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Why do some humans love to say that being
nurturing and raising kids is only for women?
Because my argument is if that is women's work, then
what is men's work?
Because it ain't going to college, getting PhDs,
or actually going to work.
Being nurturing could be men's work.
Change diapers.
Play with our kids.
Spend some QT with our baby.
Dad parents offer benefits that no other parent does.
I dug into the science.
It's clear.
Let's kick into it.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Hey there, nerds of every color.
How are you?
This is episode one of four in a series I'm calling Dad Parents.
Trace family update.
We had a baby.
I know.
I was supposed to make this episode forever ago,
but then we were at this Chinese restaurant,
and Flavia's water broke, and we had to go to the hospital.
It's a whole story.
But we're not here for that right now.
We're here for something else.
There are more women in college and in the workforce pre-COVID,
and for years now, women have outnumbered men
earning master's degrees and PhDs at higher rates.
So if that is all women's work because women do more of it,
what is men's work?
Frickin' day trading?
Mining crypto?
Committing violent crime?
Because it sure ain't keeping up the house.
Women do two more hours of housework per day than men.
How can it be that women's work is
to raise kids and run the country
and invest in the future and all this other stuff?
We need to step up.
One way we can do that?
Change diapers.
Play with our kids.
Spend some QT with our baby.
And the benefits there are huge, not just for you,
but for the baby and your partner and the wider society.
But first, one thing.
Men, hey.
What's up?
Trace here again.
I'm an Eagle Scout.
I'm a blacksmith.
I mud bog 4 by 4s.
I flew an F-18.
I built a boat.
I score goals, and I set personal bests in the sports.
I know how to cook.
I go therapy to be a better partner.
I've shot more rifles than I care to count.
I've played spin the bottle with a group of men and women.
I listen.
I play music.
I volunteer in my community.
I attend local, regional, and professional sporting events.
I learn local languages when I visit places.
I have a bar and a bartender that I love.
I am certified to teach sexual health peer education.
I support my friends in all their esoteric interests.
I'm always there for them because I'm a man.
Oh, and I always click the tongs at least twice
before using them on the grill.
I am positively pumped to be a present and loving father.
Why?
Because it's the right thing to do.
But if that is not reason enough,
involved dads make smart, emotionally
connected, powerful kids.
Present dads are associated with fewer problems
in school achievement, behavior, social interaction, higher
academic achievement, fewer behavioral problems, greater
emotional security, higher self-esteem in the kids.
There are so many studies on child development
over the last 100 years.
And this whole subset of psychology and sociology
is dedicated to understanding the power of parenting.
And yet mostly, it's not focused on the power of fatherhood.
There are long-term psychological consequences
of dad parents on child development,
and we know a lot more about it now
than we even did 20 years ago.
We know this because of things like longitudinal studies.
This is kind of a sidebar just so you understand
where this data is coming from.
Longitudinal studies are the gold standard
of population studies.
How they work is essentially scientists
follow thousands of people for a long time,
years, decades, lifetimes.
And why thousands of people?
Representative samples.
Why a long time?
Because they need to understand changes in those populations.
A single study is just like a snapshot of us.
Lots of snapshots are better.
A picture is worth a thousand words.
So if we had 24 pictures, then we'd get one frame of a movie.
Lots of people, lots of pictures, lots of snapshots,
lots of data.
Basically, longitudinal studies are the Avengers, Endgame
of science.
That's what I'm going to say.
Example.
The 1994 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.
It's called Ad Health.
It's 20,000 adolescents in grades 7 through 12 in 1994.
They gathered blood and genetic data, body measurements.
They took medication data, family data,
general demographics, socioeconomic statuses,
and they check in every few years.
This study is still going on.
And new studies then use that basic science data
and create all sorts of conclusions and correlations.
It's incredible.
And that's just one of these.
One of these studies is happening all the time
everywhere.
Lots of different countries do them.
And we can use the results in so many different ways.
For example, if we break them into age groups,
you find that people who have a dad around,
especially when they're in preschool age and younger,
are physically, cognitively, and psychologically healthier
as they get older.
They need fewer hospitalizations.
They are better at breastfeeding.
Literally, because dad is around, they're a better eater.
