14 DAY TRIAL // A new study has evidenced that spouses or life partners who both take care of children tend to get into a lot more fights as they co-parent the young ones than on average. For this study, the baseline was set by couples in which the mother was the primary caregiver for the kids.
The research was conducted on preschool children, but its results are very likely applicable to other age groups as well, say experts at the Ohio State University (OSU), quoted by PhysOrg.
Interestingly, the incidence of conflicts between men and women increased when the fathers wanted to get involved more in caregiving, and not when they played with their children more.
In fact, the new study demonstrated that couples in which the fathers play with their children more have a stronger, overall-more-supportive co-parenting relationship, that benefits the kids to a great extent.
For the purpose of this investigation, caregiving was defined as preparing meals for the children, or giving them baths, and other such activities. When both men and women got engaged in this, the couples suddenly became less supportive.
Additionally, spouses and life partners began displaying more undermining co-parenting behaviors towards each other, a discovery that puzzled the OSU scientists. The study shows that mothers and fathers cannot possibly pla equal parts in raising their children.
“I don’t think this means that for every family, a father being involved in caregiving is a bad thing. But it is not the recipe for all couples. You can certainly have a solid co-parenting relationship without sharing caregiving responsibilities equally,” says Dr. Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan.
She holds an appointment as an associate professor of human development and family science at the Ohio State University, and is also the coauthor of a new study detailing the findings. The paper appears in the January issue of the esteemed publication Developmental Psychology.
“Having fathers involved in play activity is good for co-parenting, but might be especially good for boys. But, fathers are more likely to get into conflicts with mothers when they are heavily involved in caregiving of boys,” the team leader adds, quoted by PsychCentral.
“If the mother is solely responsible for child care, she gets to determine how it is done. But if she is sharing those duties with the father, there is more opportunity for conflict about how tasks should be done,” she adds.
“There is more than one path to an effective co-parenting relationship,” Schoppe-Sullivan concludes.