There is an oft-quoted but ill-founded belief that mothering is instinctive – women are born to want, and are born fully equipped to care for, children. Speaking as the mother of two young daughters, I can assure you it is not instinctive; I will never forget the steep learning curve of first-time motherhood, which made even negotiating cleaning my teeth or emptying the dishwasher while caring for a newborn seem an insurmountable task. However, I did have a head start compared to my husband. Pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding are hugely emotional and physical experiences underpinned by a sea of wonderful hormones, which are there to prepare our bodies for motherhood, ease the pain and trauma of birth and motivate us to form quick and deep bonds to our new babies – vital if we are to continue to care for them despite the lack of sleep and constant demands for food. In contrast, fathers have no such experiences to rely upon and it would appear, on the surface at least, that the nine months of pregnancy pass by without much impact on the prospective dad, beyond some stressful visits to IKEA and a bit of elementary cot construction. For fathers, it would seem to be the case that the process of becoming a parent and bonding with his child can only really start once his baby is born.
When does a father become a father? Let’s see. It might be at the point he expresses a desire to have a child. Or with the moment of conception. Maybe during pregnancy, when the realization of the need to adopt a new identity dawns. Or it may only commence at the point of birth. In this chapter, I want to explore what happens to a dad during pregnancy. I want to look at his biology, his psychology and his behaviour. To understand how he begins to form the crucial bond with his unborn child, work with his partner to create a parenting team and begin to form his new identity of ‘dad’. For many years, it was felt that it was only when he was holding his newborn child in his arms that a man became a father and the relationship with his baby began. Before this point, pregnancy was something that was quite clearly happening to someone else. But would it be so surprising to hear that, with the momentous changes in anatomy and behaviour that were the cause and consequence of the emergence of fatherhood, evolution saw fit to ensure that, even before birth, dads were firmly tied into the family?
Oxytocin is a hormone with a multifaceted role. Produced by a tiny structure at the base of your brain called the pituitary gland, it has several important roles within the body. It is responsible for the commencement of labour, the production of milk and the manufacture and motility of sperm – all vital stages in the journey of reproduction. But it is within your brain that its real power is apparent. For oxytocin is the lubricant that causes many new bonds to form: lover to lover, parent to child, best friend to best friend. It acts a little like alcohol, reducing any inhibitions to forming new partnerships, causing you to walk across the room and strike up conversation with the object of your desire. We all have a baseline level of oxytocin and variations in this level between individuals, caused by both our genes and our environment, mean that we are all different in the extent to which we face down our shyness and plunge into new relationships. And this includes the father–child relationship. We will look at how a man’s individual characteristics affect his fathering behaviour, and the ease with which he bonds with his baby, in later chapters.
In addition, oxytocin works closely with another key neurochemical: dopamine. Dopamine is described as a reward chemical and acts in an area of your brain called the reward centre, because its release results in feelings of intense happiness and euphoria. You will be able to imagine what I mean if you recall the pleasure associated with eating chocolate or your favourite takeaway – that’s dopamine. Dopamine and oxytocin have a wonderful working relationship, particularly when a new bond is starting to form. Firstly, in combination they work to make the brain more plastic, meaning that it is easier to make changes to its neural structure – vital when you need to form new memories or learn new facts about someone. Secondly, they complement each other really well. I like to describe their relationship as being a little like ‘good cop’ and ‘overenthusiastic cop’. Dopamine – our overenthusiastic cop – acts to give you the vigour and motivation to get off the sofa and form that new relationship. But enthusiasm can sometimes mean that the finer points of relationship formation are missed in the flurry of activity. So, oxytocin – acting to silence our fear circuits and promote our affiliative circuits (which motivate us to form and then maintain our relationships) – dampens the more extreme impacts of dopamine on our ability to concentrate, meaning that you are afforded enough calm headspace to make the relationship work.
