Chris Vicik of Mundelein knows that if she wants a fellow parent, she can’t treat husband John like a child.
“I probably try to impose my way on him,” she said. “I have to kind of step back sometimes and let him be a father. I don’t think he would do anything life-threatening, but being new parents, I feel I am the more experienced one.”
Both work full time, but John said it was natural for Chris to take the lead in parenting Jack, now 3, and Julia, 9 months, because Chris has been around children all her life. He had had no contact with youngsters.
Added Chris, “He was afraid he would break the baby. If he could not pacify Jack or get him to stop whining or crying, he didn’t want to be a part of it, because he felt like he was failing. But he is a wonderful dad, and I probably should give him more credit.”
More credit is precisely what 97 percent of the fathers in a BabyTalk magazine survey of 305 new dads said they would like from their wives. The men also complained that their wives need to trust them more with the kids, according to the survey, reported in the July/August edition.
In general, they said they want more respect for their parenting skills, to no longer be regarded as the dimwit of the parenting duo.
This would seem to be the godsend that overworked mothers have been hoping for. But a willing father is only half the equation. Parent educators say mothers must be willing to surrender some of their power at home, and initially this might mean drawing blood from a bitten tongue.
Joyce Millman, director of parent services for the Northern Illinois Council on Alcoholism and Substance Abuse, based in Waukegan, said that if mothers want to have fathers helping with children, women need to step back and let it happen.
“Mothers tell their husbands that they are doing it wrong, so the husbands feel bad about themselves and don’t want to do what they are supposed to do. Mothers must allow fathers to do it the fathers’ way,” she said.
Millman is an instructor in NICASA’s Parent Project, which teaches parenting in workplace classes.
Likewise, fathers should not slumber until a child turns 18.
“Dads feel very uncomfortable in dealing with an infant,” she explained. “They think the mothers should handle it and the fathers will come in later. But if the father bathes the baby and rocks the baby and does all those little things, the baby will see the father as a nurturing parent. Trust is built that first year; it’s very important.”
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Psychologist Ross D. Parke of the University of California at Riverside, in his book “Throwaway Dads” (Houghton Mifflin, $24) with Armin A. Brott, agrees that women play a “gatekeeping” role in their children’s relationships with fathers and can limit greater male involvement.
“Men whose partners believe that women are innately superior to men in their caregiving abilities and who do not value their husbands’ involvement are, not surprisingly, less involved with their infants than men whose partners had more supportive attitudes,” he wrote. “Mothers who view their male partners as competent actually boost these men’s competence by encouraging them to take on more responsibility and practice their caregiving skills.”
Though he acknowledged that women do have the initial attachment to a child because of the pregnancy process, that attachment should not be mistaken for parenting skill.
“They develop the attachment but not any special ability,” he said. “They have more of a sense of who the baby is. . . . In the latter part of the baby’s first year, there is very little difference between strengths of attachments between the mother and father.”
Brott described the gatekeeping as a socialization issue.
“We have this idea that women are just naturally better at it,” he said. “We as a society go along with that. Women have been traditionally dominant at home, and they have been very reluctant to give up power in the home. Just as we rate men on how much money they make, we have a tendency to rate women on whether they are the primary caregiver.”
So women face a double-whammy of reaching for a career mark while retaining supervisory status at home.
“We put a lot of pressure on women today,” said Robert Frank, an assistant psychology professor at Oakton Community College in Des Plaines who researches parenting issues. (His book, “The Involved Father,” is due out from Golden Books this September.) He has been a stay-at-home father for 11 years but will start working full time at Oakton this fall. “She’s supposed to be a breadwinner and the full-time parent.”
He has a suggestion for mothers who want to balance the parenting scales: When Saturday arrives, hand the baby to the husband and say, “The best of luck to you,” then go out for the day. But beware, he added–if the mother also hands the father a list of baby-care instructions, the father may rebel; so let him figure it out (without putting the child in danger, of course). “Let the father set the agenda for the day,” he said.
Shannon Greene Robb of Naperville, a music teacher who works one day a week while husband Brian, a software designer, works full time, said she is careful not to lecture Brian about how to care for their 3-month-old son, but “I am with him more, so I know what works. For example, the blanket next to his face; he likes that. I don’t want to tell Brian what to do, but I do want to tell him what helps.”
Even the experts among fathers cannot escape coaching by mothers. “My wife still leaves me a list,” said Dr. Ralph Frank, who has an obstetrical practice in Round Lake and teaches Boot Camp for Dads at Condell Medical Center in Libertyville. “There’s only one way to put the diaper on, and that’s Mom’s way. So you do it Mom’s way, and when she walks out of the room, you do it your own way.”
Individual styles among parents go beyond the rudiments of diapering, of course. The genders tend to have different parenting styles, according to Marcy White, a childbirth educator from Huntsville, Ala., who lectures nationally.
“Women tend to play quieter; they’re softer,” White said. “Men are more active, more physical. But children learn to take risks by being active and physical.”
Fred Leissing of Lake Forest is evidence of that, having been the primary caregiver for his three daughters, 15, 14 and 9, while wife Nancy’s career in chemistry has flourished.
