research is
00:04:58.540 that fathers are more likely to engage in, in horseplay, what the sign is called rough
00:05:03.500 and tumble play.
00:05:04.340 So fathers are more likely than moms to get down on the floor and wrestle around, you 0.73
00:05:09.000 know, and, and be kind of rough in a good natured way with their, with their kids.
00:05:13.640 This doesn't come as a surprise to us, but somebody had to discover that somebody had
00:05:18.340 to watch fathers and watch mothers and figure that out.
00:05:21.240 And that was a guy named Michael Lamb.
00:05:22.880 He was in England, but I spent a lot of time in Washington and, um, it was that situation
00:05:28.480 we were talking about the, you know, babies would be studied and shown what would be studied
00:05:31.940 with their mothers.
00:05:32.520 Nobody looked at fathers and he said, well, why don't we, you know, why don't we just
00:05:35.760 try looking at fathers, see what we discover.
00:05:38.540 And he discovered this notion that fathers play very differently with their kids, much
00:05:44.040 more open-ended and so forth, and published a paper on it in 1977 or 78.
00:05:50.580 And that was the beginning.
00:05:52.340 You know, he's sort of a father of fatherhood research, if you will.
00:05:56.240 And that was the beginning of, uh, people starting to study fathers and say, hey, this is
00:06:00.480 interesting.
00:06:00.860 We didn't expect this.
00:06:02.520 And others sort of started to jump in very gradually over the eighties and nineties.
00:06:06.520 And then the last decade or so, things have started to boom.
00:06:10.720 So I love how you start off the book, kind of like a progression here.
00:06:15.480 And you start off comparing and contrasting human fathers with fathers in the animal kingdom.
00:06:22.340 Um, what makes human fathers different from most male fathers in the animal kingdom?
00:06:29.680 And why is that?
00:06:30.560 Why is there a difference there?
00:06:31.620 And I guess the question would be, are there any other animals where, that act sort of like
00:06:36.500 human fathers in a way?
00:06:38.040 So, so I think first I should make the case that, you know, why it's interesting to look at animals.
00:06:45.640 Sure.
00:06:45.760 So, so in, in many respects, we are very much like, uh, other mammals, you know, primates, chimpanzees,
00:06:54.020 gorillas, uh, but even, you know, other kinds of, uh, mammals.
00:06:58.600 We, you know, a lot of scientific research is done on mice.
00:07:02.080 And one of the people I talked to in the book said, you know, if you take a mouse's brain and,
00:07:06.440 um, you know, uh, flatten it, you know, cut it, sort of dissect it and flatten it out,
00:07:11.660 put it on a piece of paper towel, uh, it looks exactly like a human brain.
00:07:17.000 If you, you know, prepared it the same way, except a lot smaller, obviously, but it has
00:07:21.500 all the same, you know, uh, areas in the same, uh, anatomical sections.
00:07:26.120 So we're very much like animals in a lot of ways.
00:07:30.240 And that's why we do so much research on animals.
00:07:32.380 When it comes to fathering, though, we're very different from most animals.
00:07:36.680 So among mammals who are our closest, uh, relatives, about 95% of mammal fathers never
00:07:45.840 see their children or, or have very little to do with them.
00:07:48.760 You know, they, they, um, they do their one thing.
00:07:52.020 They can make their one essential contribution to the process of having children and then
00:07:57.240 disappear.
00:07:58.860 And so it's very unusual for mammals to, uh, mammalian fathers take care of their kids.
00:08:05.600 There are a few monkeys that do it, a few other species, and of course, humans.
00:08:10.440 And, uh, there's one possible exception with a, with a kind of obscure whale.
00:08:15.700 But aside from that, as far as we know, um, human parents spend more time with their
00:08:23.860 children, spend more time raising their children than any other animal.
00:08:27.540 So you would say that we spend, say, 18 years raising our kids to adulthood.