For many years, oxytocin was seen as the female love hormone, largely because of its association with birth and breastfeeding, but in recent years it has become clear that it is as crucial to male relationships as female. And it is essential to the formation of the human parenting team. Recent research has shown that fathers and mothers who live together during pregnancy exhibit similar levels of circulating oxytocin within their blood. The team behind this finding is headed by Professor Ruth Feldman, a developmental psychologist from Bar-Ilan University in Israel. Feldman and her team are arguably the most prolific and impactful contributors to our knowledge of the neurochemistry of fatherhood. They are a wonderfully diverse group, and their work on the neurobiology and neurology of fatherhood, together with contributions from the fields of psychology and behavioural science, have led the way in our understanding of what it is to be a dad. But on discovering this amazing synchrony in baseline oxytocin between expectant mums and dads – its sheer ubiquity among couples ruling out the possibility that it is simply a coincidence – even Feldman and her team could not give an absolute explanation of why it existed. They just knew that it had something to say about the fundamental importance of the parenting team to a child. Their many hours of behavioural observation led them to suggest that this neurochemical phenomenon may have something to do with the close parallels in behaviour that we have all observed between two tightly bonded lovers – the common phrases, shared gestures and mirrored body language. They observed that when two people are in a close and supportive relationship, this is often reflected in a mirroring of speech and movement and that this is paralleled by a synchrony in a range of measures – known as physiological markers – such as heart rate, body temperature and blood pressure. They coined the term bio-behavioural synchrony to describe this phenomenon. The team hypothesized that the cause of the synchrony in oxytocin levels in parents-to-be could be explained by taking this observation of behavioural and physiological synchrony one step further, to suggest that this close relationship is underpinned by similar brain activity and hormonal levels, including those hormones that are vital to our long-term relationships. It is as if evolution has acted to ensure that, even before birth, dad and mum are primed to approach the parenting of their baby from the same viewpoint by ensuring they get an equal neurochemical reward. This work, as with so much of the work on fatherhood, is at an early stage, but it does seem that this mechanism could explain the close relationship between oxytocin levels in prospective parents. And this push for synchrony isn’t limited to the merely neurobiological. The parents’ psychology also undergoes a fundamental transformation.
An individual’s personality can be split into five dominant elements, known in the psychological community as the ‘big five’. First developed in the 1970s by two research teams, who independently managed to arrive at the same conclusion, and based on the analysis of thousands of personalities, the concept of the big five posits that every personality, regardless of your language or culture, can be boiled down to five essential elements. These five elements are: extraversion (the desire to seek out relationships, stimulation and fun – your classic party animal); openness (a wish to gain new experiences); agreeableness (empathy with others); neuroticism (anxiety and a heightened sense of threat); and conscientiousness (the ability to organize, plan and stick to the rules). All personalities contain these elements to a greater or lesser degree, and it appears, although debate still rages, that your personality is relatively stable for your lifespan. But the practical and behavioural changes that accompany the major upheaval that is new parenthood do appear to cause a degree of beneficial disruption. As with oxytocin levels, parents-to-be who cohabit during pregnancy seem to undergo some change in their personalities to bring them into line with each other.
I am aware from my own studies that dads’ personalities undergo a change – once-patient men become less patient fathers and the once-timid can find new confidence in being a dad. But in their study of new and established parents, Sarah Galdiolo and Isabelle Roskam of Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium found firm evidence that these changes in dad are mirrored in mum. In their long-term study of 204 parental couples, followed from pregnancy to one year after birth, they found that as compared to non-parents, parents saw an alignment in the degree to which their personalities expressed openness, agreeableness and neuroticism. These are all factors that orientate a person to be aware of someone else’s life experience and be prepared to accommodate them, and are fundamental to the healthy functioning of the family. By experiencing a degree of synchrony in their personalities, mum and dad were being primed to be empathetic to each other’s experience, to be open to the experience of a new baby and alert to threats to the family. Take Nigel’s experience as an example:
There have been times when [my friends] have said, ‘Oh, we’re going to go out on the Friday night for drinks and stuff, and you’re welcome if you want to, but you probably can’t, because you have Poppy.’ And I find myself thinking, It’s not so much that. I still want to see my friends and it’s not that I can’t any more; it’s just I’m getting older, I have a kid and I feel responsible for her. It’s not that I’m not allowed to, I just don’t want Liz to be at home looking after Poppy while I’m out with my friends, just going to pubs, having drinks. It’s not a special event. It’s something I can do any time, and this is a time I should be at home, because Poppy is changing every day.
