The Life of Dad

by Anna Machin

  For Julian

  CONTENTS

  Preface

  A Note on the Dads

  PART ONE: The First Father

  CHAPTER ONE: Dad 1.0

  The Evolution of Human Fatherhood

  PART TWO: Conception and Pregnancy

  CHAPTER TWO: Babies on the Brain

  Pregnancy, Identity and Embracing the Bump

  CHAPTER THREE: The Importance of Being Dad

  It’s Not Just About Biology

  PART THREE: Birth

  CHAPTER FOUR: A Father Is Born

  Dads, Birth, Health and Well-being

  CHAPTER FIVE: A Multitude of Dads

  Dads, Flexibility and Child Survival

  CHAPTER SIX: Who’s the Daddy?

  Genes, Psychology and Hormones

  PART FOUR: The First Few Weeks

  CHAPTER SEVEN: I Love Yah, Baby!

  Play, Laugher and Building the Bond

  CHAPTER EIGHT: And Two Become Three (or Four, or Five . . .)

  Parents’ Roles and Relationships

  PART FIVE: And Now the Fun Begins . . .

  CHAPTER NINE: The School of Dad

  What Dads Teach Kids

  CHAPTER TEN: To Toddlerdom and Beyond

  Dad’s Role in Child Development

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: Dad 24345.0

  The Future of Fathering

  Afterword

  Acknowledgements

  Sources of Help and Support

  Index

  PREFACE

  I am often asked why a woman would want to research and write about fathers. Well, the short answer is that I am married to one. Ten years ago, I gave birth to my first child and three years later my second. It turns out that giving birth is not one of my strong points, and the first birth in particular was a long-drawn-out drama resulting in a very sick mother and a very sick baby. Following this birth experience, I was offered counselling and support to deal with my expected trauma, but my husband – who had witnessed everything while I floated around, oblivious in a sea of morphine – was roundly ignored.

  Now, I have to make it clear here, or I will be in trouble, that my husband did not expect any support, believing that the focus should rightly be placed on me and our baby. But a year on, when I returned to work and my husband still could not speak of our daughter’s birth without showing significant emotional distress, I began to get angry. Angry that my husband, the co-parent of my child, had witnessed a trauma akin to watching a loved one involved in a horrific car crash, but that at no point did anyone ask him if he was okay, if he needed some help. So, being an academic, I did what academics do best and turned to the research literature to find out what my fellow scientists knew about fathers and their experiences.

  The answer was: very little. Yes, there was extensive literature assessing the impact of the feckless, absent father on his children, but with respect to the experience of the dedicated, involved dad who changes the nappies, coaches football practice, masters the French plait and chases away the bedtime monsters, the literature was silent. There is no doubt that there are a tiny minority of fathers, as there are mothers, who are defined by their absence – and their negative influence on their children’s development is real and critical. But there is a much, much larger contingent of fathers who stick around and do their best, and they also deserve to be recognized and understood. So, I made this my mission. To research the experience of fathers who were present in their children’s lives. To write their story from the positive rather than the negative angle.

  Since my first rather eventful introduction to parenthood a decade ago, I have dedicated my professional life to researching first-hand the experiences of new fathers. The dads I have studied have come from all walks of life and backgrounds; gay and straight, professional and manual workers, school-leavers and university-educated, and a diversity of ethnic backgrounds. They have allowed me into their lives at one of the most personal and private moments; the moment they became fathers for the first time. I have visited them in the weeks prior to the birth, when they are excited and maybe anxious, but when the future is largely unknown, and returned in the first precious weeks, when excitement is replaced by overwhelmed awe at the tiny thing that has entered their life and turned it upside down. I have analysed their hormones, watched their behaviours, assessed their mental and physical health and studied their brains, often over many months. I have interviewed them over numerous cups of coffee, often with baby joining in as well. The voices you will read throughout this book are theirs, relating their thoughts, feelings and experiences. I hope that hearing these real men talk will help those of you who may be following in their footsteps to feel reassured about your own emotions or experiences, and that they will make the scientific studies I recount more relevant to all our lives.

  By allowing me into their lives and that of their families I, and my colleagues, have discovered many unexpected and wonderful things about today’s dad. That his role is unique and separate to that of mum, and that this difference is vital to the healthy development of his child. That lots of modern Western fathers want to be fully paid-up members of the co-parenting club, but struggle with a lack of support and information and a society that is not yet ready to accept them in this role. That the role of a father is a complex mix of history, culture and politics, but that a man’s biology plays a much bigger part than was originally thought in influencing what sort of father he will be. And that fathers are wonderfully flexible creatures, capable of altering their role on a minute-by-minute basis to ensure the well-being and survival of their family.

  So, I have written this book for three reasons. Firstly, to rebalance the record on fathers. To counteract the remorselessly negative press about absent fathers with a positive message about the power and value of the stick-around dad. Secondly, to help those men who might be right at the start of their fatherhood journey. I hope the information I provide and the voices of the real fathers that pepper this book help you feel more secure and comfortable with what lies ahead. And thirdly, and maybe most importantly, I think all dads, and the wider world, have a right to know – and should know – about what is happening to them biologically, psychologically and emotionally. According to the UK Office for National Statistics, there were just over 6 million involved dads in the UK in 2015, the last year for which we have figures. Isn’t it about time we knew something about them?

