Dad Brain — yes, parenthood affects men’s minds and bodies, not just women’s

{"text":[[{"start":7.7,"text":"It’s well known that pregnancy and childbirth affect women’s brains and hormones: some of us have years of “baby brain”. Research has understandably focused less on men, who don’t undergo the same physical changes. "}],[{"start":21.6,"text":"But Darby Saxbe — a professor of psychology at the University of Southern California — fills an important gap in our understanding with Dad Brain, a refreshing new take on fatherhood through the lens of neurology and hormones. The book describes how fatherhood shapes men and what fathers bring to children that is distinctive."}],[{"start":40.85,"text":"Saxbe combines academic data with stories about the men in her own life: her husband, her stepfather and her birth father, whose struggles with solo parenting she came to admire. “Compared to my mother, a loving but frequently distracted workaholic, my dad was the more patient parent,” she concludes. "}],[{"start":59.3,"text":"Keen to rectify the paucity of studies in the field, Saxbe has carried out one of the world’s only longitudinal studies of how the brains of men (in this case in Spain and California) alter when their first baby is born. Pregnancy and childbirth transform women’s brains so profoundly that a computer can tell a mother from a non-mother just by looking at a scan. "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":82.4,"text":"It turns out that something similar happens to fathers, though not quite as dramatically. Essentially, the volume of grey matter shrinks in order to make new parents more effective: enabling a temporary tuning-up of the parts of the cortex that connect us to others’ emotions.  "}],[{"start":98.9,"text":"Saxbe explains that fathers also undergo hormonal changes that had previously been thought to affect mothers only, and this effect is often greatest in the men who are the most involved parents. In fact, she suggests, involved fatherhood brings a range of benefits. Children need the kind of rough-housing play and push to explore that fathers can be good at. Fathers themselves gain a sense of purpose, which can lead to healthier personal choices, such as taking fewer risks and jettisoning bad habits like smoking. In the lab, Saxbe and her team found that men whose lives felt more meaningful in early parenthood had increased brain connections between the temporal poles and the hippocampus, which is involved in memory formation and learning."}],[{"start":140.75,"text":"The book is a call to appreciate fathers and to bust the stereotypes of fathers as clueless or uncaring. Saxbe challenges the claim that parenting doesn’t come naturally to men. Some even experience sympathetic labour pains. Saxbe’s own husband developed blurred vision each time she fell pregnant, which resolved as soon as each baby was born. Other men, she says, can suffer from perinatal or postnatal depression. Although the rates are lower than those of mothers, she argues that they need attention."}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":171.3,"text":"The book romps through heroic examples of males in other species that guard and nurture their young. A male fish fans the female’s stack of eggs with his fins. Male songbirds have high levels of testosterone at the start of the breeding season, when they need to attract a mate, but much lower levels at the end of the season, when it’s time to care for hatchlings. Male marmosets are especially attentive to their offspring. Being a strutting show-off doesn’t mean you can’t also be a solid dad once you’ve paired up."}],[{"start":202.45000000000002,"text":"Saxbe also explains the “dad bod”, the love handles, or fatty waistlines, which appear to afflict fathers more than non-fathers and which may be associated with some of the hormonal changes triggered by fatherhood. She describes the same phenomenon in other primates. Male marmosets and cotton top tamarin monkeys both gain weight by up to 8 per cent while their mates are pregnant, perhaps to prepare them for the physical demands of carrying infants or to endure scarcity. Men may be reassured by the polling cited here, which suggests that the majority of single women prefer men with a “dad bod”."}],[{"start":236.10000000000002,"text":"The bottom line is that parenthood is not a zero-sum game. “Acknowledging the role of dads”, Saxbe argues, “doesn’t devalue the contribution of moms”. Ultimately, her cause is not just to explain the new science of the Dad brain: she also urges us to think more broadly about masculinity."}],[{"start":254.35000000000002,"text":"Dad Brain: The New Science of Fatherhood and How it Shapes Men’s Lives by Darby Saxbe, Bodley Head £22/Flatiron Books $29.99, 304 pages "}],[{"start":268.05,"text":"‘Generation Maybe: Why We’re Having Fewer Children, and What It Means for Us All’ by Camilla Cavendish will be published in October (Bodley Head) "}],[{"start":278.1,"text":" Join our online book group on Facebook at FT Books Café and follow FT Weekend on Instagram, Bluesky and X"}],[{"start":293.40000000000003,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1781400586_6349.mp3"}