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Psychology Today Research To Child Custody Divorce Courts, Father's Rights Groups: Dads Are Equal
The Psychological Today story: The Making of a Modern Dad, by Douglas Carlton Abrams illustrates in vivid, scientific detail how fathers are no different in their biological programming than mothers when raising children. That divorced dads who "feel" a need to be with their children, is not only an emotional reaction but a biological one as well. This evidence hits hard at social workers, family court judges and elected legislators who abide by archaic research and outdated laws which state that it is in the best interest of the child to be with the divorced mother - not the divorced father. "Here is the first hard evidence that men are biologically prepared for fatherhood," says Psychology Today. "In fact, this is the first evidence that to nurture is part of man's nature." This medical evidence would explain why father's rights groups such as Fathers 4 Justice in England, the US, Italy and in Israel would risk getting arrested in their high profile protests to see their children with equal access. The research, which clearly illustrates how a father biologically responds to the birth of his children, also explains why thousands of men become clinically depressed when separated from their children to the point of actually committing suicide. Perhaps the 1979 Dustin Hoffman movie Kramer Vs. Kramer was society's first major wake up call that dads were no different in wanting to care and protect their children. Years passed since the making of that landmark film where hundreds of thousands of caring, loving and responsible dads were separated from their children by narcissistic mothers, social workers and family court judges. These city appointed social workers and family court judges who believed that it was best for the children to be with their mothers were totally unaware of the devastating effects of their actions. Rather than encouraging the dads to be dads, they alienated an entire generation of fathers who simply gave up in trying to fight the system. Perverted governmental systems which supported the few moms (most mothers encourage unlimited or equal contact) who used their small children as potent emotional weapons against their former husbands as the national and local governments practiced gender bias discrimination.
The results of a survey based on pooled data from 80,000 adults suggest that parental divorce has an adverse effect on children's lives compared with those raised in intact two-parent families, adults who experienced a parental divorce had lower psychological well-being, more behavioral problems, less education, lower job status, a lower standard of living, lower marital satisfaction, a heightened risk of divorce, a heightened risk of being a single parent, and poorer physical health. The view that children adapt readily to divorce and show no lingering negative consequences is clearly inconsistent with the cumulative research in this area. Some studies show that children who experience the death of a parent exhibit problems similar to those of children who 'lose' a parent through divorce. These findings support the view that the absence of a parent for any reason is problematic for children. Each year, over 1 million American children suffer the divorce of their parents; moreover, half of the children born this year to parents who are married will see their parents divorce before they turn 18. Mounting evidence in social science journals demonstrates that the devastating physical, emotional, and financial effects that divorce is having on these children will last well into adulthood and affect future generations. Among these broad and damaging effects are the following.
Children whose parents have divorced are increasingly the victims
of abuse. They exhibit more health, behavioral, and emotional
problems, are involved more frequently in crime and drug abuse,
and have higher rates of suicide.
Children of divorced parents perform more poorly in reading,
spelling, and math. They also are more likely to repeat a grade
and to have higher drop-out rates and lower rates of college
graduation.
Families with children that were not poor before the divorce
see their income drop as much as 50 percent. Almost 50 percent
of the parents with children that are going through a divorce
move into poverty after the divorce. The divorce of parents, even if it is amicable, tears apart the fundamental unit of American society. Today, according to the US Federal Reserve Board's 1995 Survey of Consumer Finance, only 42 percent of children aged 14 to 18 live in a "first marriage" family--an intact two-parent married family. It should be no surprise to find that divorce is having such profound effects on society. Restoring the importance of marriage to society and the welfare of children will require politicians and civic leaders to make this one of their most important tasks. It also will require a modest commitment of resources to pro-marriage programs. A 2004 UK study confirmed that children who have contact with their fathers following a family break-up suffer fewer behavioral problems than those who don't have such contact. The researchers found that children who have a close relationship with their natural father after their parents divorce "are likely to be less disorderly, anxious or aggressive," according to a summary published in the Manchester News. They also found that children who had infrequent or no contact with their non-resident fathers "were more likely to externalise and internalise problems". Last year, The New York Times addressed father's and children's rights in it's Sunday Magazine cover story: The Rise of the Fathers' Custody Movement. The news story focused on the struggle of divorced dads in both the UK and the US to gain shared parenting, equal access and or joint custody with their children. Divorced
