The Science of Fatherhood

What actually happens to a man when he becomes a father — in his brain, his body and his sense of who he is? 

Darby Saxbe, professor of psychology at USC Dornsife, draws on the research behind her new book, Dad Brain, to share what science reveals about the ways fatherhood changes men and how being a dad can shape workplaces and society. 

Learn more about the Dornsife Dialogues and sign up for the next live event here. 

Transcript

00:00:02:04 - 00:00:10:08

Unknown

Welcome to the podcast version of Dornsife Dialogs hosted by the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

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Unknown

Conversations feature our distinguished scholars, alumni, and other thought leaders discussing the fascinating issues that matter to you. You can also find video recordings of these discussions on the USC Dornsife YouTube channel. We begin this Dornsife dialog with an introduction from Dean James Bullock

00:00:32:19 - 00:00:59:09

Unknown

welcome everybody. We are extremely excited to talk about Dad Brain today. So before we get going, I'm going to introduce our panelists that we're going to have a great conversation with. And I am proud to introduce Professor Darby Saxby. She is a professor of psychology at USC Dornsife and author of Dad Brain The New Science of Fatherhood and How It Shapes Men's Lives.

00:00:59:11 - 00:01:28:14

Unknown

As a clinical psychologist, she examines the transition to parenthood, focusing on the neural and hormonal foundations of fatherhood and how close relationships influence health and well-being. Doctor Saxby has published more than 80 scientific articles and received major funding from the National Institute of Health, the National Science Foundation. Her honors are many, and they include awards from the American Psychological Association, the society for Research and Child Development, and a Fulbright Fellowship.

00:01:28:16 - 00:01:51:07

Unknown

She earned her PhD from UCLA and her undergraduate degree from Yale. Welcome, Doctor Saxby. Thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be here. This is going to be great. So let's just go. Let's just jump in because I am so excited. I'm also a dad. I don't know how my dad brain is going to do today, but we'll we'll see how it goes.

00:01:51:09 - 00:02:21:03

Unknown

So your book is again called Dad Brain. I think when many people, or at least historically people, thought about the science of parenthood, they were focusing on what happens to moms. So what made you want to flip the script and focus on fathers? Yeah, I mean, that's exactly right. And I'm a mom myself. So when, I became a parent, I felt like there were all these scripts kind of ready to go for me.

00:02:21:03 - 00:02:44:19

Unknown

And there was a lot of research about motherhood and, you know, my husband really had no idea what was happening to him. And, I think in science, we're always interested in gaps in the research literature, right? We always want to ask questions that other people aren't looking at. And I also was raised, part time by a single dad after my parents got divorced.

00:02:44:21 - 00:03:15:12

Unknown

They had joint custody. And, and so every other week I was with my dad as a solo parent. So, you know, I've always been interested in sort of like, how do we adapt to parenting responsibilities? And does that look similar for men, as it does to women? So I've been intrigued by dads and by fatherhood for a long time, having kind of had a front row seat to my own dad's evolution, and then watching my husband go through fatherhood.

00:03:15:14 - 00:03:39:03

Unknown

And then when I was starting my lab here at USC, I really wanted to do a longitudinal brain scan study to look at how the brain was changing and initially thought, I'll look at pregnant women and realize I was actually pregnant at the time that I was planning this study and was doing neuroimaging, and they would not let me into the scanner because of safety concerns.

00:03:39:05 - 00:04:00:06

Unknown

And I thought, this is going to actually be pretty tricky. And there have been some studies that have used brain scans of pregnant women. So I don't want to say it's impossible, but it's a sort of extra layer of IRB, you know, ethics board oversight. And I thought, well, I'm always I've always been curious about dads and it actually might be easier to study them.

00:04:00:07 - 00:04:22:18

Unknown

That's the perfect combination. And so that's kind of where that program of research originated. That's great. So as you say, it began right here at USC. How did being at USC help help you there? I mean, I think there are some resources available to talk to us about that. How does that happen? Walk us through what that looks like in real time.

00:04:22:20 - 00:04:46:02

Unknown

Yeah, definitely. So yeah, I mean, I, I'm sure some folks in this audience will know, but for those who don't, when you become a new assistant professor, you, you know, in the sciences, you get the opportunity to start a lab and you typically get a little funding from the university to help you do that. You recruit graduate students, so you're sort of building this like little small business.

00:04:46:04 - 00:05:19:10

Unknown

You know, that kind of exists within the larger university. And then at a certain point, you have to be funding that business yourself. You're getting external grants. And, and so I was very lucky when I was starting my lab because there is a fantastic scan suite, right in our psychology building, which is actually pretty unusual. A lot of, social neuroscientists, psychologists end up sort of schlepping across campus to the medical school of their universities if they want to incorporate neuroimaging into their research.

00:05:19:12 - 00:05:41:00

Unknown

So we have the DNI, the Dornsife Neuroimaging Center, just basically on the first floor of our building. So it was very easy to bring expectant parents into the lab, interview them, go through kind of an extensive research protocol and then say, okay, well, you're here. We're also going to take a picture of your brain. So, so that was a big asset.

00:05:41:00 - 00:06:07:16

Unknown

And another big asset was just having people here who could advise me on scanner methodology, statistical approaches. So I got a lot of hands on help from collaborators as well. Kind of in the early days of launching the study. Okay. Awesome. So, well, let's jump to it. Let's talk about what what you found. So, you know, one of the things you talk about is how fatherhood changes the brain.

00:06:07:18 - 00:06:27:22

Unknown

What does that actually mean? And what are you seeing in those brain scans that that that convinces you of this? Yeah. So just to kind of walk you through the study we did here at USC. So we scanned men midway through their partners pregnancy, and we specifically recruited couples who were expecting their first child and they were cohabitating.

00:06:27:22 - 00:06:55:06

Unknown

So these were heterosexual couples. We specifically wanted to look at fathers. And then we brought them back into the lab after their babies were born. So mid to late pregnancy scan and then another scan around six months postpartum. And, when you scan a brain, you can kind of take a few different kinds of pictures. You can take like a whole movie recording of how the brain is functioning like what is changing in terms of its blood flow.