  In the first chapter, we will return to the world of 500,000 years ago to meet the very first human father and explore why his revolutionary appearance still has much to tell us about the role and importance of today’s modern dad. In Chapter Two, we will explore the powerful bond that forms between father and child even before he or she is born and the pre-birth hormones that begin to shape both parents during pregnancy. We will consider what being a father means to the expectant dad and how this new role can allow a man to make much-needed changes in his life and take on a welcome new identity. In Chapter Three, we will visit other countries to see how dads do it there and begin to understand how diverse and wonderful the role of a dad can be. We will explore the preeminence of the social rather than biological father in some societies and chart the changing face of the human family, as the liberalization of adoption laws and developments in assisted fertility techniques has meant that even in the West the nuclear family is no longer necessarily the norm. At times, this whirlwind global tour may seem a long way from our experience, but it will enable us to understand that being a dad is about presence and action rather than just genetics.

  In Chapter Four, we will focus on dads’ experiences of birth and the health of new fathers, including the worrying increase in poor mental health that requires our urgent attention for the good of the man, his family and society. In Chap
ter Five, we will look at the two pillars of unique responsibility – protection and teaching – which have been at the centre of fathering for half a million years and are still relevant today. We will see that there are as many ways to father as there are fathers, and that a dad’s role is defined by his flexibility, but that at their core all dads are focused on responding successfully to the risks that may negatively affect their child’s chance of survival. In Chapter Six, with the influence of culture, history, politics and ecology fully acknowledged, we will focus on what a man’s individual biology and psychology bring to the fathering table; how his genes, hormone levels and childhood shape the sort of father he will be. We will look at how a dad’s genes can influence his sensitivity, how his personality can make even the most difficult child a dream to raise and how his own parents’ behaviour can be reflected in his parenting choices. In Chapter Seven, we will explore the fundamental, lifelong attachment between father and child and consider how the need for interaction to build this relationship in the first instance leads to the most wonderful role for boisterous play. But we will also learn how, in the absence of the neurochemical experience of childbirth and because of the slow rate of baby’s development, this bond can be slow to form. The message here is not to panic – the bond will come.

  In Chapter Eight, we will broaden our focus and include a dad’s partner. By looking at the brains of mum and dad, we will understand how evolution has shaped them to make sure both parents fulfil their child’s developmental needs without needless overlap. We will consider what impact adding a baby (or two, or three . . .) has on the parents’ relationship and explore how you both can invest time to make sure your relationship emerges unscathed – hopefully even enhanced – at the other end. In Chapters Nine and Ten, we will look at what a father brings to his child’s development; his unique role in teaching, encouraging independence and social autonomy and working to prevent his child suffering from poor mental health in the future. Finally, in Chapter Eleven, we will conclude with a consideration of where we are. After half a million years of evolution, who does today’s dad want to be and is society doing all it can to support him in achieving his goal? How can ‘Team Dad’ – the academics, campaigners and politicized dads who promote involved fathering – encourage the fundamental changes in our culture that are required before all those dads who wish to will truly be able to call themselves co-parents?

  This book isn’t a ‘how to’ manual. It won’t tell you how to change a nappy or construct a cot, or reveal the elusive cure for colic. But what I hope it will do is give the most up-to-date answer to the question of what being a father is like and give a few tips and hints along the way that make the transition to fatherhood as easy and enjoyable as possible for those who are about to undertake it. For the rest of us, who may be some way down the family road, I hope it is an entertaining read about a person who – regardless of our relationship with them – we all have, or have had, in our lives, however long their presence may have lasted. For established fathers, I hope it mirrors some of your experiences, normalizes some of your worries and explains some of your instincts and behaviours. For mums, I hope it gives you a fascinating and helpful insight into who your partner is. And for the more scientifically minded, I hope the most up-to-date research in the fields of neuroscience, genetics, psychology, endocrinology and health keeps you fully satiated. Much of the research I will tell you about, because of the relative youth of the field, has been focused on the heterosexual nuclear family, but in many cases their findings apply to all fathers. And as the diversity of fathers becomes clearer, we are starting to widen our field of view to include gay dads and families with multiple fathers. Be assured that where these studies exist, I will tell you about them.

  By the end of the book, I hope to show you what a complex but significant role being a father is and how a man is fundamentally changed by his fathering experience. But first, to understand the role of the modern dad, we must return to the beginning, the world of half a million years ago and the very first father.