His daughters have never hesitated to do “boy things,” he said, but if “they wanted to play with dolls, I’d sit down and play dolls with them.” They also played soccer, and 14-year-old J.J. has become an accomplished scuba diver, following in her father’s flipper tracks.
In a scenario similar to the Viciks’ but with the gender roles flip-flopped, Fred as a child had helped care for his baby sister during their mother’s extended illness. Nancy is an only child.
What the Leissings have done is make sure their daughters have breadwinning and nurturing, no matter who plays the roles.
“What we know is that moms and dads share those roles,” said Steve Ritter, clinical manager for neuropsychology and behavioral health social work at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge.
“Moms and dads can both be excellent nurturers, but what is unavoidable is that Mom is the first connection a child has, and it’s a connection unlike any other. The baby was part of Mom’s body. When babies are born, they don’t perceive themselves as being separate from the people who are taking care of them. For the first number of months, they literally experience their life as being one with Mom.
“I don’t know that fathers are able to provide as many of the physical comforts that moms can provide. Research shows that if you put that crying baby on Dad’s shoulder and then you put it on Mom’s shoulder, the baby is going to be more soothed by Mom. It doesn’t mean that Mom is a better nurturer, it just means Mom had the first attachment.
“There is something particular about the first attachment that is just not something you can duplicate. Even if the father is more skilled, the baby will be more soothed by the original connection. But dads shouldn’t try to compete with Mom for parenting skills. Dad should be good at what dads do. Dads need to support moms, and moms need to support dads, and that is true whether parents are married or divorced,” Ritter said.
Divorce automatically puts fathers in a position of assuming the roles of provider and protector when their children are with them. They can either fight it or embrace it.
Joe Porter, a former college football player and now a 6-foot-5, 250-pound underwriting director for Allstate Corp. in Northbrook, chose the latter.
A divorced father of a 12-year-old son, he goes to great lengths to show his nurturing side, even while commuting every other weekend to Colorado Springs from Evanston to spend time with son Daniel and taking him for much of the summer.
“I wanted to make sure I model good behavior for Daniel,” he said. “It’s OK to clean. Men can keep good houses. Dad’s going to reinforce that. Dad does the floor, Dad does the laundry. I make sure he sees me cooking and get him involved in it. I really try to bring a balance.”
Of course, men don’t have to be divorced to demonstrate this behavior.
“I feel wonderfully affirmed by my wife,” said Tom Hernandez of Plainfield, spokesman for the Illinois Board of Education. He and wife Kellie have daughters 6 and 3. “My wife has put off her real-life career as a gourmet cook, and now she works at night so she can be home during the day with the girls. We kind of do this back and forth thing here. We try to be partners in everything. My mom made a point to raise all of us so that, God forbid, we could survive on our own. I can cook, I can do my own laundry, and I can clean. I’m the Alan Alda of my family.”
Clare Winer, manager of child-life services at Hope Children’s Hospital in Oak Lawn, is all for fathers taking a more active role, and what’s more, she doesn’t think blue ribbons are in order for those who do.
“We think that somehow fathers deserve an award,” Winer said. “From my perspective, fathers get more credit because we have lower expectations for them. We don’t feel that way about mothers. We think it should be biological for them, that it should be built in.
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“Ultimately fathers and mothers are both important, but it’s nurturing that is most important. Every kid needs somebody who is the nest and who they know will never, ever desert them.”
HOW MOM CAN GET DAD INVOLVED
Psychotherapist Robert Frank’s book “The Involved Father” (with Kathryn Livingston), due out in September, is aimed at women who want to involve the fathers of their children more deeply in parenting. Here are some of his tips:
– Get Dad involved even before the baby is born. He can accompany you to doctor’s appointments, help prepare the new baby’s room, pick a name and more. Make time to talk about your dreams and his for the baby as well as such practical matters as his involvement in feeding, diapering, “break time” for you, taking paternity leave (or vacation time).
– After the baby is born, Dad needs to take as much time off from work as he can swing (use the Family Medical and Leave Act or vacation time) or spend as much time as possible at home getting to know the baby. He should help shape the baby’s routine and learn his needs (comforting him, putting him to sleep, bathing, bottle-feeding, including expressed breast milk from breast-feeding moms).
– During the childhood years, “parent-to-parent” meetings are key–10 minutes to half an hour every evening after the child is in bed to touch base about issues related to the child and child care. Stay-at-home moms need to communicate to fathers what is happening with the child every day. Working parents need to share “the second shift” and the weekend time and communicate with their partners about what went on so their partner is kept in the loop.
– Dad needs regular “alone time” with the child. When the father and child spend time together, what they do should be the father’s choice. Alone time helps the dad gain confidence, which in turn makes his involvement rewarding and enjoyable.
– Acknowledge that parenting is not gender-specific. Let your husband do things his way; what’s important is that he is giving the child a bath or feeding him and that he is having a good time doing it, not that he is doing it differently from how you do it. Don’t criticize; don’t be the director. Enjoy the time off.