Where are the fathers?

Time and again, I've noted studies and situations in which I was surprised to find little or no discussion of fathers. But I'm still surprised and, shocked, I guess, when I see new examples of it.

The American Bar Association, according to the University of Houston's Children and the Law blog, is holding two meetings in Washington in May: The First National Parents' Attorneys Conference, and The 2009 National Conference on Children and the Law.

I did not do a sophisticated study of the programs; I merely searched the titles and abstracts for the word "father." I found only one instance, on a long, long web page. It was in a session about getting fathers more involved in welfare cases. In other words, the only mention of fathers was in a situation where fathers are delinquent.

I must add a very important caveat; the word "mother" does not appear at all in the document, which talks mostly about parents. So this isn't the clean example I'd like it to be. Still, I worry. Is the ABA, in its deliberations and discussions about children and the law, including fathers as a resource?

What Do Fathers Want?

OK, this is a little bit circular, because Cathy Arnst's post with that title, on her Business Week blog Working Parents, mentions my Psychology Today blog, About Fathers.

Even so, you should check out Cathy's post, in which she wonders why fathers choose to participate in some of the kids' school activities, but not others.

And thanks, Cathy, for the mention.

More bad news for the children of older fathers

I've written about this here before, and at length in an article in the current issue of Scientific American Mind.

A new study adds more weight to what should be a national concern: The children of older fathers face risks comparable to the children of older mothers. Although the issue of older fathers has received far less attention.

The new study finds subtle deficits in intelligence and other mental abilities in the children of older fathers.

Dolores Malaspina, a psychiatrist at New York University, and the focus of my Scientific American article, provided a couple of interesting quotes to the New York Times this week.

"I think there has been a bit of a cultural bias against even looking at this issue," Malaspina told the Times. "It turns out that the optimal age for being a mother is the same as the optimal age for being a father," she told the New York Times.

For more on this, see my post for Psychology Today. And the Scientific American article.

Vatican condemns abortion for 9-year-old girl, allegedly abused and pregnant with twins

The nine-year-old Brazilian girl weighs 80 pounds. She was allegedly abused by her stepfather, according to the BBC. She became pregnant with twins. Doctors feared that if she tried to give birth she would die. Her mother had doctors perform an abortion, allowed in these circumstances by Brazil's otherwise tough anti-abortion statutes.

The Catholic Church responded by throwing the mother and the doctors out of the church. Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is Catholic, condemned the excommunications. A senior Vatican official condemned him.

The official, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re (photo) told the Italian newspaper La Stampa that the twins "had the right to live."

Did the nine-year-old girl have a right to live?

If the girl's doctors were correct, then somebody was likely to die--either the girl, or one or both of the twins.

I can't begin to imagine how I would have handled this situation, if it were my decision to make. How does one compromise when there is no compromise possible? How does one protect life when either choice could mean death for somebody?

Cardinal Re apparently had no room for such reflection: Abortion is a sin. Let the girl die, if it be God's will.

That, I suppose, is one of the gifts of faith. Decisions that should be frightfully difficult become simple. No hesitation. No exceptions.

Tilted against fathers: A Brit perspective

Several months ago, Nick Clegg, a member of the British parliament and leader of the Liberal Democrats, suggested that some of the laid-off steelworkers and miners in his district (near where The Full Monty was set) should take jobs as childminders. (That's Britspeak for day-care workers.) "I was stunned," he writes today in The Times online, "when my office received complaints that it was inappropriate work for men, with a barely disguised hint of suspicion about why men would want to spend so much time with young children."

Only 1 percent of childminders are men, an indication, Clegg says, that Britain clings too closely to traditional notions of what constitutes men's work.

And it clings too closely to traditional notions of a man's role in the family. In England, mothers can take a year of parental leave. Fathers get two weeks. "This split is out of step with the reality of many modern families, and discourages fathers from making a commitment to the care of their own children," he writes.

During World War II, he notes, women flooded the workforce, filling all kind of jobs, including those traditionally held by men. In a suggestion as apt on this side of the Atlantic as that one, he suggests that it's time for us to re-invent ourselves again:

"Many men will be forced to let go of their earlier identities and try something new--like the unemployed car worker in the West Midlands who explained on Newsnight last week that he was retraining to become a social worker. And many women may become the only family breadwinner for the first time. For many couples this will be unsettling and deeply disruptive to the settled patterns of life, work and marriage."

Unsettling, to be sure, but essential. Those settled patterns have kept too many of us--mothers and fathers alike--in cages.

It's a surprisingly thoughtful and perceptive piece, for a politician. And it's the kind of talk we could use more of here in the colonies, as well.

Sad truth about child's suicide

This morning I was quoted in the Chicago Tribune, talking about the suicide of a 10-year-old boy who was found hanging in a bathroom in an Evanston, Ill. school.

Just to expand on what I said in the story: It's natural that we would want to find reasons for suicide, and that's what we do. "Why did this child commit suicide?" We speculate about his relationships with his classmates, his family situation, his treatment by his teachers, and anything else we think might have pushed him to suicide. But the answer almost always is that people who commit suicide, children and adults, have a mental illness. It's a symptom of a disease.