Nigel, dad to Poppy (six months)
However, Galdiolo and Roskam found that while mum and dad were in tune regarding these family-orientated aspects of personality, the element that drives them to seek out excitement and reward outside the couple – extraversion – did something different. For mum, this aspect of personality was unaltered by becoming a parent, but for dad there was a significant decline in the extent to which this formed part of his personality. Once they are on the road to parenthood, the personality of a father alters from being one orientated to outside experiences to one that is inward-looking, towards the familiar and comfortable – the family. Nigel’s quote above illustrates this change in perspective perfectly. If you are a dad-to-be, then what these fascinating instances of biological and psychological synchrony and asynchrony are telling us is not only that evolution wants you to act as a baby-raising team alongside your partner, but that during pregnancy you are not simply an interested bystander but are being primed biologically and psychologically to contribute fully to that team.
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I built the cot and put the nursery together, put up some shelves . . . it was all me. It’s been quite nice, that’s my way of contributing. She is busy growing a baby, which I can’t do, but I can do the physical stuff here . . .
Tim, expectant dad
Fathers nest. Often, when I ask the fathers I study, like Tim, what they are doing during the pregnancy to prepare for the arrival of their baby, their responses are scattered with anecdotes about painting nurseries, constructing furniture and carrying out extensive research into the best buggy or car seat. Indeed, it is fair to say that buggy shopping seems to get fathers particularly excited, especially if there is scope for a three-wheeled, off-road option. While we may laugh at this sudden flurry of DIY, for the dad-to-be, who may struggle to find a way into the pregnancy, being able to make this contribution helps him to feel involved. But beyond this, many dads also speak of their growing relationship with their baby. Often, they describe how they sing, talk or even read to the bump, gaining huge joy from any movements the baby makes in response. Many imagine what their future child will look like and what experiences they will enjoy together.
Attachment, a term coined by psychologists to describe the intensely close bond that develops between two people, is fundamental to the parent–infant bond. The father of attachment theory is British child psychiatrist John Bowlby, who began his work in the 1950s. Bowlby rejected previous theories of attachment that posited that the bond between parent and child was motivated by the child’s hunger or the requirement for dependency, something that the child should outgrow by adulthood, and argued that it is based upon a deep emotional bond between parent and child that is crucial to the child’s healthy development. As such, many mammalian infants, including us, are born with an innate drive to seek out their attachment figure. Much of Bowlby’s early work focused exclusively on the mother–infant attachment and positioned it as a behaviour directed from the child to the mother, rather than being two-way. Today, we know that the latter is true – mothers form attachments to their children as well – and that it is also a phenomenon of the father–child relationship. The most common attachment relationships are those between parent and child and between romantic lovers, but they can exist between very close friends and even, some would suggest, pets and owners. Attachment is hard to define – it is one of those phenomena that is difficult to pin down, but psychologists know it when they see it. If we were to observe an attachment relationship – be it romantic, parental or based in deep friendship – we would see two people who crave physical closeness, who constantly monitor each other’s emotional reaction to help themselves assess the environment and who become distressed on separation. Think of a puppy separated from its mother or a young child from its parent. We will revisit attachment in Chapter Seven, when we look at the development of the relationship between dad and baby after birth, but here I want to think about the relatively new idea that this bond can begin to form even before birth.
It is beyond debate that a mother forms an attachment to her unborn baby – a process that is given a huge boost by her ability to feel her baby moving and the experience of going on an intensely physical and emotional journey in partnership with her child. This has been referred to as the mothering privilege. But is this really a privilege that only mum can benefit from? There is now a powerful body of evidence to suggest that this privilege can be shared. Dads can feel the same powerful tug of love for their unborn baby, and they have been helped in this in no small way by the advent of the ultrasound scan. With the arrival of this technology, fathers could, for the first time, step beyond their imagination and actually see and hear their baby. Tim’s recollection of his first scan makes it clear how powerful this experience can be:
I think the scan was the first time I began to believe it. Not that I didn’t believe it before, but the scan gave me the reassurance that it was real. Knowing for the first time, seeing the evidence on the screen, it was brilliant. Incredible. I was amazed, elated, incredulous.
