Contributions of Television Use to Beliefs about Fathers and Gendered Family Roles among First-Time Expectant Parents

TV content has been documented to portray a limited range of gender roles, and to frequently depict fathers as incompetent parents. Accordingly, this study explored whether first-time expectant parents’ beliefs about gendered family roles and the importance of fathers to child development were related to their TV use. Participants were 201 individuals (122 women, 79 men) from across the United States expecting their first biological child in a cohabiting heterosexual relationship. Participants completed an online survey assessing weekly TV exposure, exposure to TV programs featuring fathers, perceived realism of TV, use of TV to learn about the world, and beliefs about both fathers’ importance to child development and family gender roles. Zero-order correlations indicated that increased exposure to TV in general and to programs featuring fathers, perceived realism, and stronger learning motives were each linked to less egalitarian gender role beliefs in both women and men. Among women, heavier exposure to TV in general and to programs featuring fathers, and stronger learning motives were each correlated with weaker beliefs that fathers were important to child development. Multiple regression analyses, however, indicated that attributing more realism to TV content uniquely predicted more traditional gendered family role beliefs and beliefs that fathers are less important to child development across the whole sample. Even among men with low perceived realism, greater exposure to TV fathers was linked with weaker beliefs that fathers were important to child development. First-time expectant fathers may be especially vulnerable to media messages about father roles

Gender role beliefs, work-family conflict, and father involvement after the birth of a second child

A major task for parents during the transition to second-time parenthood is to help their firstborn adjust to their new roles as siblings. Increased father involvement has been theorized to be protective for firstborn adjustment. Fathers, however, are under increasing pressure to balance both work and family responsibilities. Here we evaluate fathers’ relative involvement in two-child families as a function of family structure, gender role beliefs, and work-family conflict in 222 dual- and single-earner families from the Midwestern region of the United States after the birth of a second child. Couples reported on father involvement with firstborns and infants when the infants were 1, 4, 8, and 12 months old. On average, fathers increased their involvement with infants but decreased their involvement with firstborns. Dual-earner fathers were more involved with their children than single-earner fathers. Although mean levels of father involvement were different between dual- and single-earners, multi-group parallel process trajectory latent growth curve models revealed more similarities than differences between dual- and single-earners in processes guiding father involvement. Both dual- and single-earner fathers engaged in juggling childcare between children and both dual- and single-earner fathers’ involvement with infants was constrained by work-family conflict. Gender role beliefs predicted child care involvement for dual-earner, but not single-earner fathers: more egalitarian gender roles predicted greater involvement with the firstborn immediately after the birth of the second child. Results underscore the need for greater workplace support for fathers’ caregiving roles after the birth of an infant

His, Hers, or Theirs? Coparenting After the Birth of a Second Child

This study examined changes in coparenting after the birth of a second child. Mothers and fathers from 241 two-parent families reported on their spouse’s coparenting cooperation and conflict with their firstborn child before (prenatal) and four months after the birth of a second child. Parents completed questionnaires (prenatal) on gender role attitudes, marital satisfaction, and firstborn children’s temperamental characteristics. Parents also reported on the secondborn infant’s temperament at 1 month following the birth of the second child. Coparenting conflict increased across the transition, whereas cooperation decreased. Couples in which fathers reported greater marital satisfaction were more cooperative 4 months after the birth. Firstborns’ difficult temperament contributed to less cooperative coparenting by both parents. When mothers had more traditional gender role beliefs, fathers engaged in more conflictual coparenting behavior, and when fathers had more traditional gender role beliefs, mothers engaged in more conflictual coparenting behavior. Mothers, but not fathers, engaged in more coparenting conflict regarding the firstborn when both the firstborn and infant sibling had difficult temperaments

Fatherhood and Psychobiology in the Philippines: Perspectives on Joint Profiles and Longitudinal Changes of Fathers’ Estradiol and Testosterone

