The U.S. is one of the only wealthy nations on Earth with no federal guarantee of paid paternity leave. The data on the impact of those first months on a child’s brain suggest we have been treating a critical developmental window like a scheduling inconvenience.
In a review of existing fatherhood research, Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, a researcher at the Ohio State University, highlighted better peer relationships, higher intelligence test scores, greater math and language readiness and development, and more secure attachment formation among children who experience positive and sustained father involvement compared to those who don’t. Though these trends are correlational, these father-involvement gains show up on report cards as early as preschool and can continue into adulthood.
Children who have more consistent positive engagement with their fathers have better outcomes across some of the main child mental-health domains, including anxiety, depression, and behavioral problems. Paternity leave creates space for and helps develop active involvement like physical play, showing up to school events, and careful listening to a child, and these are connected to healthy child development. Secure attachment, more prosocial sibling interactions, and better social competence result in other benefits, like self-regulation. This is a hallmark indicator of school readiness and success, and here, too, father engagement pays dividends. What looks like fathers rough-housing, developmentally speaking, is training for children to build capacity for self-regulation, managing arousal, and controlling impulses and emotions in real time.
The U.S. is lagging far behind in this area. Where paternity leave does exist, it is often unpaid and unguaranteed, and mothers for instance, cannot transfer a portion of their allotted maternity leave to the father to allow him to take extra time off. This means that many fathers do not use this critical child development and family resource. Most new fathers are back at their desk within a week of their child’s birth, right as the research suggests their presence does some of its most consequential work.
Employers need not wait on legislation. They can apply the “use-it-or-lose” approach at their companies in the best interest of their employees.
Fathers’ access to and use of paternity leave is not a question of available employment benefits. It is a developmental one, and we already know how to answer development questions. We don’t treat prenatal care as a “nice perk.” We should not be treating the first months of a father’s presence like that, either.
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