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What It Means to be a Dad
The Changing Role of Fatherhood
By Johnathon Allen
Not surprisingly, economic factors play a distinctive role in a father's ability to spend more time with his children. The frequency with which parents participate in their children's activities increases as the household income rises. This is somewhat due to the fact that corporations are adopting more family-oriented work arrangements for their employees, and because, in the digital age, more dads telecommute.
There's no doubt that children benefit greatly from having increased interaction with their fathers. Numerous observational studies indicate that children exhibit better cognitive abilities when their fathers are "highly engaged" during the developmental stages of life.
R.D. Parke, author of Fatherhood, concludes that this is because kids receive a greater amount of tactile stimulation from their dads. "Fathers are more likely to physically interact with their children when they play," Parke says. "They tend to be more 'rough and tumble,' where mothers are more verbal and toy-mediated in their interaction. Clearly, infants and young children experience not only more stimulation from their fathers, but a qualitatively different and highly stimulatory pattern."
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