00:06:55:08 - 00:07:18:09

Unknown

And we we've done some work with, with those. That's called a functional scan. We've done some work with our functional scan, but we you can also take like a still high resolution photograph that's like a structural scan. So we took a structural scan both before and after birth. And a structural scan actually lets you kind of map the topography of the brain and see how big or small certain structures are.

00:07:18:11 - 00:07:42:06

Unknown

So we were able to use that data to see what parts of the brain were changing in volume from before to after birth. Now I should set the stage at the same time that we were doing this study. And in fact, I was a few years into my study when this landmark paper came out in Nature Neuroscience, that looked at mothers brains and used a very similar pre to post type of approach.

00:07:42:07 - 00:08:02:17

Unknown

And that study actually used a really clever design. I mentioned that, you know, it was tricky for me to plan a scanning study that involved pregnant women. That study actually recruited women from a fertility clinic who were trying to get pregnant, and then followed them so that half of the sample, the women became mothers over a certain period of time.

00:08:02:17 - 00:08:29:06

Unknown

And then, you know, another chunk of the sample, women did not become mothers. And so they were actually able to compare what was changing structurally in the brain. And they found really cool results that were sort of the opposite of, I think, what a lot of people would expect, which was, you know, you're sort of, you might think that as you're learning new skills, your brain is growing and you're acquiring new neurons and new connections.

00:08:29:08 - 00:08:53:21

Unknown

They found the opposite. The brain was shrinking, it was losing gray matter volume. And we can talk about that and what that means. And you know, whether that's adaptive, we think it probably is. But, there was sort of a, a volume reduction that was happening in the moms that was so striking that you could use a machine learning algorithm to tell which one the became mothers from which women didn't become mothers.

00:08:53:23 - 00:09:12:16

Unknown

So, so that study came out and I thought, I have to meet these people. This is exactly what I want to do with dads. They happened to be in Spain, in Barcelona, which was a city that I also wanted to go visit. So I got the Fulbright, and basically went and hung out with them, for a semester.

00:09:12:18 - 00:09:34:18

Unknown

And we pooled our data. So they had collected data from the male partners of the moms that they recruited. And, and then a small control group of, you know, men who were partnered with the women who did not become pregnant. And so we combined our data that we had collected at USC, their data that they had collected in Barcelona and Madrid.

00:09:34:18 - 00:09:56:03

Unknown

And then, that included both the control group of non fathers and the fathers. And what we saw was really convergent with what had been seen in the moms, which was that the brain was losing gray matter volume and specifically where it was losing the most volume was in parts of the brain that we considered to be, components of the mental Ising network.

00:09:56:05 - 00:10:22:12

Unknown

So like parts of the brain that help us think about other people's minds and engage in social cognition. But the men's brains were not changing as dramatically as the women's brains. So the changes were more subtle and they were also more variable. So when I got back to LA, I wanted to dig more into what is driving these changes in the fathers.

00:10:22:12 - 00:10:55:00

Unknown

So because I had collected a lot of data on these couples before and after they became parents, I was able to look at things like how much time the dad was spending with his kid, how bonded he felt, whether he enjoyed his time with his kid, how much paternity leave he wanted to take. And I found that the more dads kind of told us that they wanted to engage in parenthood and were invested in parenting, the more the brain changed in terms of that gray matter volume reduction.

00:10:55:02 - 00:11:21:06

Unknown

So there was variability within the fathers that was linked to their level of participation in parenting. Wow, that's super interesting. But before we get to that correlation and talk more about it, you know, I think you've talked about this change in brain as a kind of pruning. And I think you've talked about it, as an analogy of editing with an analogy like editing a film.

00:11:21:08 - 00:11:40:17

Unknown

Can you talk a little bit about that and like it? It seems scary to lose to lose brain volume. Like, is this about how bad is this? Is this actually a good thing? What? How should we think about losing brain volume? Yeah, it's a great question. And I was a little worried writing this book that I would disobeyed men from wanting to become parents.

00:11:40:17 - 00:12:05:10

Unknown

Like, oh no, I'm going to lose a chunk of my brain. And it really does seem like this is adaptive. So in the studies of moms that I talked about when they lost more gray matter volume, they reported stronger attachment and bonding with their infants. And as I just told you, we saw something similar with our dads. So when the dads were more involved in parenting and enjoying parenting more, they showed that signature gray matter volume loss.

00:12:05:12 - 00:12:46:05

Unknown

So, I think it is like this process of streamlining and editing to facilitate faster, more efficient connections. And the fact that we're seeing those mental sizing regions change the most tells us that, you know, what is parenthood if not intensive mental izing activity, right? You have to imagine what your baby who cannot talk, is feeling and needing in order to be sensitive and responsive and, and so, you know, that sort of mental easing network is getting a lot of exercise and a lot of practice and needs to work efficiently.

00:12:46:07 - 00:13:09:05

Unknown

And, and there are actually other windows in the lifespan when we lose gray matter volume. So actually in early childhood, there's a big process of pruning, as the brain is starting to kind of consolidate learning. And that happens kind of after early infancy and as a child approaches school age. And then we also see this other big period of brain reorganization in adolescence.

00:13:09:05 - 00:13:37:04

Unknown

So we know that these kind of normative windows, critical windows of, neuroplasticity. And I think the transition to parenthood is, is possibly one of those periods, even though it has not been studied very much in that way. Interesting. So I can't help but ask this. I think I have to ask this. I remember, having my first kid and then my second child, not getting a heck of a lot of sleep for the first several months.

00:13:37:04 - 00:14:10:14

Unknown

There. Does that correlate to any of this, or really, is that is that not what we're talking about? Yeah. Yeah, I know it's a great question. And honestly, it was really hard for us to do the postpartum scans because the dads kept falling asleep. So like stay still, but not that still. So we did find that dads who reported worse sleep showed more of that gray matter volume reduction, but it wasn't like a 1 to 1 correspondence where it was the single best predictor.

00:14:10:16 - 00:14:35:02

Unknown

And I should say, like before I say that the remodeling of the brain is completely adaptive. I should also say we don't totally know for sure. And we also found that when dads were losing more gray matter volume, they reported more symptoms of postpartum depression and anxiety. So it was like they were both more engaged in parenting. They were also telling us about some of the negative consequences of being engaged in parenting.

