The Benefits of Father Involvement and Creating a Partnership Family

We've all seen the media stereotypes of the attractive, incredibly put-together wife and her man-child husband who couldn't find the dishwasher to save his life. While this is obviously hyperbole, there is some truth behind it.

A 2019 study found that almost 90% of women surveyed were solely responsible for organizing their family's schedules. While that can be stressful, women experienced a decrease in satisfaction with life and their partner when they felt that they were the only parent managing their child's well-being. This includes things like being attentive to their emotions and knowing their teachers and friends.

Interestingly though, majority of men today report wanting to be more involved with their children and greater father involvement has positive effects for all family members. Children experience greater academic success, and overall emotional and physical well-being. Being involved with their children is linked to increases in self-confidence, parenting abilities, and overall self-esteem for Fathers. And greater father involvement has been shown to predict smaller declines in marital satisfaction over time (for both partners) and increased sexual frequency. Additionally, one longitudinal study even showed that when fathers are heavily involved in the first six months of a child's life, both partners experienced an increase in marital satisfaction - something that couples rarely report.

With benefits like that, why aren't more fathers involved? Two big reasons:

The first is that it likely wasn't modeled for them. This trend toward more hands-on fathering has only showed up in the last generation or so. Prior to that, the act of providing for your family through employment was often perceived as fatherhood involvement. Because of that, if you or your partner didn't have fathers who stayed home with you when you were sick, sign you up for little league or kiss your boo boos better, it's hard to know how that it's okay to do those things.

The second is that mom's often perpetuate the cycle. If you're a mom, think about it: if you ask your partner to do something and he doesn't, do you just do it anyway? Have you ever actually sat down with your spouse and talked about who will take care of the childcare responsibilities or did you just kind of take them all on? Husbands often report wanting to be involved, but feel like they don't actually have a place to step in because their wives simply do all of it.

So what can you do?

The first step is to actually talk about it. Most heterosexual couples never discuss who will take care of responsibilities with their kids, they just fall back on how their parents did things - usually how the husband was raised. So whether you're a husband who would like to be more involved, or a wife who could use more involvement, it's time for a conversation.

Feelings are likely to get hurt when breaching this topic, no matter who is bringing it up. It's important to use a soft start-up and then schedule a time to talk about it so that your partner knows that it's important and requires full attention. If you're a wife looking to get your husband more involved you can say something like, "Hey, I've been feeling a little overwhelmed lately, and I was wondering if we could go over some household stuff and rework how we're handling it?"

If you're a husband who wants to be more involved you can try something like, "Hey, I've been feeling like I could really be more involved with the kids. I'm wondering if we can sit down and talk about some ways that I could do that?" Then set up a time that works where you won't be interrupted - hire a babysitter if you need to!

Next, I recommend checking out this Choreganizer and going through it with your partner to see what each of you are doing, and where some of the responsibility can shift. This is likely to be a difficult conversation no matter what, but it's the hard things that are the most worth it to do. Three last tips to help this process be more successful:

1. Do not, under any circumstances, make this an ambush. You must both agree to your situation in order for this to work (check out this webinar on Partnership Families if you're interested in learning more, it's $30 but includes resources)

2. Be willing to recognize your contribution to your current circumstance - be open to recognizing how you contribute to your current circumstance and navigating new opportunities.

3. If you're the wife and your husband agrees to new responsibilities, refrain from micromanaging. No matter how hard it is, do not remind him, do not do it for him if he forgets. You have to completely let go of that piece for him to feel like there is space for him as a parent.

Also, remember that our trusty friend therapy is always there in case you need it. Sometimes it's helpful to have an objective party there to help you navigate these tough conversations.

Have you navigated this conversation with your partner? Tell us how it went in the comments!