Becoming a Father Changes You

Dads agree. 3 in 4 dads we surveyed say their lives began when they became a dad.

Dad, having you there changes your baby. Here’s what the research says.

1. School and Career Success: Dads who are involved, nurturing, and playful with their babies have children with higher IQs and better language and thinking skills, compared to children with less-involved dads. A father’s involvement also is associated with fewer behavior problems at school and more career success.
2. Healthy Risk-Taking: Fathers push children beyond their comfort zone—in the best ways. Dads, more than moms, encourage their children to take calculated risks: trying the deep end of the pool, talking to someone new, or finding ways to overcome obstacles.
3. Managing Emotions: Dad’s style of playing may help children learn to regulate their feelings. Dads tend to be more physical in their play with their children than moms—which introduces excitement and unpredictability. Researchers think that this type of roughhousing with dad may help children learn how to manage their emotions.

“I’m surprised at how much fatherhood has changed me. I find myself being much more sensitive, more patient, and calmer. There is just something about my daughter greeting me at the door when work was rough, that melts me. It is the most incredible feeling I have ever experienced.” -Glenn, father of two.

If becoming a father made you feel “different,” you’re probably not imagining things. Scientists think the presence of a newborn causes physical changes that speed you along the path to dadhood.

1. Cues for Caregiving: We know moms’ hormone levels change during pregnancy. So do Dads’! Scientists say both parents experience a rise in the hormone prolactin around the time of a baby’s birth. Prolactin promotes child-caring behaviors in both parents.
2. The Love Hormone: Here’s something to smile about: bonding time with your baby activates the circuits in your brain that are also involved in falling in love. When a dad has skin-to-skin contact with his baby, he releases oxytocin (sometimes knowns as the love hormone). Babies’ oxytocin levels rise, too. (Skin-to-skin contact between moms and babies has the same effect.)
3. Brain Rewards: MRI images provide more evidence that men’s priorities change when they have kids. Brain scans of fathers and non-fathers showed that the reward-sensing region of dad’s brains lit up when they saw pictures of toddlers. Not so in the non-dads. Another study found that in the first four months of parenting, fathers showed increases in parts of the brain involved in parental motivation, including the hypothalamus and amygdala, among others.

Fatherhood is life-changing, for dads and babies. As tiring as being a Dad is at times, all those moments add up to a lifetime of love and connection.