All of are sad sometimes, even despondent. We suffer horrendous calamities and setbacks. But most of us do not commit suicide. The ones who do have a mental illness, often an undiagnosed one.

The question we should ask after a child's suicide, or any suicide, is not "Why?" The question we should ask is: When will we do the research and provide the mental health care that could have prevented this?

Involved dads improve kids' IQs, social mobility

A study of more than 10,000 British children who have been followed for more than 50 years suggests that the children of involved fathers have higher IQs and greater social mobility as adults.

The study says fathers have the same salutary effects on both sons and daughters, even though previous studies have suggested that fathers become more involved with sons than with daughters.

The study, published in a recent edition of the journal Evolution and Human Behavior, also found that the beneficial effects of fathers are more pronounced in wealthier families than in poor families.

The study’s author, Daniel Nettle of Newcastle University, notes that many studies have now found a link between father involvement and children’s well-being. Among the things that involved fathers can do is improve their kids’ cognitive ability, achievement in school, psychological adjustment, and social competence. The children of involved fathers have also been found to have fewer conduct problems.

Not all of these studies are on firm scientific ground, Nettle says. In some of them, the data on father’s involvement and kids’ outcomes comes from the same person, who might unwittingly slant the results.

But there is enough evidence, he says, to conclude that the beneficial consequences of fathers’ involvement are real.

Interestingly, Nettle found that it wasn’t merely the presence of the father that made a difference. It was his involvement with the children. The children of families with uninvolved fathers did no better than children in families in which the father was absent.

It’s not known, Nettle says, why some fathers become more involved with their children than other fathers do. Nor do researchers understand what is happening psychologically in the children to produce the beneficial effects.

This study has limitations, too, as do many of the others. It does not put the matter to rest. But it should encourage further research. Clearly something is going on with fathers and with children. And in order to take better advantage of that relationship, we need to know more about exactly what is going on.

Octuplets story takes a dark turn

CBS News has reported that the family of the California octuplets had abandoned a home and filed for bankruptcy a year-and-a-half ago.

It is also widely being reported that the mother of the octuplets, whose identity hasn't been revealed, already had six children, between about two and seven years old.

The bankrupt woman, who is also apparently homeless, now has 14 children under eight years old.

The birth of the octuplets was not planned, but it also was not an accident. According to reports, she had eight embryos implanted in her womb.

Although it's tempting to judge this woman, we should resist. We don't know the facts yet, and it's likely we will learn more in the coming days.

But she was evidently in the care of a fertility specialist. If you're tempted to judge that specialist, go ahead--give in. It's even clearer now than it was when I first posted on this story: This is a case, if not of malpractice, than of a serious error in medical judgment.

Consider the future for these children. They weighed about one to three pounds each. According to a fact sheet from the March of Dimes, babies weighing less than 2 pounds, 3 ounces will "require treatment with oxygen, surfactant and mechanical assistance to help them breathe" and because they are too young to suck, they must be fed intravenously. It continues: "About 25 percent of these very premature babies develop serious lasting disabilities, and up to half may have milder problems, such as learning and behavioral problems."

They are also at risk for respiratory distress, bleeding in the brain, heart failure, severe intestinal disease, blindness, anemia, and infections.

The birth, first reported as a medical miracle, is, in truth, a tragedy.

Autism, schizophrenia in children of older fathers

A 40-year-old man has the same chance of fathering a child with schizophrenia as does a 40-year-old woman of giving birth to a child with Down syndrome.

Many of us are aware of the risks of Down syndrome in the children of older mothers. But who knows that the risk of schizophrenia looms as large in the children of older fathers? And why don't we know?

The number of older fathers is on the rise, as I detail in an article I've just written for Scientific American Mind. That means that the incidence of autism and schizophrenia is likely to rise.

Charles J. Epstein, past president of the college of medical genetics, said he often doesn't tell fathers because nothing can be done about it. “To put it out there every time somebody comes to you for counseling probably engenders more fear than light,” Epstein said.

Why then all the fuss about Down syndrome in the children of older women, when the risks for the children of older fathers are about the same? “You bring up Down syndrome, because you get sued if you don’t,” Epstein said.

Older fathers do have an option, despite what Epstein says: They can choose not to have children. But they can't make that decision unless they are told of the risks.

California octuplets: Another view

There is something undeniably appealing about the birth of octuplets in California this week, something we would like to celebrate. Note the smiles on the faces of the doctors who delivered them.

But let me add a dissenting view, if I may. No information has been released on how the children were conceived. But we probably shouldn't be celebrating this. What it represents, most likely, is a horrible case of medical malpractice.

As Michael Tucker, a researcher and clinical embryologist in Atlanta, told the LA Times, "if a medical practitioner had anything to do with it, there's some degree of inappropriate medical therapy there."

These children face an extremely difficult future. If they survive, they are likely to have multiple handicaps, at least the smallest of them.