00:08:33.260 That's, that's longer than any other species spends preparing its offspring to go out in the
00:08:40.900 world and fend for themselves.
00:08:42.140 So this is a big, this is a big job.
00:08:45.680 And when you see what a big job it is and how unusual it is in the animal kingdom, it
00:08:49.980 begins to make sense that we would have been designed and families would have been designed
00:08:54.620 in a way that both fathers and mothers contribute because it's an awfully big job for one person
00:09:00.300 to do alone.
00:09:01.320 As, as many single parents will be happy to tell you, actually.
00:09:05.620 So just the fact that human beings take such a long time to develop, that's why, uh, for the
00:09:11.300 most part, fathers stick around.
00:09:13.560 Yeah, that's, that's, that's the presumption.
00:09:16.180 And, you know, the reason we take so long to develop is that we have these big brains,
00:09:20.300 which are, which are hard to, which are hard to fit coming out of mom.
00:09:24.580 Um, and so, so human infants are born sort of earlier in the developmental process so that
00:09:31.660 they can fit out the exit path, um, with their big brains. 0.89
00:09:35.840 And then, so they do a lot more developing after they're born than some other animals.
00:09:39.520 Maybe that was too much anatomy for you, but there you go.
00:09:44.000 Well, so you talked about the difference between humans and animals, right?
00:09:47.760 So generally fathers stick around more or stick around longer.
00:09:52.980 Um, but then you talk about the difference between fathers, fatherhood from culture to
00:09:57.120 culture amongst humans.
00:09:58.500 How does father involvement differ from culture to culture?
00:10:02.920 Well, it's, it's, I think it's safe to say that in, that in all cultures, you know,
00:10:07.900 fathers have an important role to play.
00:10:10.060 There, there are probably a few obscure exceptions somewhere, but it's certainly true that in,
00:10:14.740 you know, in Western cultures, and even in a lot of non-Western cultures, um, fathers play
00:10:20.180 a very important role.
00:10:20.960 So one, um, group that I write about in the book that was quite interesting, and, and, and these,
00:10:25.660 these are, uh, people who, um, probably are the best fathers in the world.
00:10:30.340 They're called Akka Pygmies. 0.99
00:10:32.340 That's AKA the Akka people, and they live in Central Africa, you know, uh, forest area that, 0.89
00:10:39.180 where it's, would be very difficult for us to survive and to find food, but a place,
00:10:44.740 that they've lived in for a long, long time, and they know how to live there.
00:10:49.340 And, uh, these fathers, uh, you know, in the course of a day, uh, they're, they're hunters
00:10:54.360 and gatherers, and in the course of a day, they are rarely more than an arm's reach from
00:10:59.560 their children.
00:11:00.800 So the wives and children go with the fathers on the hunt, and they go with them to gather 0.86
00:11:05.320 fruits and nuts and berries and so forth.
00:11:08.060 And, uh, the kids are just with them all the time.
00:11:11.660 They learn, uh, you know, how, how dad works, what he does for a living.
00:11:17.220 I mean, think about American kids and ask them what their dad does for a living.
00:11:22.660 And, uh, how many of them, you know, have any good sense of what's going on?
00:11:27.080 If dad's a lumberjack or a fisherman or something, they might have a pretty good idea what's happening.
00:11:32.480 But for all the millions of us who head off to offices, um, do our kids really know what we do?
00:11:39.000 You know, and it's not easy to tell them what we do when it mostly involves typing at a computer screen
00:11:43.840 and moving pieces of paper and, uh, digital information around.
00:11:48.540 So these kids grow up knowing exactly what their mothers and fathers do, how the family, uh, works together.
00:11:54.520 And the fathers, one of the interesting points, I thought, um, on, on evenings after a hard day gathering food,
00:12:03.340 the fathers, like a lot of other fathers here and elsewhere, will gather, um, you know,
00:12:09.460 to drink some palm wine and talk over the day.