Tim, expectant father
Although it was pioneered in Glasgow during the 1950s, ultrasound use during pregnancy only became routine in the UK during the early 1970s, and it wasn’t until the end of that decade that it made an appearance in the United States. So, today’s fathers are one of the first generations to routinely be given this opportunity to see their unborn child and, overall, the ability to see one’s baby during pregnancy is a positive thing. For the fathers in my studies, whether to attend scans is generally a no-brainer and while there are anxieties surrounding the possibility of discovering issues with the baby, in the majority of cases the overwhelming emotions when baby is finally seen are ones of relief, pride and joy. In these times of rapid innovation, parents can now not only hear and see their baby, but they can get the full surround-sound experience with a 4D scan. These scans show the baby in three dimensions and in real time – that’s the fourth dimension. The opportunities for early discussions about who he or she looks like are endless. For fathers, who are largely unaware of the physical exertions of their unborn child, this affords an amazing opportunity to parallel the experiences of the mother. Gone are the days of the grainy black-and-white image, to be replaced by an all-singing, all-dancing movie that can be downloaded to a DVD and taken home with you to view at your pleasure as many times as you like. In a study of the comparative impact of 2D and 4D scanning techniques on prospective parents, Pier Righetti and his colleagues, based in the departments of obstetrics and gynaecology at two Italian hospitals, found that fathers experienced a much greater leap in attachment to their unborn baby following a 4D scan as compared to a 2D scan, even when their attachment was measured two weeks after the appointment. It is possible that the opportunity to view your child moving in three dimensions, combined with the freedom to rewatch them again and again, enables fathers to remain connected to their child throughout the long nine months of pregnancy.
The attachment between parent and child is the first, and arguably most powerful, attachment an individual will form, and whether this is a healthy or unhealthy attachment will mould the baby’s health and behaviour for life. As such, the attachment between father and child has long-term implications for the child, family and society as a whole. In recent years, we have come to view the bond between father and child as a different kind of connection, forming a unique and important relationship. Ben’s experience makes it clear that this bond begins to form, for both dad and baby, well before birth:
When my wife was pregnant with Rosie, I would sing ‘Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star’ to her. When she was born, as soon as she was up on mum’s tum, the umbilical cord still attached, I sang ‘Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star’ and instantly she recognized it, and that was one of those moments that will always be with me.
Ben, dad to Rosie (eighteen months)
Australian psychologist John Condon of Flinders University in Australia has led the field in identifying the important aspects of attachment both before and after birth and, more importantly, in defining the differences between father-to-child and mother-to-child attachment. If you are an expectant dad, whose relationship to your baby-to-be is mostly in your mind, three factors seem to be key in the extent to which you will bond with your unborn child. Firstly, how often you find yourself daydreaming about your baby and the emotions this elicits in you. Particularly key is to what extent you visualize your baby as a ‘little person’ and to what extent you experience positive, as opposed to negative, feelings towards them. So, are you preoccupied by thoughts about who he or she might resemble and what they might be called, and do such thoughts elicit feelings of tenderness, love and happiness? Or do you rarely picture your baby and, when you do, is your response one of irritation, anger or frustration?
The second factor is how comfortable you are with your chosen identity as a father and, more specifically, to what extent you imagine being an ‘involved father’. The term ‘involved father’ was first coined in the 1980s to describe the type of father who wished to co-parent his child and have as much input into his child’s care and emotional and physical development as the mother – it’s the ‘new dad’ of the popular press. This new breed of father was someone who stood in stark contrast to the more traditional image of the breadwinning disciplinarian that epitomized the dads of earlier decades. For one of the fathers in my studies, being an involved dad was his goal:
My role is to support emotionally and financially. I think it is a bit of everything. In parenthood, everything is joint – I don’t believe that I should be the sole money-earner and Julie should be the sole parent; I think we should split it evenly. Our job is to provide our child with money, emotional support, protection, love, everything. I mean, I think it is an amazing thing to be a dad. You’ve got such a responsibility . . . it just encompasses everything.
