Helping Moms to Let Dads Be Dads
By Sue Shellenbarger, WSJ, JUNE 17, 2009
The benefits of having a positive, involved father are well-documented by decades of research.
Now, scholars are focusing their microscopes on an obstacle to fathers’ involvement: “gatekeeping” by mothers who control or hamper fathers’ interactions with their children.
The findings reveal how women and men alike can trigger gatekeeping, which can cause tension between partners and dissatisfaction with parenting routines. As Father’s Day nears, the research also sheds light on how dads can play a bigger role.
“The more we understand these patterns, the more parents will be able to make conscious and deliberate choices” about parenting, says Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, assistant professor of human development at the Ohio State University.
Of course, fathers are free to choose their level of involvement. But negative gatekeeping by mothers–grimaces or criticism when men try to change a diaper or feed or play with a baby–can block out even fathers who believe they should be involved, says a 2008 study in the Journal of Family Psychology, led by Dr. Schoppe-Sullivan. Gatekeeping can be positive, too: When mothers encourage dads, the men tend to shoulder more child care.
It’s usually moms who do the gatekeeping, but they’re not always to blame. Some fathers invite interference by hanging back or being irritable or anxious. “Moms may think, ‘He’s not well suited to have positive interactions with the baby, so I’m not going to encourage that,’ ” Dr. Schoppe-Sullivan says.
In other cases, women aren’t conscious of their gatekeeping. Some women whose sense of identity is strongly tied to being a mother may fend off help in order to bolster their self-image, research shows. Others are simply inclined by nature to bond closely; caring for a baby may be so engrossing for these women that they crowd out dads, says a 2008 study in the journal Family Process.
Before Matt Edwards, Renton, Wash., became a dad, his brother jokingly warned that a father is just “the guy who carries stuff,” like diaper bags, he says. After Mr. Edwards and his wife talked about avoiding that pitfall, he enrolled in Conscious Fathering, a training program offered in 17 states by Parent Trust, a Washington state nonprofit. In the hospital after childbirth, Mr. Edwards already knew how to soothe his baby to sleep while his wife recuperated, a good start toward being “a lot more than the guy who carries stuff.”
Men are quicker to plunge into fathering when supported by other men. In a 16-week program for 292 low-income California families, fathers were encouraged to get more involved, says Kyle Pruett, clinical professor of psychiatry at the Yale Child Study Center. The result was less gatekeeping by mothers, more-involved fathers and fewer behavior problems in their children, compared with a control group, he says. When one young dad tried during a group session to hand off diapering his baby to his wife, the other men insisted he learn to do the task himself, Dr. Pruett says; “not only will your wife love you more for it,” the other men said, “but it’s a special time with your baby.”
Simply becoming conscious of gatekeeping and its hazards equips some couples to avoid it. In the past, Kristen Dennison, Dover, Mass., was tempted to interfere when her husband Ed roughhoused with their sons, David, 2, and Benjamin, 6, swinging them above the floor or onto his shoulders. She kept worrying he would drop them accidentally. After some tense moments, she acknowledged that her husband knew what he was doing and wouldn’t let the boys get hurt.
If Ed’s adventures with the boys take an unexpected turn–as happened recently, when they were throwing sticks in a frigid stream and David fell in–Kristen jokes about it, telling Ed he’s “the one who gets to take him to the emergency room and explain what you were doing.”
Ed is “a great dad,” she adds; refraining from gatekeeping is “like being in the passenger seat when somebody else is driving. You just have to trust that it’s going to be OK.”
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