For parents who try to share the responsibility of child-rearing
and find it causes a fair amount of strife in their marriage, a new
study may bring some relief.
It may also frustrate already-overworked moms.
According to a new study from Ohio State University, parents who share caregiving
for their preschool children may experience more conflict than
those in which the mother is the primary caregiver.
Results showed couples had a stronger, more supportive co-parenting
relationship when the father spent more time playing with their
child.
Dwindling support
But when the father participated more in caregiving, like
preparing meals for the child or giving baths, the couples were
more likely to be less supportive of each other and more likely to
undermine each other’s parenting abilities.
The results were surprising, and may be disappointing for people
who believe mothers and fathers should share equally in the
caregiving for their children, said study co-author Sarah
Schoppe-Sullivan, associate professor of Human Development and
Family Science at Ohio State.
But, she said, it shows that there is not just one way to share
parenting duties.
“I don’t think this means that for every family, a
father being involved in caregiving is a bad thing. But it is
not the recipe for all couples,” Schoppe-Sullivan said.
She noted it’s possible for parents to have a solid
co-parenting relationship without sharing caregiving
responsibilities equally.
Dad's involvement
The study, which was designed to test how a father’s
involvement in child caregiving affected the couple’s
co-parenting relationship, began with 112 Midwestern couples, most
of whom were married, who had a 4-year-old child.
At the beginning of the study, fathers and mothers filled out
questionnaires that asked how often they were involved in play
activities with their children (such as giving them rides on their
shoulders and backs) and how often they were involved in caregiving
activities (such as giving the child a bath.)
The researchers then observed the couple for 20 minutes while they
assisted their child in completing two tasks: drawing a picture of
their family together and building a house out of a toy building
set.
These tasks are a bit difficult for preschoolers and required the
guidance of both parents, which gave the researchers the
opportunity to detect how much the parents supported each other or
undermined each other in their co-parenting, Schoppe-Sullivan
said.
The researchers looked for signs of supportive co-parenting, such
as couples encouraging and cooperating with each other as they
helped their child.
Researchers also looked for evidence of couples criticizing each
other’s parenting or trying to “outdo” each other
in their efforts to work with the child.
One year later, the couples returned to the laboratory and
participated in a similar observed activity with their child.
Differing roles
The results showed, in general, when fathers said they played
more with their child at the beginning of the study, the couple
showed more supportive co-parenting one year later.
However, when fathers said they participated more in caregiving,
the couples showed lower levels of supportive co-parenting one year
later.
Schoppe-Sullivan said the gender of the children seemed to play a
role -- fathers playing with sons reduced undermining behavior more
than did fathers playing with daughters.
“Having fathers involved in play activity is good for
co-parenting, but might be especially good for boys,” she
said. “But, fathers are more likely to get into
conflicts with mothers when they are heavily involved in caregiving
of boys.”
The findings in the study held true even when the researchers
compared dual and single-income families, and when they took into
account a wide variety of other demographic factors that may have
affected the results, such as fathers’ education and work
hours, family income, family size and the length of the
couple’s relationship.
She noted that this study only included children as they moved from
4 to 5 years old. How father involvement relates to
co-parenting may be different with younger or older children.
Mom's view
The results of this study fit into other work by
Schoppe-Sullivan. Her past research has suggested mothers can act
as “gatekeepers,” either fostering or curtailing how
much fathers are involved in caring for their children.
Even though fathers’ involvement in child rearing has
increased over the last few decades, mothers still do more child
care, even when they work full-time, said Schoppe-Sullivan.
Perhaps because of this, many mothers still feel they are in charge
of child care.
“There might be some ambivalence on the part of mothers in
allowing fathers to participate in day-to-day child care,”
she said. “But fathers might be ambivalent too, and may
not be happy about shouldering more of the caregiving. That
may contribute to less supportive co-parenting.”
Workable arrangement
Even if both parents want the father to contribute more, it can
be difficult to share responsibilities without some
disagreements.
“If the mother is solely responsible for child care, she gets
to determine how it is done. But if she is sharing those
duties with the father, there is more opportunity for conflict
about how tasks should be done,” she said.
Overall, Schoppe-Sullivan said the results show each individual
couple has to decide for themselves which way works best when it
comes to taking care of their children.
“There is more than one path to an effective co-parenting
relationship,” she said. “Effective co-parenting is not
necessarily synonymous with equally sharing caregiving
duties.”
Schoppe-Sullivan conducted the study with Rongfang Jia, a graduate
student at Ohio State.
The study was supported in part by the National Institute of
Child Health and Human Development and appears in the January
2011 issue of the journal Developmental Psychology.