And more father child time related
to educational activities was associated with, quote,
"moderate to large improvements in overall cognitive
functioning."
As these kids grow into teens, kids perform better in school,
correlate with better financial stability in the future,
and it correlates with higher academic achievement, greater
school readiness, and better math and verbal skills.
Quote, "children with involved fathers
were more likely to graduate from high school and college."
And the key word there is involved.
That means you can't just show up and sit on the couch
and watch television.
You have to actually be involved in the raising of the kid.
Involved is going to come up a lot,
but so are the words present and engaged.
Present, engaged, and involved.
These three words are so important to any kind
of dadhood.
It basically means get your hands dirty.
Get in there.
Father.
There's nothing to say that you can just hand a kid to a mom,
walk away, and go to work, and the kid will be fine.
They will be, but they could be a little better than fine
or a different kind of fine.
Involved parents, no matter the sex,
associated with fewer tantrums, fewer cognitive delays,
and less aggression.
Greater emotional security, higher self-esteem,
fewer behavioral issues, greater social competence
are all correlated with father involvement.
And no matter the sex, kids with involved fathers had,
quote, "higher levels of sociability, confidence,
and self-control in their children."
Children with involved fathers are
less likely to act out in school or engage in risky behaviors
in adolescence.
And fathers who were involved with their kids
had happier teens.
We know this because of this massive longitudinal study
where they took the data, and then
they controlled for tons of stuff.
Like for example, in an experiment
controlling the temperature in a room, in this case,
its statistical, so we would say control sex
or socioeconomic status or general location.
They said, oh, well, this kid is really happy
and this kid is unhappy, so let's
control for all these different variables and see what's up.
Is it the mom?
No.
Is it their age?
Not really.
Is it their sex?
Doesn't seem to be.
Or is it parental infighting?
Nope.
They didn't have less parental infighting.
What about a bunch of other stuff?
Turns out involved dads was the one
that correlated strongest to having a happy teen.
And it's not just little kids.
It's not just teens.
This holds into adulthood.
Boys with involved fathers were more
likely to become involved fathers themselves.
You're paying it forward, passing that
on to the next generation.
That is some adult effect right there.
Girls with involved fathers had fewer psychological issues
as young adults as well.
So it's not just boys that get benefits.
And speaking of psychological issues and behaviors
and mental health, parentally influenced psychological issues
are correlations, and they're divided into a bunch
of different subsets.
One of those is externalizing, internalizing,
and this spoke to me because externalizing behaviors include
things like ADHD, which I have, but also antisocial
personality disorder and general acting out.
Whereas internalizing disorders like depression,
eating disorders, anxiety disorders,
and addiction, which also appear in my family,
are keeping it in.
So those can be divided into two.
And generally speaking, this is very general,
dads correlated with externalizing behaviors
when younger, and moms correlated with internalizing
behaviors when older.
So everyone in the family is affecting everyone else
and how they'll grow up.
You have better mental health when your dad is
involved with your parentage.
You have better mental health when your dad is involved.
Co-parents, as in parents that work together
to raise their spawn, increase the babe's
overall social competence, making
the kid better at interacting with others
and at being a better human being socially just
across the board.
This carries on also all the way into adulthood.
But hey, there's not only benefits
to kids and adolescents and adults.
Involved fathers are associated with positive effects,
even before birth.
I know.
You don't have to be born to be good dad.
Be good dad.
Partner support is associated with fewer maternal health
problems and more positive maternal and infant outcomes.
Not every dad lives in the same house
and can be involved on the same level,
and father absence is associated with some negative effects
on well-being, but it's not a total disaster.
Even dads that don't live in the same house
can play positive roles.
The science is pretty clear.
So to recap, having a dad in the picture, present, also
engaged and involved, doesn't just
help a baby or a kid or a teen.
That kind of involvement lasts and lasts and is passed
on to the next generation.
Spending time with your own kids or even
other people's kids, honestly, which
we're going to come back to, pays huge dividends
in sociology, economics, psychology, and future
development.
And the thing is, and this is a big thing, again,
you have to be present, engaged, and involved.
In 2002, Rob Palkovitz from the University of Delaware,
he used empirical scientific evidence, like what
we've been talking about, collected, very important,
peer-reviewed.
Plus, he used conversations with a diverse group of men
about their parenting.
