Fussbucket

Cross-posted at MotherTalkers

by Stacey

A new study in the Journal of Family Psychology shows that it isn’t just babies that moms have to nurture. According to this article in Science Daily, researchers at Ohio State University 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.

“Mothers can be very encouraging to fathers, and open the gate to their involvement in child care, or be very critical, and close the gate,” said Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, co-author of the study and assistant professor of human development and family science at Ohio State University. “This is the first real evidence that mothers, through their behavior, act as gatekeepers by either fostering or curtailing how much fathers take part in caring for their baby.”

The study included 97 couples in the Midwest who were married or cohabiting, and who were expecting a child when the study began, the article says. Before the birth, the couples completed a survey about their beliefs about the roles of fathers in taking care of children.

Then at about four months after the birth, researchers conducted in-home assessments and couples were asked about mothers’ gatekeeping behaviors such as 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).

Here’s my question. Did they also keep a tally of how sleep-deprived the mothers were when they were rolling their eyes or looking exasperated? Maybe the moms were feeling really pissy because they were so damned tired. Where’s their cheerleading squad?

Back to the study. 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. The couples were asked to change their infant’s clothes together and the researchers watched to see who did the most work and how fathers interacted with the baby.

The findings about the importance of mothers’ behavior for fathers’ involvement in child care are important for several reasons, Schoppe-Sullivan said. For one, this is the first study to examine things moms actually do on a day-to-day basis that have the potential to affect dads’ behavior.

In addition, most theories about maternal gatekeeping have focused on how negative reactions by mothers can keep fathers from getting involved in child care. But this study showed that encouragement by mothers may be just as important, if not more important, in shaping the role of fathers.

Well it’s always good to be positive, but part of me is feeling a little annoyed that the unquestioned message here is moms have to coddle their husbands into taking on their half of the child-rearing. My husband and I are usually very supportive of each other’s parenting and we’ve learned together how to survive living with children. But honestly, I could be as grouchy as Oscar in the trash can and my husband would still change diapers, make meals, and fold laundry.

What do you think? Is this study annoying or do I need to get more sleep?