Barbara Kay: Science confirms the obvious — dads should make time to play

Article here. Excerpt:

'A new study out of Ohio State University seems to suggest that traditional gender roles work out better for families than interchangeability of parents and tasks. The study only involved 112 families, so it is hardly what can be called conclusive proof. But its findings will probably ring a bell with old-timers like me, or even new-timers who aren’t politically correct.

After watching the target families interact with their children during caregiving tasks and while involved in play and various projects like building toy structures or drawing pictures, the study authors said that families in which fathers were more involved in play activities had more of what researchers called supportive interaction — i.e. “behaviours that are warm and co-operative between the parents.”

These findings make sense. In their infancy, children are usually far more dependent on their mothers than their fathers. Certainly infants can be cared for by fathers, but if Nature intended infant care to be egalitarian, she would not have had the woman carry the child for nine months prior to birth, produce hormones and chemicals that reinforce bonding with the baby and produce the child’s food in her body, ensuring close bodily contact with the infant many times a day for extended periods.'