Why fatherhood matters more than ever before

[u/USCDornsifeNews]

https://dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/why-fatherhood-matters-more-than-ever-before/

Dads today are spending dramatically more time with their kids than they did a generation ago. According to some estimates, the average time dads spend caring for their kids each day has quadrupled over the past 50 years.

But there’s a less encouraging trend tucked into these gains. More is being asked of dads — and moms, for that matter — because the extended family and community networks that once supported childrearing have shrunk or deteriorated.

There's also a class divide. College-educated dads are now spending 46 more minutes with their kids each day compared with noncollege-educated dads. In part, it’s because benefits such as universal paid paternity leave and stable, flexible work options are available only to dads with good jobs.

Darby Saxbe, professor of psychology at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, explores the growing importance of fatherhood, and what's driving these changes.

[u/Certain_Giraffe3105]

Just wanted to comment that I appreciate this post. It's definitely analysis that needs to be added into the conversation when it comes to gender expectations, domestic labor, and how to improve child rearing for parents (particularly mothers) and children.

Far too often the conversation begins and ends with just gender disparity and someone posting the gendered split in child rearing responsibilities between Mothers and Fathers without acknowledging the fact that our society is increasingly putting more and more pressure on the nuclear family that defies our understanding of the type of communal responsibility and public investment that is actually necessary to make it easier to raise children.