The Science of Dad Brain: How Fatherhood Changes Men Forever

0:00We see this in the States, like even when a man has paid paternity leave, he doesn't take it. Right. Or he takes the absolute minimum. And we still have this kind of ideal worker expectation. So I think that's changing a lot. Like if you ask young men what's important to you and what are you looking for in a career, contrary to what the manosphere is saying, I think a lot of Gen Z men are actually saying, I want flexibility. I want to be home with my kids. So they're kind of voting with their feet. Like I think our, our approach to career has changed a lot because remote work and, you know, we like the younger generations are experiencing work very differently than I think our generation did.

0:45Dr. Aliza Pressman:Yeah. And so I think that's kind of good. And that is also changing how dads show up. Cause if you're home and not commuting, you have a whole different relationship with dinner time. Yeah. You know, Happy Father's Day weekend. I wanted to share this very special episode with Professor Darby Saxby, author of the new book, Dad Brain, How Fatherhood Shapes Men's Lives, because it does. And there are a lot of fathers here today and people who are around fathers a lot. So send this to a father that you love and happy Father's Day. I'm Dr. Elisa Pressman, developmental psychologist, New York Times bestselling author, associate clinical professor at Icahn School of Medicine, and the host of Raising Good Humans podcast.

1:32Dr. Aliza Pressman:I'm so glad you're here. I just want to show everybody this galley, Dad Brain, The New Science of Fatherhood, and How It Shapes Men's Lives by Darby Saxby. Okay, Professor Saxby, I want to talk about dads, and we are going to honor them properly because to date, what has the research been on dad brains? Very inadequate. Yeah. And that was one of the things that motivated me to write this book. So, you know, when we think about parenting research and you know this, cause this is your world. Most of the studies are focused on moms, attachment studies, bonding studies, almost all of those were done with moms and kids.

2:17Yeah. So there are just a lot of gaps in the literature. And I think our appreciation of fathers kind of lags behind because we just don't have the science to kind of back up their importance.

2:29Dr. Aliza Pressman:I'm remembering in graduate school, we were doing like a little seminar and our professor said, you know, she liked to say controversial things and see how, and then have us all talk amongst ourselves. And she said, did dads matter? That was obviously a long time ago. And of course they matter, but I would like to orient this conversation around why they matter and what's happening to their brains and what their contributions are and all of the work that you do. Definitely. Yeah. And I, and so I'm curious when she asked that question, what did you say? Well, the response from the class, I'm like in my defense, I was not a mother at the time.

3:10Dr. Aliza Pressman:and I said they matter if there isn't a mother or they matter if the mother isn't able to provide the the care and connection because of something that she's going through but do they matter like on their own just as a dad I I don't know that I was in a place to say and so now you would disagree now I would you know I'm so careful because like if somebody is listening who has no who's, you know, who's raising their child without a father, I feel like you still probably need to find male figures in that child's life who really like is there for them. And, and then I think it's totally fine. But I think that a father figure matters.

4:01Yes. I'm with you. And I think the science would support that. And, you know, this is one of the themes in the book. I think one of the coolest and most unique things about being human is that we are alloparental. So we evolved as cooperative breeders. We raise kids in community. We know how to take care of each other's babies. And that makes us different from a lot of other mammals where if something happens to mom in sort of the early weeks or months of a baby's life, that's sort of the end of that baby's life. And we have this flexibility where caregivers can step in when mom is absent, when she's distracted, or even when she's present and just needs a break, like we tag team.

4:49And I think that makes us more resilient. It makes us more flexible. And so I think fathers are clearly a key part of that kind of alloparental band of humans, but they also make their own really unique contributions. And like you said, like having a male figure, right? Like just the fact that they're male provides a different kind of experience, you know, whether you're raising a boy or a girl, right? They can be a different kind of model. And they communicate differently. And they communicate differently, right? Like they bring these kind of special attributes and, you know, not every father parents in the same way, just like not every mother parents in the same way.

5:29So there are totally cuddly dads and there are super active moms. But we know in general, dads tend to engage in more vigorous kind of exploratory play. They're kind of testing kids' boundaries. They're the parent that will often, you know, throw a baby up in the air and catch them, you know, play chase and tickle, encourage a kid to climb higher on the slide. and that is really good for kids building confidence and I think when you think about kids anxiety and sort of the you know the way that parenting has changed and we don't always let kids have as many opportunities to explore and get hurt and try new things dads actually can play I think a really valuable role.