fathers and their children in Israel presently suffer from gender
bias discrimination by the Israel Knesset, family courts, the
police and local child welfare departments. Blatant discrimination
and the forced separation of father from child stems from an
outdated law passed by the Israel Knesset in 1962. Joint custody in Israel is rare. Most couples who divorce in Israel find it difficult to decide on anything together. Without the cooperation of both parents in Israel, their is no joint custody or shared parenting. Israel family courts will only accept joint custody arrangements when both sides agree. The father is cast away by the mother, the justice and child welfare systems in Israel as a second class citizen. The dad turns into a "cash machine" paying child support every month while being denied equal access to their children. As a result, children become alienated from their fathers suffering from Parental Child Alienation Syndrome, crying from the immediate and long term adverse behavioral effects of divorce and separation for years to come. The Israel Fathers Rights Association, Horut Shava, Fathers 4 Justice Israel and the Israel Fathers Advocacy Council with the aid of several leading and respected child psychologists are now preparing material and expert testimony for the Knesset to change a law from 1962 which has destroyed the basic civil rights of both divorced fathers and children. A final
note from this writer before we review the findings of Psychology
Today's latest research. The
following is from Psychology Today: Part
of a new generation of men who are redefining fatherhood and
masculinity, Hudnut, who is 33, is unwilling to accept the role
of absentee provider that his father's generation assumed. With
mothers According
to census figures, one in four dads takes care of his preschooler
during the time the mother is working. The number of children
who are raised by a primary-care father is now more than 2 Is father nurture natural? Many
men and women wonder if all of this father care is really natural.
According to popular perceptions, men are supposedly driven
by their hormones (primarily testosterone) to compete for status,
to Two
Canadian studies suggest that there is much more to masculinity
than testosterone. While testosterone is certainly important
in driving men to conceive a child, it takes an array of other
hormones In
fact, the second of the two studies, which was recently published
in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings, suggests that fathers have higher
levels of estrogen the well-known female sex hormone - than
other "I
have always suspected that fatherhood has biological effects
in some, perhaps all, men," says biologist Sue Carter,
distinguished professor at the University of Maryland. "Now
here is the first hard The
studies have the potential to profoundly change our understanding
of families, of fatherhood and of masculinity itself. Being
a devoted parent is not only important but also natural for
men. Indeed, there Do men's hormones change in preparation for fatherhood? Is biology destiny for dads? It's
well known that hormonal changes caused by pregnancy encourage
a mother to love and nurture her child. But it has long been
assumed that a father's attachment to his child is the result
of a more In the original study, published in Evolution and Human Behavior, psychologist Anne Storey and her colleagues took blood samples from 34 couples at different times during pregnancy and shortly after birth. The researchers chose to monitor three specific hormones because of their links to nurturing behavior in human mothers and in animal fathers. The first hormone, prolactin, gets its name from the role it plays in promoting lactation in women, but it also instigates parental behavior in a number of birds and mammals. Male doves who are given prolactin start brooding and feeding their young, Storey found that in human fathers, prolactin levels rise by approximately 20 percent during the three weeks before their partners give birth. The
second hormone, cortisol, is well known as a stress hormone,
but it is also a good indicator of a mother's attachment to
her baby. New mothers who have high cortisol levels can detect
their own infant by odor more easily than mothers with lower
cortisol levels. The mothers also respond more sympathetically
to their baby's cries and describe their relationship with their
baby in more positive terms. Storey and her colleagues found
that for expectant fathers, cortisol was twice as Biologist
Katherine Wynne-Edwards, who conducted the research with Storey,
explains that while cortisol is seen as the "fight or flight"
hormone, it might more accurately be described as the The
third hormone, testosterone, is abundant in male animals during
mating but decreases during nurturing. If bird fathers are given
testosterone, they spend more time defending their territory
and In
Storey's study, testosterone levels plunged 33 percent in fathers
during the first three weeks after birth. Levels then returned
to normal by the time the babies were four to seven weeks old.