00:12:12.380 And just the way, um, you know, workers here might, uh, stop and have a beer after work
00:12:18.180 and chat about what went on in the office during the day.
00:12:20.500 Uh, except that for the Aka people, they take their kids with them and the kids will be riding on their hips 1.00
00:12:26.740 while they're talking over shop and business and what happened.
00:12:30.840 And, um, if the kids, uh, you know, I'm afraid I have more, uh, uh, anatomy for you here, I guess.
00:12:38.040 But, you know, if the kids have to go to the bathroom while the fathers are holding them, that's fine.
00:12:41.680 The fathers just wipe off the kids and themselves with a palm leaf and relax and enjoy themselves.
00:12:47.440 So, uh, these, uh, you know, the situation is very different from our situation here.
00:12:53.700 And, but I, you know, I think I, I described the Aka people and how they live in the book
00:12:57.940 because I think there's a lot to be learned from that.
00:13:00.400 The researcher who studied them, uh, has studied them for 20 or 30 years.
00:13:04.400 And he actually ultimately built himself a house over there.
00:13:07.880 And he and his, I think he has seven children, spend a lot of time over there.
00:13:12.140 He was so impressed with these people that he just wanted to live there.
00:13:14.580 Wow. Were there any theories about why fatherhood developed in this way in this particular culture?
00:13:21.080 You know, I don't know if, uh, if we know exactly why that happened, but, um, but once it started
00:13:28.220 to develop that way, it was reinforced by the, I think by the benefits, which are the, you know,
00:13:33.080 the kids are prepared, um, you know, to take over, you know, the hunting and gathering chores
00:13:39.500 when they become of age, because they've grown up with that, they've been involved with it.
00:13:43.500 And there are a lot of reasons why, uh, that can be a good thing.
00:13:47.360 You know, it's not unlike what used to happen on American farms where kids would grow up on the farm.
00:13:52.240 They knew how to do all the chores on the farm.
00:13:54.340 They knew what their parents did because they saw them all day.
00:13:57.840 And then when they get older, they could take over the farm.
00:14:01.000 We, we are a long, long way.
00:14:03.460 Uh, most of us in America from that kind of situation today.
00:14:08.160 So let's talk about getting to like the nitty gritty about the benefits that fathers have.
00:14:12.280 And I thought it was interesting that you started off talking about how a father has an influence
00:14:17.120 on his child, even before the child is conceived.
00:14:22.240 Um, and I know people say, okay, yeah, of course genetics, but it's just the health of the father.
00:14:27.880 Right.
00:14:28.380 And you know, most of the father, it's some kind of, it's some kind of, uh,
00:14:33.460 um, strange and unexpected connection between fathers.
00:14:38.820 So, you, you know, from the book, I read about, um, involvement of fathers during pregnancy.
00:14:44.620 Now you would think that during pregnancy, uh, a father would be not involved.
00:14:49.640 I mean, what's he going to do?
00:14:50.840 You know, the action is all inside mom.
00:14:53.320 Uh, he hasn't met this creature yet.
00:14:55.700 The fetus is still developing.
00:14:57.320 Uh, how could he possibly have any effect on the fetus?
00:15:01.000 And so here's what happens.
00:15:03.460 Not only does he have an effect, he has a huge effect.
00:15:05.940 So if the father's not around during his partner's pregnancy, those kids, those infants have nearly four times the death rate of infants whose fathers were involved with the pregnancy.
00:15:18.120 Um, fathers who are depressed during the pregnancy, again, before they've met the child, before the child was then born.
00:15:25.980 If fathers are depressed during pregnancy, that increases the risk their children will suffer from depression, perhaps late in life.
00:15:33.580 And the other thing is, there's a strange connection with father's hormones.
00:15:36.760 So we know that mothers go through all kinds of hormonal changes to prepare them for pregnancy.