Colin, dad to Freya (six months)
The type of father you want to be has a fundamental effect on the nature of the attachment you form to your unborn baby. In their study of attachment and identity, Australian psychologists Cherine Habib and Sandra Lancaster found that expectant dads who included ‘father’ as a significant component in their identity, alongside husband and worker, for example, and who identified most highly with the role of co-parent had stronger attachment to their unborn child than those who envisaged a primary role as breadwinner. And many men, like Mark, are consciously embracing this identity:
I don’t want to be doing sixty hours a week and not [be] there. When I was growing up, my dad was a successful man, a director of a company. But I only remember seeing him at weekends . . . I do dinner, I do bath, I do bed . . . every single night, and long may that continue . . . I want to be here, [to] be remembered.
Mark, dad to Emily (six months)
Pregnancy is one of the few events in life when we are able to take some time to prepare for a major change in our circumstances. The other key transitions – puberty, first love, first loss – are a little harder to predict. Parents have the opportunity to take the nine months of pregnancy to prepare practically and emotionally for the new arrival. As is clear from the voices of the dads we have heard so far in this chapter, for many fathers, considering what sort of parent they want to be is an important part of this preparation. And while this consideration of identity is critical to attachment, it is also important to the man’s sense of self and his relationship with his partner; all important factors in how effectively a man transitions to being a dad. Here, the power of dad’s imagination is key:
Before I had a child, the dream I had was me with my baby in their room because they are a bit upset, nursing them in a rocking chair. So, before my little girl arrived, I got my mum’s rocking chair and put it in her room. When it did happen, I was like, ‘At last! I’m in a rocking chair! I’ve got a baby in my arms!’ Like when people dream of a white wedding, that was my dream when I had a baby.
Adrian, dad to Judy (seven)
Finally, one external factor has a major influence on how well you will bond with your unborn child, and that is the nature of your relationship with your partner. Where the relationship between parents-to-be is strong and healthy, with high relationship satisfaction and mutual support for each other’s roles, fathers tend to form stronger attachments with their unborn babies than those who may feel more at a distance from a partner. Obviously, adding a baby to an established relationship is a tricky journey for any couple to navigate, but the more this journey can be travelled together, the better for the family.
For the majority of fathers, attachment to their unborn baby increases as the pregnancy progresses. However, for some fathers, developing this relationship is not so straightforward. Some men, like Jim, below, may lack an adequate fathering role model, others may struggle with their own mental health, while some dads-to-be may experience discord in their relationship with the birth mother.
I spent a lot of time before my son was born thinking, What should I be? What is my role? My parents divorced when I was quite young, so it was very tough for me because I didn’t really have a model set in my mind of what a real father should be . . . Mine was this distant, fun guy who came on weekends, but what I want to become is someone who cares about my son and spends time with him. Unlike my father, who didn’t get that opportunity.
Jim, dad to Sean (six months)
In cases such as these, the ability to assess the strength of a father’s attachment before birth can help in diagnosing future problems in that relationship, which in turn has wider ramifications for society as a whole. As you will see in Chapter Ten, as a father, your relationship with your child has the potential to have a profound influence on their behavioural, emotional and psychological development that is separate to any influence mum may have. Where the attachment is strong, fathers are the promoters of good mental health, the encouragers of independence and the supporters of behavioural and linguistic development. But where this relationship is found wanting, the consequences have the potential to negatively influence not only the child and its family but also society at large. Children who form insecure attachments to their parents are at an increased risk of developing antisocial behaviours, experiencing addiction and suffering from poor mental health. John Condon’s work on antenatal attachment found that, combined with the quality of the relationship between mum and dad, the nature of the father’s attachment to his unborn child is the strongest predictor of how well he will relate to his child when it is born. This is an incredibly powerful finding, for it means that we now have a tool that will help us to identify, even before birth, those relationships that may need help.
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Much of the prenatal bond between father and child is down to the dad’s imagination and hard work; picturing your child and future relationship, seeking opportunities where you can to interact with your partner’s baby bump and taking the time to consider the sort of dad you want to be. Take Tim:
I hope I’m starting to build a relationship with the baby . . . It is hard, it feels like you’re talking to this thing that has no idea what you are or what you’re doing. But I talk to it quite a lot, I touch it quite a lot. I like to be involved if I am here. We had a great game of high five a few days ago, where I was patting and it was patting back . . . It could have just been hiccupping, but it was great, really cool.