6:19Dr. Aliza Pressman:I'm only smiling because I'm thinking about how I would not go to the playground when the kids were little because I was just like, I'm going to spend the entire time being like, wait, no, don't do that. Get down. And I knew that that was not okay, but I absolutely couldn't change my behavior. So I was like, I'm just not a playground person. Yeah. Their dad was so much more able to tolerate the things that I couldn't tolerate. Yeah. And I think that's really the key is sort of like whatever the balance of attributes within a parenting couple or, you know, whatever parenting situation that kids get different kinds of experiences from different kinds of caregivers.

7:02So, you know, maybe you're the more vigilant caregiver who's more safety conscious and that's a role that a lot of moms play. But they're also getting that kind of like more physical active opportunity for play. And, And so that is just like giving kids more input and more opportunities and more chances to learn. And so kind of that in and of itself, I think is really valuable for kids.

7:27Dr. Aliza Pressman:So I want to get into this transition to parenthood and dad brain. I'm just remembering also, which I did tell the father of my children, that when a dad helps with homework in middle school, girls in particular tend to do better. So I think it's that goes back to like the type of communication or the style, right? Yeah. And there's, I mean, that is a research finding. There's also work on dads reading to kids that that's really good for kids forging literacy. There's work suggesting that when dads are more involved at bedtime, kids actually sleep better. I mean, let's say that again. Yes. When dads are more involved at bedtime, the whole family actually sleeps better.

8:17And it may not even be that dads are doing any magic thing. It's just that dad's presence is relieving stress on the whole family system. And going back to that sort of vigilance piece and anxiety and monitoring, dads can also potentially just be a more relaxed presence. So there was a big Pew study that just looked at different parenting attitudes. And, you know, moms were much more likely to say they worried about their kids. Dads were more likely to say that they wanted their kids to have freedom. So it's just those kinds of differences and attitudes that can, again, just present kids with different opportunities.

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10:57Dr. Aliza Pressman:okay so let's talk about this dad brain like what's actually happening to a dad's brain because we talk a lot about mom's brains but there's so much research that you've done that i think is pretty exciting yes thank you for saying that yeah and i think that's right that when a woman becomes a mother we see this totally visible transformation right assuming it's a biological pregnancy. And we don't always appreciate that it can be transformational for men as well. And so I've done work on how men's brains change from pregnancy into the first year postpartum, scanning men in the lab before their child's birth and then after.

11:40And we find that men are losing gray matter volume, which is actually, as you probably know, has also been found in new moms. they're losing that gray matter volume kind of at a different magnitude and in slightly different places but it's a very sort of similar pattern where we think the brain is remodeling to streamline and make connections more efficient and so although it sounds bad I always caveat this that you're losing gray matter volume you are developing this kind of more efficient you know lean and mean Yeah. Edited brain.

12:20Dr. Aliza Pressman:I want to expand on that because it's also that same thing of mom brain as a negative that I think is a misrepresentation. So let's talk more about what that really means in terms of that development. Yeah, I think people hear about brain changes and they immediately kind of adopt this deficit model that like mommy brain is this stigmatized, like I'm forgetting my keys. Exactly. But like if you look at animal models, new moms are amazing at retrieving their pups, often who are buried. Like if you're thinking about a rodent under layers of bedding. I know. But this like pup retrieval is a model that's been used for a lot of different kinds of studies of rodent mothering.

13:05And so it's like by smell and by kind of like your spatial navigation memory, you can find your pups. And so that's like, that's rodent mothering.

13:16Dr. Aliza Pressman:Right. And so you have this really keen sensitivity and memory for the things that are salient to the parenting experience. And your car keys are not. Yeah. So it's almost like your brain is maybe filtering out what doesn't matter as much. I mean, car keys matter, but not as much as where your baby is. Yeah. And you are paying more attention to the things that will keep your new offspring thriving. And so my hunch is that we're seeing similar reasons for that change in dads. So they're also losing volume in parts of the brain that we call the mentalizing network. So these are the parts of the brain that think about other people's minds, that engage in social cognition, that we think of as kind of our platform for empathy.

14:12and it seems like when dads are changing more in those areas, I found that they are reporting more time with their babies, more enjoyment of their babies, more motivation to be with their babies. So all of these things are kind of like moving in step with the sort of emerging father-child relationship.