So while we wish the family and the children the best, we might also supply the corrective that this seemingly miraculous birth is likely to have a sad outcome over the long term.

Child Support: How much is too much?

My Psychology Today post on the legal wrangling over the new Massachusetts child-support guidelines is attracting a lot of comments. I tried not take sides on the dispute, but merely to ask whether the guidelines are fair. How do we determine what's a fair child-support payment?

It's not an easy question to answer, and not one that lawyers are equipped to answer.

The people who have the expertise to even take a wild stab at establishing fair payment guidelines would be economists, demographers, or social scientists. Not lawyers. Yet it is lawyers and judges who are charged with devising guidelines and implementing them.

This question wouldn't interest me much except for one thing. This is not just about money. This is about relationships between non-custodial parents, usually fathers, and their children. Rancor or economic disparity caused by faulty guidelines can damage a relationship between a father and his children.

None of us should want that. Not even the most wounded, angry, or vengeful parent. Sadly, however, in practice, children's well-being is often sacrificed by battling parents.

We want child-support guidelines that can ease that fighting, not exacerbate it.

Minnesota is considering changing its custody laws to presume that parents will share physical custody. That does not require shared custody; but it establishes that as the presumption, unless negotiations or a judge's ruling lead elsewhere. Only a handful of states--notably Iowa--have moved in this direction. Fathers' advocates generally like it, believing that it gives them more rights following divorce. Women's advocates are generally unhappy about it, for the same reason. And experts are divided.

And a study out of England suggests that good fathering has benefits. Here's the gist of it, from New Scientist:

"The more effort a father invests in his children, the smarter they are as kids and more successful as adults, new research shows. And highly educated fathers make even more of a difference than less educated dads, all things being equal."

Cheerleading Dad

Thanks to my buddy Deborah Siegel at Girl With Pen for the heads-up on this video. It's funny, and who could disagree with the message? But it sparked some unfavorable--and understandable--concern at Girl With Pen.

Watch the video and let me know what you think: Is a government campaign to push responsible fatherhood (a Bush initiative, as it turns out) a good idea?

Study: Where are the fathers?

I'm thinking of beginning a series of posts under the title above. The idea is to look at studies that might naturally have included fathers--but which examined only mothers.

For example: A recent study by Deborah Laible and Tia Panfile in Child Development looked at conflicts between mothers and toddlers when the kids were 30 months old, and at 36 months old. It found that mother-child conflict was marked by more resolution and compromise when mothers and toddlers were more securely attached. And it found that children's temperatments were related to the kind of mother-child conflict, and its frequency. Interesting.

You might argue that it's fair to look at mothers and children in this study, and perhaps to study fathers at another time, in another paper. And I wouldn't disagree. But the setup to the paper talks about parents, not mothers. And yet the research was done exclusively on mothers.

From the study's introductory paragraphs:

"Conflict between young children and their parents [emphasis mine]" is normal and frequent during the preschool years.

"Parents with young children are engaged in conflict with them on average between 3 ½ to 15 times an hour."

"Children may learn important lessons out of these early conflicts with parents."

I have no business telling Laible and Panfile what kind of study to do; if they want to study mothers exclusively, that's up to them. But all the background they cite relates to parents, not just mothers. Did they think about including fathers? I asked Laible in an email.

"We did do audio recordings across dinner and dinner often included mothers and fathers," she emailed back. "In listening to the audiotapes, it did seem like the nature of father-toddler conflict was very similar to mother-toddler conflict." She said she would expect similar findings with fathers. "There were also some interesting three-way conflicts with fathers, mothers, and toddlers," she said.

That might have prompted her and Panfile to look at fathers; but no. "Honestly," she wrote, "we didn't look at fathers at all or take them into account."

The study was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, part of the National Institutes of Health.

Fathers' group sues to block Mass child support guidelines

Fathers & Families, a Massachusetts advocacy group, filed suit in Federal District Court on Dec. 31 to block new child-support guidelines in Massachusetts.

The group says the new guidelines are not based on data on the costs of raising children and are therefore "arbitrary and capricious."

Fathers & Families says the new guidelines will boost child support payments substantially. Some might argue that such a boost is long overdue; Fathers & Families argues that the payments will be far too high under the proposed guidelines. I can't sort the arguments out here, but clearly one would think such guidelines ought to be based on data, not on some theoretical notion that payments are currently too low.

The executive director of Fathers & Families, Dr. Ned Holstein, served on the task force that devised the new guidelines, and he filed a tough minority report opposing the task force's conclusions.

Here's Holstein, from a post on the Fathers & Families website: “These new guidelines will create a ‘castle versus a hovel’ situation for kids. These increases are radical and unexplained. They come at the worst possible moment, just as a bad recession is causing people to lose their jobs or suffer declining incomes. Our lawsuit is a way of saying, ‘Let’s pause and reconsider the wisdom of these controversial changes at this moment.’”

The bottom line, says Holstein, is that the new guidelines will harm children. "Kids want to live with both parents after divorce, and we want them to be well cared for in both homes."

Read the legal complaint. Links to the new guidelines and the task force's majority report are here.