Tim, expectant dad
We know that the bonding neurochemicals that epitomize pregnancy and childbirth – oxytocin and dopamine – are available to dad, but at a much lower intensity and after a lot more time and work (childbirth aside!). But evolution has not abandoned dads entirely to a pregnancy powered by the imagination – it has one more wonderful trick up its sleeve to help fathers make the transition to fatherhood.
Many would say that testosterone is the hormone that makes a man a man. Its release within the womb at between six to twelve weeks’ gestation leads to the development of the penis and testes in a male baby and influences the development of the brain. Once born, many argue that it is testosterone and its influence on brain development and behaviour that drives male children to select male-gendered toys to play with and turn every stick into a sword or gun. During puberty, it controls the distribution of fat and muscle and the development of bones that sees the jaw, shoulders and chest widen and strengthen and promotes the growth of hair on the chest, face and genitals. And it is the hormone that decides how effective you will be as a lover and a father.
It has long been understood that men who have higher circulating testosterone are more successful at attracting mates. This may be as a result of two things: a stronger testosterone-driven motivation to seek out women and a preference in women for partners with strong jaws and chests – the better to protect and provide. However, when a man decides to stick with one woman and settle down, his previously beneficially high levels of testosterone suddenly become a hindrance. While he tries to focus on his new role of committed partner and father, his hormones are driving him to keep looking for another mate, something that would be detrimental to any offspring who require his care. This is known as the ‘challenge hypothesis’ and it certainly is a challenge. First developed by British zoologist John Wingfield, the challenge hypothesis tries to tackle the thorny question of how a man can balance the need to be a successful lover before having children with the need to be a successful parent after. And the answer? That testosterone has got to go.
And it does. Across cultures as diverse as polygynous Senegalese agriculturalists, middle-class Israelis, high-investing Filipino fathers, middle-class Canadians, non-cohabiting Jamaican fathers and my own group of UK dads, fathers have significantly lower testosterone levels than non-fathers, regardless of whether they live with their children or not. And we know that men with lower levels of testosterone are more responsive to a child’s cry, are more likely to wish to co-parent their child and show more empathy and affection towards their children than men with higher testosterone levels. Testosterone makes a considerable contribution to differences between individuals in fathering behaviour. We’ll dig into this a bit more in Chapter Six. But the question arises: is it simply men with generally lower circulating testosterone who become fathers, hence globally dads have lower testosterone than non-dads, or does becoming a father somehow suppress testosterone levels?
Lee Gettler of Northwestern University, Illinois, has the answer. In a groundbreaking five-year study, Gettler and his colleagues followed a group of Filipino men as they embarked upon relationships and fatherhood. Meeting them first as single men, they measured their baseline levels of testosterone. Five years later, they visited the men again. Of the 624 men tested at the start of the study, 162 had become first-time fathers during the five-year period. Not only were these 162 men the individuals who had exhibited the highest testosterone at the start of the study, but five years later they now exhibited the lowest levels. The men who had remained single and those who had found partners but not become fathers saw no real change in their testosterone levels. Gettler had his answer. Men who have high circulating testosterone levels are more successful at finding mates and they see the largest drop in testosterone when they become fathers. Testosterone levels are suppressed by becoming a father and, it would appear, while rising slightly following the end of the first few newborn weeks, they never reach their pre-fatherhood levels again. Evolution has selected for a mechanism that allows men to successfully balance the opposing needs of the single man and the devoted father.
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Um, I think I’ve changed. I hope I have. I’ve learnt to be a lot calmer with things. I feel there is more of a purpose in my life now. I feel a lot happier. I mean, in theory we should be more like, ‘Oh my god, what have we done?’, because having three of them has been tough, but we have been really lucky.
Matt, dad to Tom (seven), Sam (three) and James (seven months)
I always start my study of new fathers during pregnancy, and one of the early questions they encounter is what they think the impact of having a baby will be on their lives. This is generally something to which they have given some thought, and the majority are not unrealistic about the potential for major upheaval that their impending situation will bring. Many recognize the effect parenthood will have upon their home and social life; altering everyday practicalities, causing the relationship with their partner to change and putting an extra financial burden on the family.