14:34Dr. Aliza Pressman:The brain is both more vulnerable at this point and more flourishable. Yes. If that's a word. I really liked how you said that. Yeah. Yeah. Like I always say it's like any time of change is like a time of opportunity and also risk, also vulnerability. How does that shift our, you know, like if you are currently in process right now, like you are a new father or you're thinking about this, what, what kinds of changes, what kinds of potential is there? Yeah. Yeah. So like as you're incubating that new parental brain, right, like there's learning opportunity, like your ability to be sensitive, to be empathetic, to be tuned to the signals of your baby, like all of that is getting totally honed.

15:27And that can also come with some mental health downsides. So in my lab, the same study that I just told you about where we found that dads who lost more gray matter volume had better attachment, bonding, motivation to spend time with the infant. We also found those dads were reporting increasingly worse sleep across the transition to parenthood. They were reporting more depression and anxiety. So we controlled for their prenatal depression and anxiety. We found, you know, the dads whose brains change the most were at risk of having more depression and anxiety after birth. So it's like there is this cost of caregiving.

16:10But I think there's also these benefits to how you relate to other people, how connected you can be to your own child. And I think a lot of moms would agree with this, right? It's like, it's this magical transition. You fall in love with this other human, but it can be isolating. Identity. Yes. Who am I? Right. And I think to whatever extent dads are really stepping up and taking an active role, they're also experiencing similar costs and benefits.

16:47Dr. Aliza Pressman:Do you think that if you had done this study 50 years ago, you would have seen the same changes in the brain? Or is this partly a function of dads today being more engaged? Yeah, it's such a good question. I'm thinking about what the like 60s MRI machine would have looked like. It probably would have taken up like a whole building. I don't think we would have seen the same changes. And so we have seen this transformation in how men are showing up as parents and how they're thinking about parenthood. so millennial dads gen z dads they are parenting in a totally different way than like silent generation boomer generation did yeah and you know what my work really has found and this is something i tried to emphasize in the book is that these changes come online as we get experience as we get practice.

17:48So it's not just that like every dad is going to have this dynamic brain, right? It's like we care first and then we adapt.

17:58Dr. Aliza Pressman:Because the act of caregiving is building or transforming this brain. Exactly. That like we are shaped by our care. So I think a lot of the time, And I think this is true with kind of gender stereotypes. Like there's this idea that moms are just born, like knowing how to take care of a baby. Right. That they have these skills, that it's almost like this trait. And I think it's really more like a state. It's kind of like we can all learn this. We can all adapt to becoming great caregivers. but we kind of have to give ourselves the opportunity to practice and to get to know our kid. And so if over time it was, it is just like women are expected to, and therefore do all of this caregiving, their brains are getting shaped through these repeated acts of caregiving.

18:55Dr. Aliza Pressman:And now dads in their repeated acts of caregiving are building these connections, which when When you were saying that, you know, the risk is also more higher rates of depression and things that probably a lot of moms recognize. I'm wondering if relationships overall throughout the lifespan are such a predictor of longevity and health and mental health. Is this like powerful time where you're growing these connection skills? skills like if we fast forward are we exercising muscles are dads exercising muscles that are going to now allow them better stronger connections yes i think so and i love that reframe right because it's kind of like by investing in our relationships you know it's hard like it's hard to take care of a really vulnerable child but i think there is this long-range payoff in terms of our social integration, our connection, our sense of legacy, our sense of reward.

20:03And so, you know, I did not want this book to just be bad news for dads. It's not like your brain is changing in a way that's going to make you more depressed. It's that like, this is hard work and you have this future of having raised this person that you can hopefully be proud of. And, you know, like when you look at what really determines health and longevity in men and women, it's the quality of your relationships. And, you know, I'm sure you know the Harvard grants. Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking of. Yeah. I said that in the book. Yeah. It's this like amazing, you know, long running study.

20:44I think it started in the twenties. They recruited Harvard undergrads alongside a community sample of inner city boys from Boston and they followed them into adulthood. And now they're actually following the grandkids. So like a lot of these guys are like 100 years old. You know, many have passed on. But they have found kind of consistently, it is not how much money you make, how much professional status you gain. It is, do you have a happy marriage? Are you happy in your family relationships? That seems to determine how long these guys live.