00:14:35:04 - 00:14:56:05

Unknown

And the way I think about that is just that parenting is is, you know, hard work and it's taxing. And, and so it sort of comes with both good things and bad things, right? For our health and for the brain. Is there a situation where and I guess you probably didn't study this, but maybe you can just guess or think about it as an expert.

00:14:56:07 - 00:15:15:23

Unknown

In a world where you have two parents that are kind of both working, you know, both helping sort of take care of the baby versus another one where it's one or the other. Would you expect to see a differential, shrink or differential? I don't know of, measurable effects on either parent. If there is sort of you're sharing the load versus not.

00:15:16:01 - 00:15:38:17

Unknown

Yeah. I mean, this would be a dream study, right? If you could recruit couples and then you can look at inner correlations in their patterns of change. You know, I'd love to do like a dyadic type of study, but, my hunch is that, yes, you would see that at least in the men, your brain change reflects your level of engagement in parenting.

00:15:38:17 - 00:15:58:05

Unknown

So it's the time you're spending, the practice you're getting that seems to be less the case in moms, but that might just be that there's a very high baseline in moms. You know, especially if you've experienced biological pregnancy and you're breastfeeding, which was the case for the moms in this particular study. You know, you you have a lot to do.

00:15:58:07 - 00:16:31:23

Unknown

In the early months, and there are a lot of hormones that are programing your brain. With that, what I think is interesting is that men are not experiencing pregnancy directly. So the fact that you're still seeing any brain change at all, or any hormone change at all to me is super intriguing because it suggests that there's this sort of experience dependent plasticity that can happen, where men are adapting to something even without the sort of drivers, you know, from our hormonal system that we know are having a powerful effect on the brain.

00:16:32:01 - 00:16:40:10

Unknown

Let me change the subject just a little bit. Now, there's so many interesting things in your book. One thing you talked about is, well,

00:16:40:12 - 00:16:42:20

Unknown

there's a common assumption that

00:16:42:22 - 00:16:46:02

Unknown

mothers are more naturally wired for caregiving.

00:16:46:04 - 00:17:00:00

Unknown

What does the science say about that? Is that true? And what does that mean for fathers? Yeah, I mean, honestly, this was one of the reasons I wanted to write the book is because I see a lot of discourse and, and especially it seems to be research resurgent now.

00:17:00:00 - 00:17:06:07

Unknown

I think there's a big interest in neo traditional gender roles. You know,

00:17:06:09 - 00:17:09:22

Unknown

treadway versus girlboss, right? There's like all this,

00:17:10:03 - 00:17:24:08

Unknown

I think back and forth in the culture right now and, and I think an assumption behind a lot of that discourse is that women are somehow designed or, you know, built to be parents. They're wired to be sensitive mothers.

00:17:24:10 - 00:17:51:19

Unknown

And I wanted to push back on that and say, really? Like, what makes humans cool and special is our flexibility and our adaptability and fathers, I think the research shows us can adapt to care and that they can acquire that skill. Right? Like if you think of caregiving not as a trait, but as a skill that comes online with practice and socialization and experience, it doesn't have to be gender essentialist.

00:17:51:21 - 00:18:07:18

Unknown

So it can kind of expand our understanding of, you know, who can care. And I think it can also lead to different implications for policy and for how, you know, couples might choose to organize their parenting lives.

00:18:07:19 - 00:18:29:23

Unknown

Yeah. That's so interesting. Can I I mean, one of the interesting something that really struck me in your book was this idea that becoming a dad can actually make you better at your job. What's the connection there? Lead us through that. Yeah. I actually interviewed someone for the book. There's a chapter on dads at work. So kind of dads in the workplace, and, what the landscape is there.

00:18:30:01 - 00:18:54:11

Unknown

I interviewed, Silicon Valley manager who said he took a parenting class and found that it made him a much more effective manager. And if you think about it, there are a lot of transferable skills, right? Like children are basically just very difficult and ungrateful employees a lot of the time. So, you know, if you can negotiate a temper tantrum, you can definitely run a boardroom meeting.

00:18:54:13 - 00:19:26:20

Unknown

And, and I think there's also and we didn't even talk about this yet, but like, you were asking me kind of like, what's happening to the brain? Is it bad? Do we know there is this really exciting new literature that's emerging that finds some neuroprotective effects of parenthood on the older adult brain, and that includes better cognition, better cognitive ability, and, and what appears to be when you use machine learning to kind of look at brain age, younger looking brains.

00:19:26:22 - 00:19:53:08

Unknown

So there's a way in which actually parenting can keep our brains young. And we see that in both moms and in dads, suggesting that, again, it's not just about hormones. It's not just about pregnancy, reproductive experience. It's really about social integration practice. You get, I think, a lot of skills when you have to manage a household and parent.

00:19:53:08 - 00:20:09:17

Unknown

And I think it's unfortunate that we so often penalize parenthood in the workplace when in fact, you know, there there's a lot that you learn that can, you know, that you can bring to bear. I think in a lot of different kinds of jobs.

00:20:09:19 - 00:20:16:02

Unknown

Right. We actually have a question here that's come up, and I think it's maybe worthwhile to make sure everybody's with us, which is,

00:20:16:04 - 00:20:22:19

Unknown

You talked about the part of the of the brain that shrinks is used for mental sizing.

00:20:22:21 - 00:20:51:06

Unknown

The the intuition would be there. You're using that those kind of skills a lot when you're a new parent. So why is that part of the brain shrinking or do you do you now. Yeah. So exactly. So that's sort of where it feels a little counterintuitive, but it does make sense, which is that when, you know, if you think about like driving to work and you have a lot of little country back roads that you're taking, if you're going the same way every day, that's a little inefficient.

00:20:51:08 - 00:21:16:12

Unknown

And you might ultimately figure out that a better commute would be to take the super highway. Right? So it's kind of like the you want the most efficient path from A to B when you're using, a certain route or a skill more frequently. So that's kind of where the pruning idea comes in. The brain, again, needs to work more efficiently because it's using those skills a lot.

00:21:16:14 - 00:21:38:21

Unknown

And so it's sort of the opposite of like you're not necessarily building, you're actually shrinking and remodeling, but in a way that, you know, you mentioned the film editing metaphor, in the same way that if you watch a kind of long, meandering cut of a film, you can't really tell what the storyline is until it gets more tightly edited, and then you're like, oh, right.

