Long gone are the days of the distant dad.
According to some estimates, the average time dads spend caring for their kids each day has quadrupled over the past 50 years. Their attitudes about parenting are also changing. Today, men are about as likely as mothers to say parenting is a key source of meaning and a central priority in their lives. Roughly 85% of fathers identify parenthood as one of the most important aspects of their identity.
As a parenting researcher who focuses on fathers, I’m pleased to see that dads are so invested in their kids. It correlates with better outcomes for kids, and it reduces pressure on moms.
But there’s a less encouraging trend tucked into these gains. More is being asked of dads – and moms, for that matter – because the extended family and community networks that once supported childrearing have shrunk or deteriorated.
Parenting alone
In researching my new book, “Dad Brain: The New Science of Fatherhood and How it Shapes Men’s Lives,” I talked to an anthropologist named Barry Hewlett, who has spent his career studying hunter-gatherer fathers.
One society he studies, the Aka Pygmies of the Central Congo, have been called “the best fathers in the world” for their dedication to childcare. Aka men are frequently observed within arms reach of their infants and take a lead role in raising them. Children are seen as central to men’s lives.
However, if you compare the time Aka dads spent on childcare with recent data on American parents, as parenting writer Tomo Kumaki recently did, you might be surprised.
According to 2024 American Time Use Survey data – considered the gold standard of evidence on how Americans are spending their time – American dads of infants are devoting about 125 minutes a day to what’s called “primary child care,” in which their main activity is tending to the child. They’re spending another 394 minutes on what’s known as “secondary child care,” which involves watching a child while doing something else, such as cooking dinner or straightening up the house.
In contrast, according to Hewlett’s research from the field, Aka fathers of infants spend about 57 minutes a day on primary and 96 minutes a day on secondary childcare.
The minutes American dads relayed should be taken with a grain of salt; it’s a stretch to compare an anthropologist’s direct observations with self-reported time diary data, which can often be subject to bias. Still, it’s striking to see how – based on these calculations, at least – today’s new dads are devoting far more time to parenting than a society described as having the best dads in the world.
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When I spoke with him about how fatherhood has changed, Hewlett told me he thinks the role of fathers has taken on more importance today than ever before – not just because mothers are more likely to have jobs outside the home, but because there are simply fewer childcare helpers around.
When you’re surrounded by your kin and neighbors in a communal setting like the Aka, it’s easy to get assistance with kids. Fathers care for children, but so do lots of other people.
A 2021 study of another hunter-gatherer society, the Agta, which lives in the mountains of the Philippines, found that fathers provided only about 7% of child care. Mothers, however, provided only about 25%. The rest came from siblings, grandparents, extended family, peers and other community members, who all pitch in.
A class divide
In much of the industrialized world, daily life is organized around the nuclear family, with relatives and neighbors playing a less central role than they once did.
Today’s fathers contribute more to childcare than even the most hands-on hunter-gatherer dad, because there’s simply less of a village to support shared care.
Even as men are being asked to take on a bigger role in childcare, it’s become harder for some men to do so. That’s because – in the U.S., at least – the time men are able to spend on childcare has become increasingly stratified by class.
Journalists Derek Thompson and Aziz Sunderji analyzed multiple waves of U.S. data collected by the Multinational Time Use Study and were able to show that the significant rise in the time dads spend parenting over the past 60 years has primarily been driven by college-educated fathers.
When the Multinational Time Use Study started in the 1960s, fathers with a college degree were devoting only a few extra minutes per day to childcare compared with noncollege-educated dads. But the gap has quintupled over that time span, such that college-educated dads are now spending 46 more minutes with their kids each day compared with noncollege-educated dads.
So why the growing divide? In part, it’s because benefits such as universal paid paternity leave and stable, flexible work options are available only to dads with good jobs.
Only about half of U.S. fathers take any paid paternity leave following the birth of a new baby, because many employers don’t offer it. In theory, most dads who can’t access paid leave should be eligible for unpaid leave through the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act. However, since that legislation doesn’t apply to small businesses or many part-time or gig work situations, about 44% of workers are ineligible for it. Low-wage dads are also often reluctant to take leave because they can’t afford to lose income.
The rise of what sociologists call intensive parenting among the most educated, affluent parents also helps account for some of the class divide in parenting time. As the wealth gap between the richest and poorest Americans has widened over the past 60 years, many parents have been eager to optimize their children’s success. Devoting extra time to children, including monitoring their schoolwork and enrolling them in enrichment activities that require time and money, has become one way for parents with privilege to give their children a leg up.
In my view, hands-on parenting should not be a luxury good. Americans should be fighting for policies that empower all dads, no matter their income, to enjoy time with their children. The village could use some rehabilitation, too, since parents fare best when they have access to community support and stronger connections with their neighbors, friends and family.
