The NY Times has a great article discussing some recent research on the involvement of fathers in raising kids, including the work of Dr. Kyle Pruett a child psychiatrist at Yale, who is one of the leading researchers on fatherhood, and his wife Dr. Marsha Kline Pruitt, a professor of social work at Smith.
Their basic finding: dads are different from moms, and those differences are important to kids. Kids and families do better when both fathers and mothers are equally engaged in parenting.
It's interesting stuff, hope it sinks in.
Fathers Gain Respect From Experts (and Mothers) [nyt via @workingdad]
Related: Making Room for Dad, from Lisa Belkin's NYT blog, Motherlode [parenting.blogs.nytimes.com]
Funny, when I read it I thought "Didn't we know this already?" I guess some people haven't gotten the message yet.
Great article. It's like, duh!
Responsibility first goes to the mom to not micromanage the dad out of things early on. Encourage the (possibly) reticent dad and give him space and time to develop a relationship with the newborn. It's worked well for us.
When I became a mother, I was shocked and kinda pissed at the mom-centric attitudes. Hey, I don't want ALL the responsibility!