But for some men, like Colin, anxiety lies in the question of whether they are capable of stepping up to the job. Indeed, whether they have the requisite qualifications.
I think setting an example worries me, because I always want to be successful and [to] be seen as successful by people around me – family and friends – and I always want [my daughter] to see me that way. So, I don’t want to be seen as a failure and I don’t want her to grow up as a failure, almost. I want to make sure I’ve done a good job raising her and that people can see I’ve done a good job raising her.
Colin, dad to Freya (six months)
In one of the first studies of its kind, sociologist Tina Miller of Oxford Brookes University followed a group of new fathers as they transitioned to fatherhood. One of her subjects reflected upon how no one assesses your suitability to be a dad: ‘You get selected to do your job on a skill base or your character . . . Father, you can become a father quite easily, it’s frightening how easy it is . . . You know, am I up to it? Will I be able to cope with it? I don’t know.’ But in my experience of new fathers, such thoughts are fleeting and rather than being a source of ongoing anxiety, it is an opportunity to redefine who they are; to adopt a new role, identity or perspective. Many of the fathers in my studies have found that becoming a dad motivates them to ‘up their game’, acting as an impetus to improve, to ensure they are a good role model for their child, even though their desire to be perfect can lead them to fall short of the high standards they set themselves at times. But while there are downsides to this self-imposed pressure, these are counterbalanced by the benefits that being a father can have for a man’s self-esteem and confidence. I can truly say that for the vast majority of the fathers I work with, becoming a dad feels like they have finally found their calling.
Even men who we might imagine would find it difficult to handle the transition to fatherhood – for example, young fathers or those who have not had a suitable role model – can find that becoming a father allows them to reject the stereotype of the authoritarian or absent father, or the example that their father did, or did not, set them, and turn instead to a different model, allowing them to recast themselves and escape their past.
In recent years, sociologists and social anthropologists, who concern themselves with the study of individual societies and cultures, have begun to explore beyond the negative tabloid headlines that label all young fathers as irresponsible and lazy, to try to understand whether positive stories of young fatherhood exist; an undertaking I fully support. What they found is that some young fathers are beginning to turn the narrative of the disinterested or absent teenage father on its head and are finding salvation and transformation in being a dad. Fathers who, in the past, would have felt the need to live up to the tough-guy image promoted by their societies are using the opportunities afforded by new fatherhood to reject this life path. For example, population scientists from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the University of KwaZulu-Natal found that in South Africa, where the overriding image of black manhood is one of dominance, oppression and absence, young black fathers are promoting a new idea of fatherhood where real men reject womanizing, drug-taking and irresponsible spending and replace them with a drive to provide money, protection and care for their families. In America, midwife Dr Jenny Foster of the University of Massachusetts found that the possible judgement from their children drove young Puerto Rican fathers to reject the gangland life – and the associated risk of early death or incarceration – to ensure that they were on hand throughout their children’s lives to provide care and support and be that all-important role model. For these young fathers, the transition to being a dad truly revolutionized their lives and their futures. From gang member to involved father.
But perhaps one of the groups of fathers for which the change in identity is the most extreme is gay fathers, like Simon:
Growing up as gay in the time that I did it, [becoming a dad] was never, ever an option for me and that was a really hard part of coming out. I would never be a dad and never have children. And obviously I accepted that. And in my twenties, it was totally fine. That was the way it was going to be. Obviously, as the world has changed . . . Then we met and very quickly got together, [and] we felt it was very right. We are lucky in lots of ways. A nice house and money . . . So it just all absolutely fits that it would work for us to be dads.