00:21:38:21 - 00:21:57:14

Unknown

Like, this is what I should pay attention to. So I think of it as a similar kind of process, right? So the idea that, you know, we might have an intuition that bigger brain is always better, but not necessarily it might just be more efficient and or less efficient. Exactly. Like you actually want a fast brain, not necessarily a big brain.

00:21:57:16 - 00:22:17:08

Unknown

Another question we got, which is an interesting one. Do you think you would see a difference in, say, fathers who who've done more prep work, you know, reading advice, books and all that kind of stuff beforehand or, or is this something you just got to live through? Yeah. I mean, no matter what happens, it's a good question.

00:22:17:08 - 00:22:38:01

Unknown

I mean, as a parent myself, I would say there's a limit to how much you can get from advice books beforehand. Although please buy my book. I mean, my book isn't really an advice book, but, it like, I, I also think there's probably an individual difference there between the dad who's going to seek out that information proactively, and the dad who's maybe less interested or less engaged.

00:22:38:07 - 00:23:06:06

Unknown

So it maybe that motivation is actually what's particularly important, because the fathering role feels particularly salient to that person. And they want to seek information. Like I would see that as a marker of, you know, probably a positive adjustment to fatherhood. But it does seem like, you know, and this was true in our brain study. We asked dads a bunch of questions prenatally, and there were some things that predicted how much their brains were going to change.

00:23:06:08 - 00:23:30:14

Unknown

One was we just asked them, how much time do you want to take off from work after your baby's born? And, and that was correlated with the degree of brain change. Men who wanted more time at home. And we also asked them, how bonded are you? Do you feel, you know, we gave them a, antenatal attachment questionnaire to kind of assess how closely bonded they felt with, unborn baby.

00:23:30:14 - 00:23:41:21

Unknown

And dads who endorsed greater prenatal attachment, also had more brain change. So there is definitely something going on, you know, in that lead up to parenthood that I think matters.

00:23:41:23 - 00:23:47:07

Unknown

One of the things you talked about earlier in your book is this idea that,

00:23:47:09 - 00:23:54:22

Unknown

The caregiving, if the father is doing more caregiving, it it changes the sense that the child is his,

00:23:55:00 - 00:24:04:18

Unknown

how does that a, you know, talk about that idea a little bit like people's perception on bonding and what it means to be a father and is the, you know, fatherhood more generally.

00:24:04:20 - 00:24:23:07

Unknown

Can you, can you talk about that? Because I found that I found that chapter really interesting. Yeah, yeah. So the chapter you're talking about was kind of about paternity uncertainty. And you know how it is that we recognize our own babies, right? Because that's one big hurdle for dads. You know, if you're a mom, you've just delivered an infant.

00:24:23:09 - 00:24:51:06

Unknown

You're like, that's definitely mine because I just spent however many hours. If you're a dad, you know, you have a more, you know, unsure, you're unsure connection because there's not, you know, a 1 to 1 correspondence between every reproductive act and every pregnancy. So dad's have all these mechanisms. We've evolved all these kind of sociocultural mechanisms for identifying our own kids, and that is a predictor of father engagement.

00:24:51:08 - 00:25:14:01

Unknown

But, yeah, I talked about this study that I really liked and thought was interesting, where men were assigned to take an infant massage class and, and, and those who, and there was a control group, and then there was a group of dads who were doing this kind of hands on, you know, extra kind of care of their babies was very bonding activity.

00:25:14:03 - 00:25:36:15

Unknown

And the dads who had taken the class subsequently said that they thought their babies looked more like them. So it's interesting because we often think, well, the more a baby looks like a dad, the more the dad is going to want to. But this was actually suggesting an opposite direction of causality. It was like the more you bond, the more that baby feels familiar.

00:25:36:15 - 00:26:01:23

Unknown

The more you recognize it, the more it's part of your family. And to me, that's like a really key takeaway from the whole book, which is like and, you know, one way to put that in a single sentence is great fathers are made, not born. It's really about like the time and investment that you put in to parenthood as opposed to like, you know, things are ready to go to kind of like set you on a particular course.

00:26:01:23 - 00:26:22:00

Unknown

It's like you choose as a father, to create that bond and then that bond is going to drive in some ways, like your ongoing relationship with the kid. That's parents. And we have a question here that's asking about the difference between if you are a biological father versus an adopted, you know, you adopt the child. Yeah, yeah.

00:26:22:06 - 00:26:38:07

Unknown

How would that affect these kind of questions? Yeah. This is a great example of an area where there's a gap in the research. And, you know, a lot of the research is in the parental brain field. It's like you're working with limited grant funding. You have small samples and you're going to sort of pick the lowest hanging fruit.

00:26:38:07 - 00:27:14:09

Unknown

So, there just isn't enough work on adoptive parents, gay parents, foster parents. There's so much that we could learn. But, there are a couple studies looking specifically at adoptive dads. And one really cool study that I talked about in the book was done, in Israel. The, lead investigator was Ruth Feldman, and she looked at, either heterosexual couples where there was a primary caregiver, a mom and a secondary caregiver, dad or adoptive, couples who were gay male partners.

00:27:14:11 - 00:27:41:10

Unknown

And, and one identify themselves as a primary and one of the secondary parent. And what she found was that the primary parent and the adoptive gay male dads looked a lot like the primary parent in the male female couples in terms of his response to the baby, whereas the secondary caregivers looked kind of the same. So again, that I think really supports this idea that it's about what comes online, how we adapt.

00:27:41:12 - 00:27:53:03

Unknown

It's not about our biological connection. It's not about what happens in the moment of birth. Like these adoptive dads actually had brain responses that looked a lot like biological moms and dads.

00:27:53:05 - 00:28:13:23

Unknown

slightly different topic here, but I think we're touching on similar things. I mean, one of the things you you mentioned and we've talked earlier about this as toxic masculinity ideas around expectations for men's roles in society, the cultural pressures that men feel maybe around caregiving or not to be a caregiver.

00:28:14:01 - 00:28:37:13

Unknown

How does, you know, expand upon those, points that you've made in the book? And then, you know, maybe we've seen how does paternity leave fit into this? What happens when men take paternity leave and how does that affect things? Yeah, it's I mean, I think about this stuff all the time because I think it's a really interesting and thorny kind of social problem is, you know, it's almost like we have this tale of two cities.