00:15:41.640 When they are pregnant, to prepare them to carry the fetus and so forth. 0.96
00:15:46.200 Um, it turns out fathers go through all kinds of hormonal changes too.
00:15:49.680 They're, they experience a decline in testosterone.
00:15:52.880 They experience a rise in a hormone called prolactin, which is associated with nursing in women. 0.91
00:15:58.480 And I don't know any fathers who are nursing yet, but, uh, somehow they have this nursing hormone that's on the rise, uh, during pregnancy.
00:16:05.920 So all these things are happening.
00:16:07.200 So there's a huge connection between fathers and the developing fetus before it's even developed to the point where it can be born.
00:16:13.860 So what could fathers do during this time to, I don't know, create an environment that's most adventations for his child and for the mother?
00:16:21.400 Well, in, in a narrow sense, um, you know, be with a mother, uh, you know, be closely involved with the mother, spend time with the mother.
00:16:31.080 Um, because that's what seems to produce these changes in the fathers and, uh, the better outlook for the fetus and the child that's, that's born.
00:16:41.100 Uh, beyond that, you know, there are other good reasons to spend time with the mother because pregnancy is difficult. 0.94
00:16:46.180 Um, because they want you to get up and give them a glass of water and there's a lot of things going on.
00:16:52.340 I don't mean to trivialize it, but, uh, fathers can do a lot to support, uh, mothers, uh, which is a good thing.
00:16:59.680 But, uh, and if they do that, then these slightly more mysterious things involving their children and their hormones, uh, will also take place too.
00:17:08.960 So the question on the, this question about the statistic about infant mortality, does that even apply here in the West or is it across?
00:17:16.180 Across culture, across, whether you're so, across socioeconomic?
00:17:20.460 That is in the West, actually.
00:17:22.120 I don't know if we know the figures.
00:17:23.900 I don't know the figures for, you know, developing countries and so forth.
00:17:27.560 Uh, but that, that is in the West, even with our good medical therapy.
00:17:31.540 So, um, you know, and, and you would see evidence of this in poor communities compared to, uh, wealthier communities.
00:17:38.540 So not, not that, you know, many poor families are very close families and so forth, but in, uh, families that are subject to economic disruption and so forth, that's where you may see more problems.
00:17:51.140 And this is one of the reasons for that.
00:17:52.700 So a lot of talk is given to women's age and how that can affect the health of their child, right?
00:18:01.640 So the older a woman gets before she gets, when she gets pregnant, there are chances of having a child with Down syndrome increases, other health risk increase as well.
00:18:09.560 Um, and there hasn't been a lot of attention to paid on the age of the father, but there's, I guess there's research coming out that the age of the father can have an effect on a child's health as well.
00:18:20.420 How, how does that, what's that, what's the research saying on that?
00:18:23.300 Yeah, this is another very surprising thing to me as I started to research the book.
00:18:27.840 Um, so we know one of the things we know about genetics, maybe the first thing we know about genetics is that as women get older, they have an increased likelihood of having a child with Down syndrome.
00:18:37.380 I think many, many men and women know about this now, think about it, worry about it if they're getting older and they haven't had children yet.
00:18:45.160 It's just become a well-known fact.
00:18:47.000 What's far less known is that the children of older fathers have an increased risk of having Down syndrome.
00:18:55.000 The children of older fathers have an increased risk of having schizophrenia, a very serious mental illness.
00:18:59.660 Now, the risk of schizophrenia in any child is about 1%.
00:19:05.100 The risk of schizophrenia in the child of an older father is 2% or 3%.
00:19:09.940 So it's still small, but it's a lot bigger than, than it is for younger fathers.
00:19:15.100 And there are a whole series of obscure, um, genetic anomalies and illnesses, uh, that are more common in the children of older fathers.
00:19:24.480 And, I mean, what's going on there?
00:19:26.940 Is it, uh, as the father gets older, something's going, I mean, is there more mutations in the sperm that's going on or why are there problems from with older?
