Dads who get involved early are more likely to stick around
A new study shows that fathers who are involved in their children’s prenatal care are more likely to be around for the long haul, whether they marry the child’s mother or not.
The findings, suggest that such early involvement — even more so than marriage, is crucial to starting a bond between father and child.
The researcher and her colleagues based their conclusions on an ongoing study of 5,000 U.S. couples with a young child born between 1998 and 2000. They focused on 1,686 fathers who were not married to their child’s mother at the outset of the study.
Fathers who were living with their children were also more involved. Fathers who had helped their child’s mother during pregnancy were also more likely to move in with her and their child.
You don’t need much imagination to see that a live-in dad is likely to be more involved in child care and family life. Researchers also added that their findings have consistently shown that creation of a "stable home life" predicts whether a father will be involved in raising his child. They said that the pre-natal months are when that kind of family structure is most likely to coalesce."