  A NOTE ON THE DADS

  Throughout this book you will hear the voices of real fathers. Over the past ten years, all of them have afforded me the great privilege of studying them as they become dads. Because my work focuses on the early years of a child’s life – the period when a father arguably undergoes the most change and asserts the greatest influence on his child’s development – the fathers you will meet are speaking during the first five years of their child’s life. The nature of my studies means that I have known some fathers for only brief periods of time, while others have let me follow them and their families for the entire five years. Because of this, some took part in interviews more than once. Where this has happened, I have told you how old their child or children were at the time of that particular interview, so you can understand their thought processes at that specific stage of their fathering journey. All of the dads’ names, and the names of their children and partners, have been changed to protect their anonymity. I am indebted to the dads who volunteer for my studies and offer them my eternal thanks.

  PART ONE

  The First Father

  CHAPTER ONE

  Dad 1.0

  The Evolution of Human Fatherhood

  It is a little-known fact, but fathers saved the human race.

  Five hundred thousand years ago, one of our ancestors, Homo heidelbergensis, faced a dilemma. A million years previously, they had left Africa and spread across Europe and the Near East. They had even managed to reach the south coast of England and make their home beside a beautiful, tropical lagoon near what is now the West Sussex village of Boxgrove. Like other hominins of the time, they walked on two legs, but what set them apart from their peers was their ever-expanding brains. They were beginning to form the rudiments of language and had started to innovate, creating beautiful, symmetrical stone tools and perfectly balanced wooden hunting spears. But they faced a problem. They undoubtedly had the potential to succeed as a species, but the two-legged gait and associated narrow pelvises that had given them the endurance to leave Africa, combined with the large heads housing the complex brains that had allowed them to populate new environments, had left them inching towards a demographic time bomb. In order to allow their large heads to fit through their mothers’ narrowed birth canals, the babies of Homo heidelbergensis were born early, in a highly dependent and vulnerable state.

  The question arose, who could mothers turn to to help them with their energetic toddlers while they focused their efforts on the energy-sapping needs of their helpless newborns? How could they raise their children to independence but still reproduce often enough to replace and expand the species? For the first million years or so, grandmas, aunties and sisters filled the gap. But then, 500,000 years ago, with our friend Homo heidelbergensis, the hominin brain took another large leap in size and suddenly girl power was not enough. So, who stepped in? Dad. He harnessed his new skill of controlling fire to cook hard-to-digest plants, thereby enabling his toddlers to eat solid food and allowing his partner to focus on their newborn, and he hunted for the high-value game that fuelled his energy-hungry family. He adopted the role of teacher so that his teenage children learnt the essential survival skills of tool production, predator defence and hunting, and obtained the complex social skills that enabled them to cooperate with their fellow hunters. The result: our ancestors were saved from possible extinction, and half a million years later we are one of the most successful animals on the planet, yet we are members of the exclusive club of 5 per cent of mammal species – and the only ape – whose males invest in their offspring. Human fatherhood was born.

  * * *

  Evolutionary anthropologists are obsessed with what makes us human. What separates us from the other animals and, in particular, our fellow great apes? Defining the difference anatomically isn’t that tricky – you don’t need me to tell you that it is unlikely you would confuse your two-legged, largely hairless fellow man for a gorilla, except poss
ibly on the darkest of nights, after a good evening in the pub. But, if we consider the difference behaviourally, defining where chimp becomes man becomes considerably more difficult. We once thought that it was the ability to make tools – after all, the stone tools that litter the 2-million-year-old archaeological sites of East Africa undoubtedly herald a striking change in behaviour and intelligence; but wild chimps have shown themselves to be well versed in using stone tools to crack nuts and fallen leaves to sponge up much-needed water. Even our language skills, once thought to be the marker of our unique intelligence, have been shown to exist in lab-trained chimps, who can use a range of signs to express their needs and emotions and even produce simple sentences. It is fair to say these sentences are often largely restricted to food-related requests, but they can communicate none the less. What is often overlooked is the one behaviour without which our species would simply no longer exist: fatherhood.

  Among mammals, fathers who stick around and help care for their offspring are a rare beast. Among birds, the father who diligently flies miles a day back and forth to the nest to provide his youngsters with food is common – in over 90 per cent of bird species, both mum and dad invest time and energy in their brood. But in mammals, the more common behaviour is male promiscuity – males mate with a number of females and often don’t stick around much beyond the act of copulation itself. Our closest ape cousins practise promiscuity in two distinct ways. Gorillas exhibit a one male/many female strategy: the harem system. This means that the large silverback male keeps all the females to himself unless a younger, less dominant male manages to sneak a quick mating in behind a tree when he’s not looking. The gorilla father does look benignly on his many offspring, as he is virtually assured of their paternity, but his input into their actual care is zero. The existence of a food-rich environment, the relatively fast development of gorilla babies and long periods between births means that mothers are able to provide all the care a gorilla baby needs – dad can add little to the mix. In chimpanzees, the living arrangements are more liberal, with multiple males mating with multiple females in a large group – although the alpha male will still get access to the most and best females. None of the males know which of the many youngsters are theirs and, as a consequence, they do not expend any precious energy on them. Rather, time is better spent grooming fellow males, building up all-important alliances and taking part in the complex chimp politics that ensure a male’s place in the chimp hierarchy.