00:28:37:15 - 00:29:18:00

Unknown

On the one hand, there's kind of this revolution and father investments such that millennial dads are spending dramatically more time engaged in childcare than their fathers did, than their grandfathers did. Like we've just seen. You know, if you look at time diary research, dads are much more involved in parenting than, you know, previous generations. At the same time, you sort of have this subculture of, you know, the manosphere, which seems to be pointing young men kind of in, you know, directions that may not be conducive to sensitive caregiving or to family formation.

00:29:18:02 - 00:29:44:06

Unknown

So, you know, you have messages around everything from personal optimization, which is like men should focus on, you know, earning as much money as possible, having the lowest possible body fat, you know, to the exclusion of, you know, any social or relationship goals to like, downright just misogyny. And and so I really wonder about the narratives that we're, we're, we've created around fatherhood.

00:29:44:06 - 00:30:13:14

Unknown

And I think fatherhood like thinking positively about fatherhood as a kind of pro-social masculinity, gives us a middle ground for, to me, like reconciling some of these, these gender disputes, which is to say that like, if you think about the traits of a really good dad, those traits are connected to, looking out for those who are more vulnerable than you, being patient, mentoring.

00:30:13:14 - 00:30:44:06

Unknown

Right. And there are a lot of ways that men, whether or not they're fathers, can show up in fatherly ways, whether it's as clergy, as coaches, as teachers, as camp counselors, as guidance counselors. Right. Like and in some ways, we've lost that, this sort of like prevalence of men in those kinds of roles because, like, there are fewer men entering the teaching profession, for example, fewer men are, signing up to be clergy.

00:30:44:08 - 00:31:08:12

Unknown

And and I think it's a real loss for our society because I think there, there is this way to be masculine, yet still very connected to others that we maybe don't talk about enough and give enough credit. And I think it gives us this kind of counterprogramming to some of the messages that I see as particularly toxic. And, destructive to our social fabric.

00:31:08:14 - 00:31:34:11

Unknown

Speaking of, destructive, potentially destructive behavior, I mean, another thing that's happening in the manosphere, as we have young men, healthy young men taking extra testosterone, this idea that, like, you can never have, too much testosterone. But something else happens with testosterone levels with with dads. You. Can you talk about that? And what does that mean?

00:31:34:11 - 00:32:07:09

Unknown

Is it is it healthy that testosterone levels change? When someone becomes a father? Maybe, maybe expand upon that a bit? Yeah. So there is this interesting rise of kind of testosterone influencers online and targeting of testosterone supplementation ads, especially to young men. And what concerns me about that is in all the research I've done on fatherhood and that other people have done on fatherhood, there are normative changes in testosterone levels around the transition to parenthood in men.

00:32:07:11 - 00:32:36:02

Unknown

And normally testosterone declines. And, and then, you know, rebounds at a certain point. But it reflects a shift in focus and in reproductive strategy from maximizing opportunity to attract as many mates as possible, spread one's genetic material to, investing in nurturing and care. And you see it in rodents, you see it in birds. You see it in primates.

00:32:36:02 - 00:33:06:04

Unknown

Like these hormones track with what we're supposed to be doing. And so if you're jacking up testosterone kind of pharmaceutically, at life stages, that maybe, like, it's not actually the right mix of hormones, I think you're, you're actually, you know, you can have deleterious effects. And I think the idea that just we need testosterone to be as high as possible all the time reflects kind of our brittleness around masculinity in general, which is that we don't see it.

00:33:06:06 - 00:33:29:01

Unknown

As, you know, contextual, flexible property. We see it as like, it's just this one thing all the time. And I think that's actually very limiting to men. Maybe, I don't know. You tell me, do you? The hell do you feel like masculinity messages are, can be imprisoning to men in the same way that, you know, sexism can be imprisoning to women.

00:33:29:03 - 00:33:53:10

Unknown

Yeah. I mean, my experiences, I find it shocking that a lot of young men are experiencing the world this way. It's probably really hard for them, but, you know, ideas around what it means to be tough, versus, you know, being a protector, you know, sort of. They're very positive ways you can be masculine.

00:33:53:10 - 00:34:17:20

Unknown

And, you know, I think this idea of being a father and helping and being helpful and being protective and being supportive, those are roles. I think those are kind of traditional roles that are not negative. Oh, as opposed to, yeah, being jacked up on testosterone and probably, starting fights. Starting fights like that's not traditionally what you're aiming for, right.

00:34:17:22 - 00:34:20:13

Unknown

And so it's not really a very positive role in society.

00:34:20:16 - 00:34:38:11

Unknown

I think these are certainly broader question, but I love your idea of kind of leaning into that fatherly role, either through being a literal father or maybe doing other things in society that kind of meet, you know, meet similar role, you know, match similar goals more broadly defined.

00:34:38:13 - 00:34:58:18

Unknown

That seems like a much more positive way to kind of lean into those, those instincts. Yeah. I mean, I was going to say, like being a dean is actually a completely dad like role. I think. I think being a professor and a research advisor as a mom like role. So, well, I have to say, I think I'm a much, much better Dean because I'm a dad.

00:34:58:18 - 00:35:00:18

Unknown

Because of the things that I've experienced,

00:35:00:18 - 00:35:11:20

Unknown

you can handle your job much better when your child basically is like, why should I do that? I don't care what you say, you know, you begin to, like you say, learn how to deal with people in a very different way.

00:35:11:20 - 00:35:30:16

Unknown

When you under when you when you're gone and you still care for them and you still want them to succeed, right? So yeah, there's a lot of exactly. Let's get there. So set boundaries how to regulate your own emotions. Those are useful. How to how to continue to be kind and supportive. But maybe you know I have to say, you know, we can't do that.

00:35:30:16 - 00:35:53:02

Unknown

I'm sorry. That kind of thing. Yeah. We've got some great questions piling up here. I feel like I need to get to a couple of them. Something that came up that maybe it's worth addressing. So you can sort of elaborate on. Is the idea of primary and secondary parents an ideal norm for parenting versus a partnership? Do the roles shift over time?

