Fathers are happier parents than mothers,

[soylentgreen]

So who is the better parent?



https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2019/...hows#:~:text=A study of 18,000 people,They do.

The first two studies compared well-being of parents with that of people who don’t have children.
Across all outcomes measured in the first studies, fatherhood was more frequently linked with greater well-being than motherhood. Relative to peers without children, fathers reported greater satisfaction with their lives and feelings of connectedness to others, and they reported greater positive emotions and fewer daily hassles than mothers. They also reported fewer depressive symptoms than men without children; whereas mothers reported more depressive symptoms than women who don’t have children.


In terms of daily interactions generally, both men and women were happier interacting with their children relative to other daily interactions. But men reported greater happiness from the interactions than women. One possible explanation for this finding is that, relative to mothers, fathers were more likely to indicate that they were playing with their children while they were caring for them or interacting with them.

“Fathers may fare better than mothers in part due to how they spend their time with their children,”

 

[nota bene]

No surprise; generally, mothers do more of the parenting work than fathers. This isn't always the case, of course, but far more often than not, it is, particularly the thinking/remembering work.

 

[RetiredUSN]

Mothers rule the roost.

Fathers go fishing.

 

[Bodi]

No surprise; generally, mothers do more of the parenting work than fathers.

That is a completely biased point of view...

Without the father making the money the mother could not sit at home playing with children and the kids would starve to death.

Parenting is bringing up the child... that involves many aspects and fathers are sorely overlooked.

 

[Bodi]

Mothers rule the roost.

Fathers go fishing.

And without the fish the mother has nothing to cook...

 

[nota bene]

That is a completely biased point of view...

Without the father making the money the mother could not sit at home playing with children and the kids would starve to death.

Parenting is bringing up the child... that involves many aspects and fathers are sorely overlooked.

You're being a little defensive, IMO. All I said is that mothers GENERALLY do most of the parenting work, especially the remembering work, and this is generally a fact. But it doesn't diminish a bit the fact that the the family needs a breadwinner. And you need only to look at the unraveling of the social fabric to appreciate the essential importance of fathers and the consequences for children of not having a strong male role model.

You really said almost everything, Bodhi, in "the mother could not sit at home playing with children." You forgot to add "eating chocolates while watching soap operas." I was a stay-at-home mother under more challenging circumstances than you can possibly imagine, and then I was a single parent working two or three jobs sometimes and commuting 100 miles each way three times a week just to keep a roof over my kids' head and with no help at all.

And I say now as I said then that being a stay-at-home mother is the most thankless job in the world. When you're "out in the world," there is a beginning and an end. Tasks completed (and a castle to come home to), and the world thanks you with titles and paychecks.
Home work is Sisyphean, and "Thank you" is pretty rare. Thank you for not just washing and putting away my clothes, but also for remembering that we needed laundry soap and that I am almost out of deodorant. Thank you for all the meal-planning and appointment-keeping. Thank you for being with our kids all day and all night every day of every month of every year so that we don't have to pay a stranger to babysit them. Thank you for remembering where I put the _______ and for putting me and the kids first in your life.

Generally, I said.

 

[roguenuke]

My husband and I both work. We both work pretty similar and time consuming jobs. I am still the one who generally makes the boys' appointments for pretty much everything (and our one child has extra appointments throughout the year than just the normal annuals) and takes them to 95% of those, does the shopping, for food or clothes or school etc (there are some exceptions here, such as he picked out laptops for them for school), I sign their paperwork and check their homework (mostly, we both do get the texts though, which I like), I go to the IEP meetings, I figure out their playdates.