Objectives: Research on the psychobiology of partnering and fathering has focused on testosterone (T), oxytocin, and prolactin (PRL) as mechanisms that potentially mediate life history trade-offs related to those roles. Less is known about other hormones that might be responsive to life history transitions and implicated in fathering, such as estradiol (E2). We examined how E2 changed during the transition to marriage and fatherhood, its correlation with fathers’ caregiving, and its joint within-individual production with other hormones (T, PRL). Methods: Data were collected from a total of 913 Filipino men (aged 25.9 years ± 0.3 SD at follow-up) enrolled in a longitudinal cohort study. Morning saliva samples collected at baseline (2005) and follow-up (2009) were assayed for T and E2 (n = 329), dried blood spots from baseline were assayed for PRL. Fathers reported on caregiving in 2009. Results: When compared with men who remained single non-fathers over the study period, men who became married residential fathers experienced larger declines in E2. This effect was non-significant when we controlled for longitudinal changes in T. E2 was not significantly related to fathers’ caregiving, controlling for T. In cross-sectional analyses for PRL, T, and E2, married residential fathers exhibited within-individual profiles of reduced T and elevated PRL, whereas single non-fathers exhibited the opposite profile of elevated T and reduced PRL. Conclusions: Our findings point to the need for future research to consider the mutually regulatory dynamics and/or combinatorial implications of multiple physiological axes acting within individuals to underpin life history trade-offs and behavioral strategies

The Steroid/Peptide Theory of Social Bonds: Integrating Testosterone and Peptide Responses for Classifying Social Behavioral Contexts

Hormones, and hormone responses to social contexts, are the proximate mechanisms of evolutionary pathways to pair bonds and other social bonds. Testosterone (T) is implicated in trade-offs relevant to pair bonding, and oxytocin (OT) and arginine vasopressin (AVP) are positively tied to social bonding in a variety of species. Here, we present the Steroid/Peptide Theory of Social Bonds (S/P Theory), which integrates T and peptides to provide a model, set of predictions, and classification system for social behavioral contexts related to social bonds. The S/P Theory also resolves several paradoxes apparent in the literature on social bonds and hormones: the Offspring Defense Paradox, Aggression Paradox, and Intimacy Paradox. In the S/P Theory, we partition aggression into antagonistic and protective aggression, which both increase T but exert distinct effects on AVP and thus social bonds. Similarly, we partition intimacy into sexual and nurturant intimacy, both of which increase OT and facilitate social bonds, but exert distinct effects on T. We describe the utility of the S/P Theory for classifying “tricky” behavioral contexts on the basis of their hormonal responses using partner cuddling, a behavior which is assumed to be nurturant but increases T, as a test case of the S/P Theory. The S/P Theory provides a comparative basis for conceptualizing and testing evolved hormonal pathways to pair bonds with attention to species, context, and gender/sex specificities and convergences

The Roles of Parents in Shaping Fathering Across Generations in Cebu, Philippines

Objective: This study examined how parental caregiving and parent–child closeness are associated with future fathering among 335 Filipino men who are participants in a long-running birth cohort study. Background Few studies have multidecade longitudinal data to test the pathways through which parenting is transmitted across generations, with most relevant research conducted in the United States, Europe, and other similar settings. The roles of mothers and fathers in shaping their sons’ future parenting is particularly understudied despite fathers having the potential to positively influence child health and development. Method: Participants’ mothers (Generation 1 [G1]) reported on caregiving during Generation 2 (G2) participants’ early life, and the G2 males reported parent–child closeness during adolescence. G2 fathers reported on their own child-care involvement and the salience of care- giving to their parenting identity. We tested whether parent–child closeness moderated the effect of early-life care to predict later-life fathering. Results: G1-G2 closeness moderated the association between G1 parents’ caregiving and G2 fathers’ parenting identity (for both G1 parents) and caregiving time (for G1 fathers only). When the G1-G2 mother–son relationship was not close, there was a negative correlation between G1 maternal care and G2 fathers’ caregiving identity. For G2 men who were close to their fathers, there were positive associations between G1 paternal care and G2 fathers’ caregiving identity and time, respectively. Among G2 men who were not close to their fathers, the slopes relating G1 paternal care to G2 fathers’ care- giving identity and time, respectively, were negative. Conclusion: These findings reflect that developmental experiences with both mothers and fathers are predictive of men’s identity as parents in adulthood and that closeness between fathers and sons moderates whether sons’ paternal care tends to emulate or diverge from their fathers’ caregiving patterns

Coparenting support in the context of difficult children: Mother and father differences