00:19:36.100 You're, you're on the right track.
00:19:37.240 And it was a bit of a mystery at first.
00:19:39.000 Um, so as you probably know, you know, a woman is born with all the eggs that she's going to have in her lifetime.
00:19:46.280 So those are sitting there waiting until she's in her twenties or thirties or whatever it might be to be used. 0.96
00:19:52.220 Um, fathers manufacture sperm fresh all the time.
00:19:55.800 So, you know, we'd say, well, you know, as mothers get older, those eggs are getting older.
00:20:00.320 And maybe that explains why there are more, uh, risks associated with older mothers.
00:20:05.220 But, but sperm is being made new all the time.
00:20:08.040 It doesn't get older as a father gets older.
00:20:10.780 So what's going on?
00:20:11.860 So it turns out that the problem is in something called spermatagonia.
00:20:16.440 These are the structures that manufacture sperm. 0.58
00:20:19.920 So what happens is those sperm, you know, sperm factories get older as men age.
00:20:27.180 And the thinking is not, not necessarily there are more, well, that there are, you know, genetic anomalies or errors that are introduced as these factories get older and, you know, a little less accurate.
00:20:39.440 And that that results in genetic changes in the sperm that increase the risk.
00:20:43.440 So you, you had half the, half the, half of it, right.
00:20:46.680 And if I left you alone, you probably would have got there.
00:20:50.280 Well, I mean, so this raises a question.
00:20:51.880 I mean, I mean, doctors often talk to women who are getting older and they're still planning to have a family to, okay, well, you need to think about the potential consequences of that.
00:21:01.420 Are they doing that same sort of thing with fathers yet?
00:21:04.540 No.
00:21:06.100 We're talking to find out the father.
00:21:07.660 And why is, why is that?
00:21:09.620 Well, there, here's, uh, there are two reasons.
00:21:13.760 One, one understandable, one not so understandable.
00:21:16.640 One, and I blasted genetic counselors in the book for not paying more attention to this.
00:21:22.860 So I talked to some genetic counselors and say, well, you know, there's nothing you can do about this kids that are running around.
00:21:27.620 There's nothing you can do about these risks.
00:21:29.320 Why worry people?
00:21:30.960 But you could say the same thing about mothers.
00:21:33.100 There's nothing you can do a lot about those risks either.
00:21:36.600 And yet we tell mothers what their risks are. 0.75
00:21:39.580 And, of course, one thing you can do, even, you know, with, with some of these things, there's an increased risk.
00:21:44.140 Some parents might choose to terminate the pregnancy. 0.99
00:21:48.080 Now, I don't think most people would recommend that, but that is one way to eliminate some of these risks.
00:21:55.020 Many others wouldn't do that for all the reasons we know about.
00:21:57.960 But, um, but my feeling is that men should know about this, whether they can do anything about it or not.
00:22:03.300 And certainly younger men should know about it so they can plan their lives and maybe decide to have children earlier than they might have.
00:22:10.340 But that, I think, is, is a scandal that men don't find out about this.
00:22:14.900 The other reason that they don't, that's a little bit easier to understand, is that men don't have occasion to see genetic counselors until their wives are already pregnant or their partners are pregnant.
00:22:26.940 So we don't, you know, women will see gynecologists and they get some advice about, uh, family planning or about, you know, having a family and so forth.
00:22:37.820 So they have some exposure to that.
00:22:40.160 Men don't have that. 1.00
00:22:41.500 So the genetic counselors who might be willing to, um, tell men about these risks don't have any interactions with the men.
00:22:51.060 On the other hand, back to the negative side of it, you know, recently I was at a, at a wedding, actually, and somebody I met there was a genetic counselor.
00:22:58.380 And I said, oh, you must know the risks associated with older properties.
00:23:01.900 And she said, no, no, what risks are you talking about?
00:23:04.000 So, you know, there's an education problem too.