However Estrogen and the daddy brain Wynne-Edwards and graduate student Sandra Berg designed another study to test Storey and Wynne-Edwards' earlier findings, They measured the hormone levels of the fathers over a longer period of time and incorporated into the study a control group of men who had never had children. The control group was matched by age, season and time of day tested—all of which can affect hormone levels. Finally, by using saliva samples instead of blood draws, they were able to test the fathers and the men in the control group much more frequently. In
addition to confirming the earlier findings for testosterone
reduction and cortisol change, the researchers also found that
the fathers had elevated levels of estrogen. The increase started
30 days Acting
in the brain as well as in other parts of the body, estrogen
in men, and testosterone in women, makes humans extremely versatile
behaviorally. "We spend an awful lot of time looking for
differences In fact, going into the study, Wynne-Edwards predicted that the "daddy brain" would use the same nerve circuits, triggered by many of the same hormones, as the "mommy brain." "If Mother Nature wanted to turn on parental behavior in a male," she reasoned, "the easiest thing would be to turn on pathways already there for maternal behavior." The studies also found that a father's hormonal changes closely paralleled those of his pregnant partner. The intimacy effect The
researchers believe that intimate contact and communication
between partners may induce the hormonal changes that encourage
a father to nurture his children. Storey explains, "My
best guess is Exactly how this occurs is unknown. There may be actual physiological signals exchanged between partners in close contact, such as the transmission of pheromones. Similar to odors, pheromones are volatile chemical substances that animals constantly give off through their skin or sweat but that are undetectable. Pheromones can stimulate specific reactions—especially mating—in other animals. Think of a female dog in heat attracting all those barking mate dogs in the neighborhood. Classic
studies show that menstruation is communicated, and synchronized,
through pheromones among dorm mates in college. If women in
dorms respond to one another's pheromones, then a man and a
woman who share intimate space could certainly communicate chemical The
level of intimacy within a couple seems to be a factor in how
a mother's body chemically signals approaching birth to a father.
All of the men tested were living with their pregnant partners.
Emotional Whether this is the cause or the result of hormonal changes remains unknown for now. But the intimacy effect and the subsequent hormonal shifts may also be the reason many men experience pregnancylike symptoms. Honey, we're pregnant When
he is not taking care of Seamus, Hudnut treats both men and
women in his practice. He recalls several patients who came
to him complaining of such typical pregnancy symptoms as weight
gain and Pregnancy symptoms in men are actually more common than most people believe. Two studies found that approximately 90 percent of men experience at least one pregnancy-related symptom, sometimes severe enough to prompt an expectant father to seek medical help. According
to a study reported in Annals of External Medicine, more than
20 percent of men with pregnant wives sought care for symptoms
related to pregnancy "that could not otherwise be objectively Pregnancy
symptoms in men, however well documented, are generally dismissed
as being all in the father-to-be's head. Now it seems they may
also be in his hormones. Storey and her colleagues found that
the men who experienced more pregnancy symptoms actually had
higher levels For
men who feel nauseated or gain weight, no one yet knows for
sure whether the changes in hormones are to blame. Surging hormones,
however, have long been blamed for women's morning sickness
and other pregnancy side effects. The fact that men also experience
hormone Changed by a child While it now seems a father may accompany his wife on her hormonal roller coaster during pregnancy, interacting with the baby may keep his hormones spinning even after the birth. It's
no secret that hormone levels can change in response to behavior. In
the original study, the researchers asked couples to hold dolls
that had been wrapped in receiving blankets worn by a newborn
within the preceding 24 hours. (After their wives gave birth,
fathers held What
they found is startling: Men who expressed the greatest desire
to comfort the crying baby had the highest prolactin levels
and the greatest reduction in testosterone. And testosterone
levels plummeted Even
though scientists have long observed changes in animal and human
behavior as a result of shifting hormone levels, they do not
yet understand exactly how hormones accomplish such change.
The Wynne-Edwards thinks hormones might turn a two-lane pathway in the father's brain into a four-lane superhighway. A neural road expansion might make fathers better able to recognize the smell or sound of their baby. It might even act on smell receptors in the nose to mitigate the smell of a baby's dirty diaper. Countless are the ways in which hormones could influence a father's brain to be more responsive to his baby. Home on the range Although
testosterone may be the "primary" male sex hormone,
research makes it clear that other hormones are also significant,
especially during the transition into fatherhood Wynne-Edwards
believes the research is "a validation of the experiences
that men know they have Parke believes that the research suggests something even more radical: "Men are much more androgynous than we think. We have the capability to be aggressive and nurturing. The traditional view of men as predominantly aggressive really sells men short and denies their capability to experience the range of human emotions. The
research suggests that a man's hormones may play an important
role in helping him experience this full range of emotions especially
in becoming a loving and devoted dad. In fact, it offers the
first
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