While parenting children with difficult behaviors can intensify stress within the entire family system, families may lean on other familial relationships to mitigate that stress. The coparenting relationship is known to play a key role within the family system for child outcomes and familial interactions, but it is not clear whether it eases the stress and challenge of raising a difficult child, nor how that plays out differently for mothers versus fathers. Ninety-six couples (89.7% married) parenting young children (Mean age = 3.22 years) were included in this study. Using cross-sectional and aggregated daily response data, actor–partner interdependence models were used to examine how mothers\u27 and fathers\u27 perceived coparenting support lessened or intensified parenting stress and/or daily problems with their child/children—for themselves or their parenting partner. We found that greater coparenting support reported by mothers coincided with stronger links between the mother\u27s report of child difficulty and daily problems encountered by both mothers and fathers. In contrast, when fathers reported greater coparenting support, the intensity between reported child difficulty and daily problems decreased for mothers, and fathers reported lower parenting stress. Coparenting support also moderated associations between parents\u27 perception of child difficulty and daily problems with their children. These results suggest that mothers incur heightened coparenting support from fathers when experiencing more difficult child behavior and that coparenting support experienced by fathers may alleviate parenting challenges for mothers. These findings further contribute to the literature by emphasizing distinct differences between mothers and fathers in coparenting associations within the family system

Investigating moderators of daily marital to parent–child spillover: Individual and family systems approaches

Objective: We tested whether cognitive reappraisal and coparenting quality moderate marital to parent–child spillover in mothers and fathers. Background: The influence of marital relationship quality on parent–child relationships, referred to as the spillover effect, is well documented. Factors that may attenuate the occurrence of spillover, however, remain unclear. Cognitive reappraisal, an emotion regulation strategy that promotes the reframing of emotional situations as neutral or positive, and coparenting—the intermediate subsystem between the marital and parent–child relationships—may buffer the effects of marital to parent–child spillover. Method: Using daily diary data from mother–father couples (N = 96) of young children (Mage = 3.22 years), we investigated coparenting quality and cognitive reappraisal as moderators of marital and parent–child spillover within and between days. Results: Dyadic multilevel models revealed within-day spillover of marital emotional climate and parent–child emotional climate for both mothers and fathers. Whereas cognitive reappraisal moderated spillover for fathers, no significant moderators emerged for mothers. Fathers also experienced next-day associations between marital emotional climate and parent–child emotional climate the following day, whereas mothers did not. Coparenting quality accounted for next-day associations between fathers’ marital emotional climate and parent–child climate. Conclusion: Overall, our results evince that although spillover can be attenuated by both cognitive reappraisal and coparenting quality for fathers, the same is not true for mothers. Implications: These results signify the importance of considering mother and father differences in empirical investigations of spillover effects and processes within the family system, and the clinical implications recommended to marriage and family therapists

Coparenting support in the context of difficult children: Mother and father differences

While parenting children with difficult behaviors can intensify stress within the entire family system, families may lean on other familial relationships to mitigate that stress. The coparenting relationship is known to play a key role within the family system for child outcomes and familial interactions, but it is not clear whether it eases the stress and challenge of raising a difficult child, nor how that plays out differently for mothers versus fathers. Ninety-six couples (89.7% married) parenting young children (Mean age = 3.22 years) were included in this study. Using cross-sectional and aggregated daily response data, actor–partner interdependence models were used to examine how mothers\u27 and fathers\u27 perceived coparenting support lessened or intensified parenting stress and/or daily problems with their child/children—for themselves or their parenting partner. We found that greater coparenting support reported by mothers coincided with stronger links between the mother\u27s report of child difficulty and daily problems encountered by both mothers and fathers. In contrast, when fathers reported greater coparenting support, the intensity between reported child difficulty and daily problems decreased for mothers, and fathers reported lower parenting stress. Coparenting support also moderated associations between parents\u27 perception of child difficulty and daily problems with their children. These results suggest that mothers incur heightened coparenting support from fathers when experiencing more difficult child behavior and that coparenting support experienced by fathers may alleviate parenting challenges for mothers. These findings further contribute to the literature by emphasizing distinct differences between mothers and fathers in coparenting associations within the family system

Neural Responses to Infants linked with Behavioral Interactions and Testosterone in Fathers

Few fMRI studies have investigated the brain-behavioral basis of parenting in human fathers. Ten fathers were videotaped and gave salivary testosterone samples while interacting with their 2–4 month old infants, and viewed video clips of their own infant and an unfamiliar age-, ethnicityand sex-matched other infant during an fMRI protocol. Infant stimuli activated a network of prefrontal and subcortical brain regions. Furthermore, a subset of these regions activated significantly more to own (OWN) than other (OTHER) infants. Finally, neural responses to OWN versus OTHER were linked with paternal sensitivity, paternal reciprocity, and testosterone. In sum, our results provide a novel perspective on the links between brain, behavior, and hormones in fathers