Simon, dad to Daisy (six) and Bill (five)
Until very recently, the prospect of becoming a father was remote for the majority of gay men. The attitude of society to gay adoption and the limit on access to assisted fertility, combined with the erroneous belief that children were best raised in the bosom of the heterosexual nuclear family, meant that, for many men, realizing their sexuality meant coming to terms with never being a parent. However, in some countries, as attitudes have changed and hurdles have been removed, it is now a very real possibility for gay men to become parents – having originally abandoned the fathering identity, they need to pick it back up, dust it off and assume it. Adrian’s journey is typical:
I have always wanted children. I remember telling my friend when I was fourteen or fifteen that I was gay [and that] the biggest issue for me was, ‘Oh god, gay people don’t have children.’ That was always a big black cloud over my head. And then, as you get older, you realize that it is a possibility, actually. So, I have always had a very strong pull towards being a parent. I think . . . early on it was a bit like, ‘I can’t leave this earth without another part of me on it! I can’t just die out!’ But now that is not part of it.
Adrian, dad to Judy (seven)
For the gay fathers I have worked with, adopting the ‘dad’ identity was sometimes difficult, as there are few examples or models of gay parenting to follow and many find it difficult to reconcile their identity with that of the overtly heterosexual persona of the father. Combined with this, announcing to the world that you are going to be a parent does not necessarily come with the overwhelmingly positive response that heterosexual couples have come to expect.
But the gay father does have one massive advantage in the identity stakes, as compared to a heterosexual man: his role is less bound by gender. In the heterosexual relationship, society has decreed there is a mother and a father and these roles, and all that society associates with them, are defined by gender. But in the gay parenting relationship, roles are much more fluid, and the part someone plays can be decided based on what someone is good at or prefers, rather than gender. Within the UK, the number of gay fathers is still very small but those who I have interviewed have used this flexibility to construct their own roles. For Simon and his husband Calum, this has meant following a traditional heterosexual model, where Calum is the main full-time wage-earner and Simon has enthusiastically adopted, in his words, the ‘mum’s role’:
I feel like – obviously, it is all culture and gender stuff, but – I feel like a mum because I am the stay-at-homer. And I pick them up, and they come to me in the night. I am the one they usually come to for nurture and comfort and every little thing. I feel like a mum.
Simon, dad to Daisy (six) and Bill (five)
In contrast, Adrian and Noah have exploited the freedom of their non-gendered situation to be true co-parents, unaffected by any cultural norms regarding the division of labour or the promotion of mum as the primary parent.
We have gone through the process together. We brought her home . . . and we got settled on our own. It was very much us together on a level, getting to know that baby. It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, you have had nine months of bonding with her in your belly and I feel a bit on the outside.’
Adrian, dad to Judy (seven)
For the modern gay Western father, the flexibility afforded by the newness of gay parenting can make becoming an involved dad considerably easier. Without centuries of culture and tradition, gay fathers can define their role anew.
* * *
It is an undeniable fact that becoming a father changes you. But these changes begin long before you get to hold your newborn in your arms. As your partner’s pregnancy progresses, evolution has seen to it that your hormone levels synchronize with those of your partner and your personalities align; and as you touch, talk and sing to the bump, the powerful bonding hormones oxytocin and dopamine begin their job of motivating you to form an attachment to your unborn child – a job made much easier by your powerful imagination. Just before birth, your testosterone level falls and your personality alters, your drive to be extraverted, to look outside the family for stimulation, declines and your openness to new experiences and close social interactions increases. You are being primed to father and to do so from within a team with your partner – a team that has shared goals and a shared vision about what they want their family to be. You are being prepared to become a dad.
And the real-world implications of all this science are these: if you are sitting out the nine months of pregnancy, then there is an opportunity to be seized. The work you put into bonding with your baby now will see you reap the rewards a thousand-fold once your baby is born. So however silly it may feel, try and have a conversation with the bump; talk to it, sing to it, touch it. Read it the complete works of Chaucer if that is your thing, just let it hear your voice. Try to imagine who is in there. What will they be like, look like? What will you do together and what sort of father will you be? Take the time now to have a conversation, uninterrupted by the demands of a newborn, with your partner, your family and friends about what life post-baby will be like and how you might fit into it. It is normal to be worried about the changes that are coming, but if worry becomes anxiety then talk about your thoughts and fears to those closest to you, or the health and social care professionals who are there to support you, or seek out the anonymous support of an online forum. There is a list of helpful links at the end of this book. Remember that looking after yourself now means that you will be fully available once your baby is here to dedicate yourself to your new role, your new family and your new life.