00:35:53:04 - 00:36:26:09

Unknown

And let me add my own thing to that too? Maybe you can rip off of this. What about sort of different cross-cultural examples of fatherhood and how how did those ideas change? Just just riff on those things? Totally. Yeah. I mean, so like we talked about, fatherhood has been massively in flux in contemporary societies. So, you know, the kind of stereotypical 1950s dad who's like, off to the office in his suit and is coming home, you know, to drink a martini and, you know, mom is doing all the hands on parenting, right?

00:36:26:09 - 00:36:47:09

Unknown

Like, that set of expectations has changed a lot for today's parents of young kids, where dads are really invested and involved. And even if you look at survey data, men will say, you know, parenthood is one of the most meaningful activities or one of the most important things that I do. So it's it's become more central, I think, to men.

00:36:47:11 - 00:37:13:06

Unknown

And, you know, so so we've seen like this historical change and there's also a lot of cultural difference, like you said, like in the book, I talk about, you know, there's a hunter gatherer society that's been studied a lot because it's men are the most hands on dads who've ever been observed. They spend, about 50% of their time within arm's reach of their infant or child.

00:37:13:08 - 00:37:39:02

Unknown

And, that's a culture. It's called the arc. There in the Congo. It's a culture where, there is a lot of trading off of economic roles. So they do the one way that they earn sustenance is through net hunting, and that's done by couples, and they hold the net together. And so it makes sense that men are doing a lot of parenting because the women are doing a lot of resource gathering.

00:37:39:02 - 00:38:09:05

Unknown

Right. Like, you know, you have these flexible roles and that's often the case in hunter gatherer societies where everybody is sort of producing calories for the society. We often think in hunter gatherer societies. I think there's a stereotype that, you know, the meat from the hunt was the most important thing, but actually there have been studies that have looked at what percentage of calories are brought in through foraging or through hunting and through foraging, which is traditionally something done more by the women.

00:38:09:11 - 00:38:38:01

Unknown

You actually get the lion's share of calories for the society. So women are really economically important. And then there's, you know, variability across a lot of different contexts. And in some cases it depends on your ecological ecological niche. Like what what's your terrain. How do you how do you get what you need to feed yourself? And with the you know, I talk about this in the book, but with the evolution of agriculture, you get these more sustainable and specialized societies.

00:38:38:03 - 00:38:59:21

Unknown

And, and so that leads to certain gender specialization and gender roles. And, and so I think thinking about like, what is the function of men and women in different contexts. And then how does that kind of play into how roles are shared between, like, you know, economic production and what we would consider to be home production? Like, it's in flux.

00:38:59:21 - 00:39:30:10

Unknown

And I think we often essentially it's like men are designed to do this. They're supposed to get money, be breadwinners, women are supposed to do this. They're supposed to be home in an apron. And that only reflects, like, this tiny little snippet of our evolutionary history. So there have been a lot of different ways that societies have tried this, you know, and women, obviously, because they, are giving birth and breastfeeding, there's like a fixed, you know, there's a there's a flaw or, where they're going to be involved to a certain extent.

00:39:30:10 - 00:39:38:03

Unknown

But past that point, when kids are older, there are a lot of different ways that, societies distribute care.

00:39:38:05 - 00:39:55:08

Unknown

One of my experiences, because I did get paternity leave, when my kids were born, I was very grateful for that. Like, I thought it was quite special that I was lucky enough to be able to do that. And that's not a benefit that my dad got.

00:39:55:10 - 00:40:13:03

Unknown

And so I sort of thought, wow, this is kind of cool that I get this, I get to do this. And of course, it was hard, you know, that, you know, in real time, you know, you're you're doing a lot of childcare and, and, but there's specialness to it. There there was a question here that says among fathers who do not get paternity leave,

00:40:13:08 - 00:40:15:21

Unknown

have you identified any negative impacts of that?

00:40:15:21 - 00:40:36:10

Unknown

Like are they more likely to feel depressed or etc.. Right. So you can see there's it's a pretty complicated thing. There's pluses and minuses to sorry. Yeah. Maybe you get some more sleep, but you're, you're left out and you're and you're sad or they're are there any are there any of those kind of results. Yeah. So our, our lab actually did a study of this in our sample of parents.

00:40:36:10 - 00:40:57:14

Unknown

And you know, because we were in California, that which has somewhat more generous paternity leave policy than a number of other states, we actually had a pretty even split in our sample between men who didn't didn't have access to paid paternity leave. And we looked at, stress, depression and, I think it was sleep, like daytime fatigue.

00:40:57:16 - 00:41:25:10

Unknown

Both before and after birth. And we found that when dads had access to paid paternity leave, that was sort of protective, like it buffered their stress and their fatigue. And when, you know, just as importantly, when moms had partners who had access to paid paternity leave, it actually buffered their depression so they were less likely to show an increase in depression over that transition to parenthood if their partners had leave.

00:41:25:12 - 00:41:53:04

Unknown

And, you know, if you think about like from a public health perspective, like depression and, you know, like parental burnout are very expensive problems. When you look at like long range child outcomes and, you know, it's my contention that, investing in, paid leave programs that sort of protected those critical early months is actually a very cost effective, societal investment.

00:41:53:06 - 00:42:15:15

Unknown

So, and we can talk about different policy models, like different countries have tried this in different ways. And I think the US is a bit of an outlier because we don't have a federal, you know, paid leave like universal paid parental leave. But, there are countries where, you know, dads paternity leave time is specifically earmarked or protected through policy.

00:42:15:15 - 00:42:43:13

Unknown

So like, dad have to take leave as part of the kind of deal that, couples get when they become parents. Have there been any studies that look at differences, say, between states that have different paternity leave policies or countries, about outcomes like etc.? Yeah, there have been some really cool studies. Like a lot of the work has been in Scandinavia because they have the most progressive, like the most generous, paternity leave.

00:42:43:13 - 00:43:07:04

Unknown

And so there have been some studies looking at like, you know, babies born right before and right after, you know, like leave expansion for dads, for example. So you can actually compare, you know, three months before, three months after, and see, are there differences in child outcomes or, you know, paternal or maternal outcomes? One interesting study was done in Sweden.