I love my husband and believe he really is a good father, as he is understanding with them and very attentive when they talk to him and he is more than willing to spend time with them when they ask, but I do have to beg him sometimes to spend extra time with the boys or take some of the burden of the mundane parenting off of me. He does drive them to school in the mornings, but this is a task that just started and I simply cannot do both dropoff and pickup by myself when I'm supposed to be working too, and he isn't expected on his job until after both are supposed to be in school, whereas mine expects me logged in before the first one should be there. Now, when they were babies, I actually felt that he did more, although I breastfed and was a stay at home mom, so it was a different situation anyway. But now that they are older, it just feels that he gets some of the easier parts of the parenting, like teaching our oldest how to code or teaching both boys how to cook. We do share in the discipline and have similar feelings about it.

Since I saw my own father as pretty much an older brother figure growing up, due to the things I saw my mother take care of that he normally didn't do (and she was the main breadwinner in my house growing up, making more than my father and working longer hours as a nurse), I can understand where this study can get that data from easily.

 

[Bodi]

You're being a little defensive, IMO. All I said is that mothers GENERALLY do most of the parenting work, especially the remembering work, and this is generally a fact. But it doesn't diminish a bit the fact that the the family needs a breadwinner. And you need only to look at the unraveling of the social fabric to appreciate the essential importance of fathers and the consequences for children of not having a strong male role model.

You really said almost everything, Bodhi, in "the mother could not sit at home playing with children." You forgot to add "eating chocolates while watching soap operas." I was a stay-at-home mother under more challenging circumstances than you can possibly imagine, and then I was a single parent working two or three jobs sometimes and commuting 100 miles each way three times a week just to keep a roof over my kids' head and with no help at all.

And I say now as I said then that being a stay-at-home mother is the most thankless job in the world. When you're "out in the world," there is a beginning and an end. Tasks completed (and a castle to come home to), and the world thanks you with titles and paychecks.
Home work is Sisyphean, and "Thank you" is pretty rare. Thank you for not just washing and putting away my clothes, but also for remembering that we needed laundry soap and that I am almost out of deodorant. Thank you for all the meal-planning and appointment-keeping. Thank you for being with our kids all day and all night every day of every month of every year so that we don't have to pay a stranger to babysit them. Thank you for remembering where I put the _______ and for putting me and the kids first in your life.

Generally, I said.

You were correct... I was.

 

[soylentgreen]

My husband and I both work. We both work pretty similar and time consuming jobs. I am still the one who generally makes the boys' appointments for pretty much everything (and our one child has extra appointments throughout the year than just the normal annuals) and takes them to 95% of those, does the shopping, for food or clothes or school etc (there are some exceptions here, such as he picked out laptops for them for school), I sign their paperwork and check their homework (mostly, we both do get the texts though, which I like), I go to the IEP meetings, I figure out their playdates.

I love my husband and believe he really is a good father, as he is understanding with them and very attentive when they talk to him and he is more than willing to spend time with them when they ask, but I do have to beg him sometimes to spend extra time with the boys or take some of the burden of the mundane parenting off of me. He does drive them to school in the mornings, but this is a task that just started and I simply cannot do both dropoff and pickup by myself when I'm supposed to be working too, and he isn't expected on his job until after both are supposed to be in school, whereas mine expects me logged in before the first one should be there. Now, when they were babies, I actually felt that he did more, although I breastfed and was a stay at home mom, so it was a different situation anyway. But now that they are older, it just feels that he gets some of the easier parts of the parenting, like teaching our oldest how to code or teaching both boys how to cook. We do share in the discipline and have similar feelings about it.

Since I saw my own father as pretty much an older brother figure growing up, due to the things I saw my mother take care of that he normally didn't do (and she was the main breadwinner in my house growing up, making more than my father and working longer hours as a nurse), I can understand where this study can get that data from easily.

I agree with you about the bias of work load. It would seem that it is still the case that the wisest thing a father can say to their children is, "go ask your mother".

 

[OrphanSlug]

"Fathers are happier parents than mothers." In other shocking news...

 

[Lord Tammerlain]

That is a completely biased point of view...

Without the father making the money the mother could not sit at home playing with children and the kids would starve to death.

Parenting is bringing up the child... that involves many aspects and fathers are sorely overlooked.

A lot of mothers work as well and still do most of the parenting