00:23:07.600 So, you know, I think, I think, you know, as I say, some of this is understandable.
00:23:11.420 Some of this is a reflection of the fact that many people's coping fathers don't contribute as much to children, even in a genetic standpoint, you know.
00:23:21.260 Interesting.
00:23:21.760 So men do have a biological clock.
00:23:24.540 Men have a biological clock. 0.68
00:23:26.240 There's no question about that anymore.
00:23:28.040 It's not a, it's not a cocktail party joke.
00:23:30.580 It's a real thing.
00:23:31.580 Okay.
00:23:31.860 So let's move on beyond conception.
00:23:36.000 What role, I mean, how can, what does the research say that how the fathers affect a child during childhood?
00:23:44.920 Like what can fathers do?
00:23:46.380 What do they contribute to a child during childhood to help with their development?
00:23:51.220 So there are a lot of things they do.
00:23:54.320 And I'll give you a couple of, for instance, I have lots of them in the book, but a couple to give you an idea of the kinds of things.
00:24:00.840 And so, so we talked a little bit about play and the importance of the way fathers play with kids.
00:24:06.180 It turns out play is a major thing.
00:24:08.320 So children whose fathers play with them, read to them, go on school outings, help care for them and so forth, all of which we might think are the normal things that a father ought to do or would want to do.
00:24:19.540 And so those kids have fewer behavioral problems in their early school years.
00:24:23.840 They're less likely to become delinquent as adolescents.
00:24:27.260 They're less likely to be involved in criminal activity.
00:24:29.960 So this goes for years later.
00:24:31.380 This is a long-lasting thing.
00:24:33.760 And another interesting thing with fathers and kids, just one thing, but it's an important thing, and it represents the kinds of things that happen, is that fathers make unique contributions to language development in kids.
00:24:50.340 So you might think that, I mean, in many families, mothers still spend more time with kids than fathers do.
00:24:56.480 So you might think that mothers have a bigger role in language development than fathers.
00:25:01.960 So mothers engage in, you know, what's called motherese, that kind of language you recognize instantly.
00:25:07.980 It's, oh, good morning.
00:25:09.620 How did you sleep?
00:25:10.460 How are you?
00:25:11.440 You're so cute this morning, and et cetera, et cetera.
00:25:13.780 It really should be called parentese, because lots of fathers do it, too.
00:25:18.800 I've found myself doing it many times myself and my kids, and I've seen lots of other fathers do it, too.
00:25:25.700 But in any case, you might think that mothers have more influence on kids' language development because they spend more time with them.
00:25:33.080 Well, not true.
00:25:34.260 Some researchers at the University of North Carolina looked at mothers and fathers and kids' language ability,
00:25:38.760 and they found that when fathers used more words with children during play, the children had more advanced language skills a year later
00:25:47.180 and probably better success in school even later.
00:25:51.240 So what we think is happening is that mothers, because they spend more time with the kids,
00:25:58.500 know how to tune their language to sort of meet what the kid knows, right?
00:26:02.760 And fathers who may be a little less in tune with what words a child knows or doesn't know tend to use more words
00:26:10.940 simply because they don't know, you know, what wouldn't be understood, and that stretches kids and pulls them along
00:26:18.920 so they develop more quickly.
00:26:20.940 So, you know, if you have better language skills before you go to school, you're going to do better in school.
00:26:25.940 It's going to be easier for you to read, a whole series of things.
00:26:28.940 And this is something fathers do without knowing it.
00:26:31.600 But again, it goes back to what we said before.
00:26:33.240 The fathers have to spend time with the kids, have to talk with the kids, be involved with the kids,
00:26:37.880 and they can give the kids an incredible gift just by doing things they probably want to do anyway.
00:26:42.700 Interesting.
00:26:42.940 And it's sort of related to the verbal development.