00:43:07:04 - 00:43:31:01

Unknown

It actually found that moms had fewer antidepressant prescriptions filled. If they had a dad who had longer paternity leave. So again, it's like that protective effect isn't just for the dad or for the kid. It's also very much for the partner. So I think a state by state comparison would be really interesting, and I'm surprised that there hasn't been more research doing that in the US.

00:43:31:01 - 00:43:55:23

Unknown

I think part of it is because it's actually pretty hard to compare different states like, you know, we have such different, yeah, policy environments and lots of other, you know, we have different industries like a lot of other variables. Yeah. So it'd be hard to do a really controlled study. But there are big differences. Like New Mexico just adopted a very generous leave, like some states are kind of way ahead of other states in this, in this game.

00:43:56:01 - 00:44:14:13

Unknown

I can't remember any more, but were you looking at first time parents in your study or in, in if not, were they number of kids that did that matter? Yeah. So they were all first time parents. We wanted it to be the first pregnancy, just because that we felt like that would be our best opportunity to see change.

00:44:14:15 - 00:44:35:16

Unknown

But, yeah, I saw there was a question what happens with second time dads? And, I'm glad you asked, because we are now doing a follow up study in my lab. We're bringing the families back. Their kids are six and seven years old, and our goal, in part, is to see our brain changes around the transition to parenthood retained.

00:44:35:16 - 00:44:59:00

Unknown

Is there a rebound effect? What does that look like? And then also to hopefully look at links between number of siblings and, magnitude of brain change. There was one study actually done that looked at second time moms, and they found a very similar brain changes, with the second pregnancy as with the first. So some differences, but a lot of similarities.

00:44:59:02 - 00:45:16:13

Unknown

So is the idea that the you see these brain changes and then, you know, say for moms that are maybe more studies, then then they kind of go back to the way they were before when the after a couple of years. Is that is that what you see? That's what it looks like. And it you know, it's not I should emphasize this is a really small research literature.

00:45:16:13 - 00:45:36:06

Unknown

So we should not get too excited about, you know, knowing for sure what's happening. But what it looks like it's happening is like a U-shaped trajectory of brain change. So you have initial volume loss in pregnancy in early parenthood, and then you actually have a rebound like around the end of the first year postpartum. So that's kind of what it looks like.

00:45:36:08 - 00:45:59:11

Unknown

And it looks like that both in like group studies of, new moms. And then also this really crazy study that was done at UCSB where they actually looked at an individual woman who scanned herself every single day of her pregnancy. And then I think into the first six months postpartum. And she also showed a huge U-shaped brain change trajectory.

00:45:59:13 - 00:46:21:13

Unknown

So, so that's kind of what we're learning from moms. My guess. And my study was crude. We only had two time points pre and post, but my guess is that you actually would see some curvilinear change. And that's one reason we're adding the seven years to kind of see like do we pick up on any, increases in volume long, long term, very interesting.

00:46:21:13 - 00:47:04:02

Unknown

So I as I understand that you also have, you're planning a larger international study. Are you is the idea there? You're going to look at fatherhood across cultures or what else are you interested in looking at in that larger study? Yeah. So I think the the word planning is doing a lot of work there. I wrote an unsuccessful grant, which hopefully I'll come back to some day, like I, I submitted a grant that, never went anywhere, but the idea was to build a consortium of parental brain researchers to pool data, because I think the biggest limitation in our science, and frankly, it's a huge limitation in, you know, natural sciences involving humans

00:47:04:02 - 00:47:31:08

Unknown

in general. The samples are just too small and we're too underpowered. And we really need team science. You know, like multi-site multi pi studies, I think to really know anything for sure. So yeah. So the goal was to look across cultures and then also to look at not just men but also women and not just women but also children and kind of I think scanning family triads together like mom, dad kid would be super interesting.

00:47:31:08 - 00:47:53:03

Unknown

And then including gay parents, adoptive parents and foster parents. I mean, that's the dream, right? Somebody gave me $1 million and I'll I'll do it. I should probably $1 billion. So, you know, my bank account is open. I'll send my routing number in the chat. Definitely interesting questions though. We've got a few more. I'm just going to throw a couple more at you.

00:47:53:03 - 00:48:19:07

Unknown

Yeah. So, just fatherhood. Make men happier. Oh, such a good question. That's the entire last chapter of the book. So thank you for cueing that up. Yeah, it's about so the the whole last chapter is about this idea of kind of like fatherhood and the good life and like, what does it mean to age successfully, to be a happy person?

00:48:19:08 - 00:48:42:02

Unknown

We, you know, in psychology we kind of have this, these different categories of well-being. There's like hedonist well-being, which is like cocktail on a tropical vacation, like just things that feel good to our bodies. And then there's, like you, demonic well-being, which is kind of like contentment with a life well-lived and feeling a sense of meaning and connectedness.

00:48:42:04 - 00:49:06:13

Unknown

And parenthood is pretty bad for hedonistic well-being, because you're tired and you're frustrated and you're poor and etc. but it can be really great for you to manage well-being, especially long term. And, and so you know, we do see and one of the biggest longitudinal studies ever done followed men who were recruited as undergraduates at Harvard in the 1920s.

00:49:06:14 - 00:49:28:00

Unknown

They subsequently recruited a comparison sample of men from inner city Boston, and they followed. They're still following them. They're following their grandkids now at this point. And what they found is that the best predictor of longevity and health in late life was actually the quality of the men's relationships. It wasn't how much money they made, it wasn't their career success.

00:49:28:02 - 00:49:50:17

Unknown

It was like, did they have a good marriage? Did they have rewarding experiences, that involved being connected to others. And so I think there's a big lesson there, right in terms of what what advice we give to young people, that, you know, it's not just about like, racking up the trophies. It's really about like, how do we show up for other people.

00:49:50:19 - 00:50:12:14

Unknown

You talked about you mentioned strong marriages there. And one of the other things you talk about in your book is the strain that can happen on relationships. When you have a child, you know, what is what is the research show about weathering that difficult period? What kind of, you know, relationships tend to weather the storm better? Yeah.

00:50:12:14 - 00:50:40:00

Unknown

Speak to that. Yeah. There's a there's a chapter in the book called A crisis for couples, because that is what, having a child has been called a crisis for couples since at least, the 50s. And there is, in fact, a pretty robust decline in relationship satisfaction that occurs around the transition to parenthood. And, and yet, you know, like, like with all data sort of hiding behind that overall decline is a lot of variability.