21:20Dr. Aliza Pressman:And the quality of how they are. Exactly. Like that sort of like satisfying old age. You know, it's so funny. It's like, and this happens sometimes with research where there's like, you need grants, you need evidence, you need multi-year studies. In this case, it's the longest, I think the longest one. Longest running. Longest running one. Study of human development, I think. But then you say it out loud and it's like, yeah, that makes sense. Right. It's intuitive. Over a hundred years, this study. But it's interesting because it makes sense to us. But it's also like, culturally, it doesn't line up.

21:56Yes, like a lot of people, young people, and especially young men are getting this message that you need to, you know, chase wealth and status. You know, the manosphere is all about like, relationships are disposable, you should work on your muscles. and that's just the opposite of what we know about kind of like what makes the good life

22:20Dr. Aliza Pressman:and that was the title of Robert Waldiger who's running that study now his book The Good Life right right typically you become a father while you're also trying to start your career in the kind of way that's you know where you have to show up a little bit more and and um really grind potentially. And yet it's also a time where all this investment in this early relationship matters so much. So what did you see in your research about kind of all the, there's so many different directions that that could go in. So just all of it. Yeah. I think it's really hard for men, especially because they are socialized to have more breadwinner pressure.

23:02So they might feel like I cannot take time off for example after a baby's born even though that might be the right thing to do for developing this relationship it just it comes with too much of a career penalty and that's going to be stigmatized and in the book I talk about there are some international models of incentivizing men to take paternity leave through basically like use it or lose it programs. Like there are these nudge programs where if you like the couple gets a certain amount of leave and some is earmarked for dad, and if dad doesn't take it, it goes away. So I think programs like that can actually be really helpful because a lot of the time, and we see this in the States, like even when a man has paid paternity leave, he doesn't take it or he takes the absolute minimum.

23:57And we still have this kind of ideal worker expectation. So I think that's changing a lot. Like if you ask young men, what's important to you? And what are you looking for in a career? Contrary to what the manosphere is saying, I think a lot of Gen Z men are actually saying, I want flexibility. I want to be home with my kids. So they're kind of voting with their feet. Like I think our approach to career has changed a lot because remote work and, you know, like the younger generations are experiencing work very differently than I think our generation did. And so I think that's kind of good. And that is also changing how dads show up.

24:39Cause if you're home and not commuting, you have a whole different relationship with dinner time.

24:44Dr. Aliza Pressman:Yeah. You know, what would you say to a young dad right now? And what would you say to a young mom who, by the way, I don't know why I keep saying young, I'm like acting like we're 180 years old, but new, new, yeah. A new dad. A new dad and a new mom. And what are some things that a new mom can do? Like I remember back in 2007, there was like dads in the cohort that I was in all were doing the five S's. I think they were the Harvey Karp because Because it was so followable and it was like very action oriented, like swaddling and swinging and shushing and all of the things. And I remember just all the dads kind of around our group of friends were that was like they had a concrete suggestion and they took it on and they were like, I'm going to do this.

25:37Dr. Aliza Pressman:And I think that just probably because it was like actionable made sense and you didn't need to be feeding or. Totally. But what are some of the things that are helpful to sort of engage dads? Yeah. Great question. Yeah. My husband was all about the swaddle. Like he got so good at doing this like perfectly tight swaddle and be like, where are the baby's arms? Like, will she have any sensation in her fingers when she gets out of this? And I think you're totally right. It's like that feeling of I can be useful and I know what to do. And I think that's where a lot of dads are kind of floundering in those early months because it's like mom has this head start of like if it's been a biological pregnancy like she feels like she already knows the baby in some way yeah and a lot of men report that they have a hard time early on because I'm like an appendage you know like I don't have a clear role to play so I think this is one of those things where it's really helpful for couples to talk it out before the baby comes and try to think about, you know, what is the mom feeling like she's going to need, but then also not for dad to wait for mom to ask for help.

26:50Dr. Aliza Pressman:That's a great tip. To be proactive. I think that's huge. Yeah. And like, if you feel inept, if you feel like you don't know what to do, the only way to get better is to practice. it's like if you don't know how to throw a baseball you don't just like leave the team right like you get coaching you practice a bunch you you know yeah go to the field and and so like dads need to build that confidence and I think the more the couple can work together to create opportunities for dads to like have a solo afternoon yeah with the baby like be in charge of you know you take all the nighttime diaper changings whatever it is that kind of makes sense for their situation, I think it's like one of those things where like the only way out is through.