00:26:45.780 And besides the rough-and-tumble physical play, you also mentioned research showing that fathers tend to be
00:26:50.260 a little more rough-and-tumble with the way they talk to their kids.
00:26:53.360 There's a lot of joking and teasing that it's played for.
00:26:57.840 More open-ended.
00:26:59.120 Yeah, exactly.
00:26:59.840 But that's beneficial for the child in the long run because it sort of creates, allows them to learn adaptability,
00:27:06.280 resilience, et cetera.
00:27:07.880 That's right.
00:27:08.480 In lots of ways.
00:27:09.400 And adaptability and resilience is one of the key things.
00:27:12.400 You know, fathers are more likely than mothers to, you know, jump up from behind a couch and startle kids.
00:27:18.080 Or at least this father is.
00:27:19.620 I still like doing that sort of thing.
00:27:22.520 So, and, you know, it actually turns out that's not a trivial thing because that kind of play helps kids get used to unusual or unexpected social situations.
00:27:32.780 So they've actually tracked kids over time and found that kids who engage in a lot of that kind of play with their fathers are more socially adept as kids and even more socially adept as adults, you know.
00:27:43.140 So if you're the charming, suave, sophisticated conversationalist that I've heard about, you probably have a lot to thank your father for that.
00:27:52.600 So the question is, are fathers necessary in the long run?
00:27:56.840 I mean, that's sort of the question of your book.
00:27:58.680 What conclusion did you come to after all the research you culled through?
00:28:02.280 So, actually, an early draft of the book was called Our Fathers Necessary.
00:28:09.060 We change it to Do Fathers Matter?
00:28:10.700 And the reason is that the short answer is fathers are not necessary.
00:28:16.000 Okay, they're not necessary.
00:28:17.660 It's the word that's important there.
00:28:19.860 So lots of single mothers can raise happy and healthy kids. 1.00
00:28:23.260 Single dads can raise happy kids, all kinds of combinations.
00:28:28.240 There's lots of evidence showing that gay families raise happy, healthy kids.
00:28:34.740 And so fathers are not necessary.
00:28:37.520 You know, a lot of friends were single mothers, and I made sure they all understood that I didn't say they were doomed to raise horrible children because there was no father in the house.
00:28:47.660 It's quite the opposite.
00:28:49.200 But fathers do contribute a lot.
00:28:52.060 They're not necessary, but they absolutely matter if you can follow the distinction there.
00:28:57.980 They're very important, and they contribute a lot.
00:29:00.820 So out of all the research you did, is there one thing that fathers who are listening right now can do to have the biggest positive impact on their children?
00:29:09.280 You know, I would say follow your instincts.
00:29:11.460 Play with your kids.
00:29:12.480 Spend time with them.
00:29:13.800 Not just spend time with them.
00:29:15.920 Engage with them.
00:29:16.960 An important one is listen to them.
00:29:18.960 If you want to play Napoli and they want to play Candyland, play Candyland.
00:29:23.840 You know, engage and treat them like, you know, like the people that they are.
00:29:29.400 They're smaller than us, and they know less, but they're pretty smart.
00:29:34.080 They're as smart as us.
00:29:35.480 And they're just ready, you know, to soak it all in, and fathers can supply a lot of that for them as well as mothers.
00:29:42.720 Fantastic.
00:29:43.200 Well, Paul Rayburn, thank you so much for your time.
00:29:44.800 It's been a pleasure.
00:29:46.180 Yeah, my pleasure.
00:29:47.000 Absolutely.
00:29:47.880 Our guest today was Paul Rayburn.
00:29:49.120 He's the author of the book, Do Fathers Matter?
00:29:51.400 What Science is Telling Us About the Parent We've Overlooked.
00:29:54.180 You can find that on Amazon.com and bookstores everywhere.
00:29:59.620 Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
00:30:03.060 For more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website.
00:30:06.380 And until next time, to all you fathers out there, happy Father's Day and stay manly.
00:30:15.440 Bye.
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