Skip to main content

Dad needs attention from mom

A Time article states the obvious:
A study published in the journal Pediatrics finds that men who become fathers around age 25 see a 68 percent increase of depression symptoms over the first five years of being dads—if they live at the same home as their children.
I became a father when I was 26 and it was a quite a bummer because I was used to getting all this attention from Judy and it all ended quite abruptly. We had been counseled about the transition but nothing quite prepares you for the way a baby consumes a mother's life. 

The temptation for a mom to place her children ahead of her husband exists in every culture but I believe it's worse today because moms are more isolated from community than ever. It's not good for civilization. Books and on-line forums have replaced grandma and other traditional forms of social support. Moms need other moms (especially older ones) whom they can lean on to support each other. Dads need to set boundaries around the marriage, no matter how much moms might protest. If you protect your marriage, you will protect your kids. There is no greater witness to children and the world than a healthy marriage.

As a side note, the actual rate of depression is only 5 - 10% so it's easy to see 68% and think a young dad has a 2 out of 3 chance of getting depressed. That's not correct. A young man is 68% more likely to have depressive symptoms when he becomes a father living in the same home with his children as compared with similar-aged men who were not fathers. 

Moms and dads both suffer when having a child but it's temporary and it changes the way you experience grace. For high-achieving people, having a child shows how little control we have over anything. We simply don't have as much as influence over our kids as we'd like to think. The first five years of Caleb's life were miserable and lonely for Judy and me. We both felt alone and it didn't help that I was working full-time, going to seminary, serving in the church, and trying to be husband and father to young kids. 

Yet God used that time to really break us and help us understand grace. We have grown so much spiritually, made our marriage a priority, and today our kids are a joy and delight (it helps so much once they're out of diapers and don't need to nap). So it is possible to get through this - and be better off for it. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Dad's Review of Passport 2 Purity

[3,100 words, 11 minute read] The sex talk is one of the most dreaded conversations parents anticipate having with their children. To make things easier, an entire industry exists to help parents with sex education. Dozens of books have been written to help parents navigate this treacherous topic with their progeny. One of the best known among evangelicals is called the Passport 2 Purity Getaway package . It is produced by FamilyLife, a division of Cru (former Campus Crusade for Christ) and consists of a five lecture CD package including a journal and exercises designed as a weekend retreat for a pre-pubescent child and his/her parent(s). Passport 2 Purity was not my initiative. Our trip came about because Judy had heard from several home-schooling mom friends how they had taken their daughters on a road trip to go through the CDs. She even heard how a mom took a trip with husband and two sons to through the curriculum. So a couple months ago, Judy suggested we take our two older boy...
24 comments
Read more

Asian American Divorce Rate

I can't find recent data. Most of the stuff is at least five years old but by these estimates, the Asian American divorce rate is about 5%. I've got research from 2002 , 2008 for Asian Americans, and 2008 for Chinese Americans. The latest census data do not break out by race. In any case, a 5% divorce rate is about half the national average. Less divorce is a good thing. I would imagine that divorce does not bode well for personal fulfillment and many studies have shown it has a negative impact on children (too lazy to cite all the sources here). Of course, as one source argues, a lower divorce rate does not equate to a healthy marriage. There can be all kinds of abuse, dysfunction, and strife within marriage. All in all though, a lower divorce rate is one advantage of late marriage for Asian American men (and women). However, I believe a lower divorce rate is correlated with later marriage and there is no causation between the two. People who tend to be conservative, ...
4 comments
Read more

Why Asians Run Slower

My brother got me David Epstein's book The Sports Gene . It is a fascinating quick read. If you're interested in sports and science, it will enthrall you.  I finished it in three days. Epstein's point is that far more of an athlete's performance is due to genetics than due to the so-called "10,000 hour" rule promulgated by books such as Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin (both which are very good). The 10,000 hour rule states that any person can reach expert level of performance in a sport if they devote 10,000 hours of deliberate and intentional practice.  That's a lot of hours. Most people aren't capable of anywhere close. And that's precisely Epstein's point. Someone who devotes 10,000 hours of sport-specific practice is likely genetically gifted for the sport in extraordinary ways AND genetically gifted in their ability to persevere and benefit from practice. Therefore, a person who can pra...
4 comments
Read more