00:50:40:02 - 00:51:04:02

Unknown

And, you know, some couples decline to the point where they, you know, dissolve the relationship. Other couples are resilient and might even report improved relationship quality. So I think, you know, I'm a clinical psychologist so I'm biased. But I think what can be really helpful is just open communication and like hashing things out ideally before the baby comes.

00:51:04:03 - 00:51:29:12

Unknown

And there are therapy interventions that have been tested that have worked really well with expectant parents or new parents, help to shore up communication skills, get things on the table. Because a lot of the issues that arise in marriages or in relationships are around, just like division of labor, like you have all the stuff that you need to do, you know, to take care of a kid and, and who's going to do it?

00:51:29:13 - 00:51:45:00

Unknown

Who's going to wake up in the middle of the night? Like, you know, almost all of my fights with my husband started with, like, one of us not wanting to get out of bed. So, you know, I think the more you can try to be on the same team, and it doesn't mean that you're always going to have the same role.

00:51:45:00 - 00:52:07:03

Unknown

Exactly. But the more you can have an aligned vision of what your values are as a family and, and, you know, make sure that you have open channels of communication. I think the more you can kind of survive this transition. But I also think just knowing that it's a rough transition is helpful because a lot of couples think, you know, having a baby will save my marriage, right?

00:52:07:03 - 00:52:23:02

Unknown

Like the sort of like, you know, it'll make our it'll solve all our problems because we'll have this new thing to love and focus on. And, you know, quite the contrary. You want to make sure your relationship quality is good before, you start adding more people to the mix, right? Right.

00:52:23:04 - 00:52:24:23

Unknown

So you're offering a little bit of advice.

00:52:24:23 - 00:52:52:01

Unknown

Why don't why don't I push you on that a little bit more? Maybe we've got parents or soon to be parents here today. Do you have anything else you'd like them to walk away with? Is there one thing you a message that you'd like to to leave people with? Yeah. I mean, some of this we talked about already, just this idea of like, if you start thinking about being a great parent as not just like a trait, but as a skill and as, the result of practice and time.

00:52:52:03 - 00:53:11:07

Unknown

So, you know, I think a lot of dads sort of like it can be hard to bond right off the bat with a brand new baby. You know, in some ways, if you have a partner who's a biological mom, she has this head start and and you're sort of like trying to learn the ropes, but you're a few steps behind.

00:53:11:08 - 00:53:37:03

Unknown

And I think men can feel dissuaded or frustrated, like I'm just not good at this. And I would say like, you know, take opportunities to learn. And, you know, remember, we are plastic as humans. And, you know, we have the ability to acquire new skills and talents, and our brain changes and our hormonal changes will reflect that and actually continue to adapt to support our sensitive parenting abilities.

00:53:37:04 - 00:53:42:19

Unknown

So it's like you put in the time and you know, your brain will come along for the ride.

00:53:42:21 - 00:54:01:14

Unknown

Thanks so much for that. That here's another question actually that's come up that I'll, I'll throw at you. Was there any differences in brain matter, loss and new dads in rural versus urban environments? And does the loss in brain mass, mean less computing or just a change in neural connectivity?

00:54:01:18 - 00:54:25:14

Unknown

Neanderthals had larger brain mass than Homo sapiens. So I guess that is a super, super interesting question that I cannot even begin to give a good answer to because, you know, our study was done in LA. The other study I reference was done in Barcelona and Madrid. We just don't have enough work looking at, you know, different, kinds of environments.

00:54:25:14 - 00:54:46:08

Unknown

Like a lot of the work is done at this point in Germany, the Netherlands, like, those are, places where there are pretty active parenting brain labs. These are not always representative samples. So what? I like to take a scanner into the Congo and look at hunter gatherer dads. Yes. Again, need the grant to do it.

00:54:46:08 - 00:55:10:22

Unknown

But, but I think that's clearly like a place that the research could go to help us better understand variability. Very interesting. So we're nearing the end here, Derby. And can I, you know, you've written this super interesting book. I've had a chance to read through it. I'm about halfway through. I'm really enjoying it. Is there anything in the book that else about the book that you maybe would like to share?

00:55:10:23 - 00:55:27:21

Unknown

You know, what have I missed? What else is in there that that we can learn a little bit about? And, which, I mean, if we take the chance. Yeah. You covered a lot of ground in this conversation. So, you know, the book is kind of structured in two parts. There's the first half is the science of fatherhood.

00:55:27:21 - 00:55:46:22

Unknown

So it's talking about the brain and talking about the hormones, talking about some of the evolutionary theory, you know, looking at variability, looking at things like paternity uncertainty. The second half is called the practice of fatherhood. And it's actually my favorite half. It's the part that's kind of more about like, what is it like to be a dad in the world?

00:55:47:00 - 00:56:12:15

Unknown

So that's kind of about, how men parent. Do they parent differently than moms, how men adapt to work? What public policy is doing for dads? You know what we were just talking about? Like, does parenting make us happy? How do we find meaning in parenthood? And and so I was trying to kind of like, zoom out from the science to talk more about just, what are dads experiences?

00:56:12:15 - 00:56:33:16

Unknown

And, and I interviewed a lot of different men, you know, who told me just a lot of interesting stories about fatherhood and, and so, you know, I think, I think hopefully you like it when you get to that part. I am like, yeah, I can't wait to get to that part. But I am loving it so far, and I couldn't recommend it more highly.

00:56:33:16 - 00:56:41:09

Unknown

let me thank you for being here again today. Darby. This has been so much fun. I want to thank everybody who's joined us for this Dornsife dialogs.

00:56:41:11 - 00:56:45:22

Unknown

And until next time, I hope everybody has a great rest of your Friday, a great weekend,

00:56:46:01 - 00:56:49:00

Unknown

and we'll keep doing interesting things. So fight on, everyone.

00:56:49:05 - 00:56:52:17

Unknown

All right. Go, Trojans. Bye.

00:56:52:19 - 00:57:03:12

Unknown

you enjoyed this episode of the Dornsife Dialogs podcast. Please leave us a rating and a review wherever you listen. Thank you for your support. Bite on.