A little more qualitative.
Quantitative and qualitative together is one of my jams.
So he created this huge list of benefits.
But before we get to that huge list,
let me just take a second.
Parenting is a complicated topic,
and I was inspired to make this because I
was looking for stuff to learn about becoming
a dad for the first time.
And honestly, you can find anything
you want to hear when it comes to being a parent.
It's exhausting.
But it's me, so I went to documentaries and science stuff
and watched videos.
And obviously, a great place to do that
is Nebula and Curiosity Stream.
Nebula is a streaming service that we
started to have this place to experiment and explore ideas,
to fund each other's projects and dreams
and lift all these creations together.
And recently, Minute Earth made a show
called Minute Body on Nebula.
It's a 1-minute exploration of bits of the human body.
It's cute, it's funny, it's so bingeable.
If you want to watch it, you should join Curiosity Stream.
They love Nebula.
So if you sign up for CS, you actually get Nebula included.
And the whole thing only costs you 123 cents
a month. $14.79 for a whole year.
That's not a trial.
That's the whole price.
It's the best deal that they offer anyone anywhere
because, again, they love us.
Hello.
Behind the scenes Trace here.
I'm editing, and it turns out there's a holiday sale,
and I was totally wrong about all those numbers.
So it's less than $1 a month, less than $12
a year for both Nebula and Curiosity Stream
because of the holiday sale.
Get it now.
It doesn't go through the end of the year, just until Christmas.
So I'm going to cut this part out of the video
once we get to that point.
But for now, hey, this is my studio.
Welcome.
Hello.
Behind the scenes.
Get the sale.
Link in the description.
Back to the-- gotta put this now into the--
I got to take this and put it into the video now.
Curiosity Stream has thousands of titles on their own,
basically for any nerdy, geeky, or factual topic you want,
from newborn animals to ancient pyramids,
tiny houses to supergiant stars.
I like to use it on my Apple TV because look, fam.
If I'm going to watch something, I'm
not doing it on a tiny little phone.
I'm going to do it on a big screen.
And CS and Nebula have apps for whatever device
you want to watch on.
To join, just go to curiositystream.com/trace.
Use my offer code, trace, and support
me and other awesome creators.
Plus, you get to give your brain a boost
and learn some new things.
So thanks.
OK.
Rob Palkovitz's list.
Empirical scientific evidence, conversations
with actual dads, quantitative, qualitative together at last.
Here is the list right here.
It's really long, I know.
But look at the list and say, what are you?
I don't need that.
Good humans, they benefit from all of these things.
And I'm still working on some of these myself to this day.
My dad retired when I was in high school,
so I was almost grown, but he was always around,
and that changed me even though I was already older.
And I knew at the time, it was different.
I had always had a relationship with my dad,
but I'd never been able to talk to him for long periods of time
because it was either the evening, we're going to bed,
we're going to soccer.
Whatever we were doing, having him around all day
meant that we could talk all the time.
Funny, he used to show up to pick us up
at school with all the windows down
in his SUV and Dire Straits or whatever blaring on the radio.
It was so embarrassing.
And my younger brothers definitely
got the benefit of that major parental resource.
They could talk for hours, and they still do.
They call each other all the time
to talk about whatever it is they're doing.
My brother buys a new car, when the Lions are playing.
Whatever it is, that is a present, involved,
and engaged dad.
And I don't want to say he was perfect.
Everyone has difficulties and troubles.
No one is a perfect father.
But being present and involved and engaged, he did it.
But do you think I'm not itching to pick my kid up
from school, to be there, to help with his homework,
to laugh with him, to help him build his first computer
or doll house or whatever it is that he's interested in?
You bet your buttocks I'll be there.
One study on papas, it was pretty general,
but a nice sentiment to end on, said
that dads teach kids to, quote, "explore,
take chances, overcome obstacles,
be braver in the presence of strangers,
and to stand up for themselves."
Pretty clear from the research that
present, engaged, and involved dads have huge benefits.
And this is a continuum.
I don't want to shame dads who have to work in order
to support the family.
I'm saying be as present, engaged,
and involved as you can, and you're going to see benefits.
But what about moms or two dads?
Are same sex parents different?
Are the benefits different?
Come back next time to find out.
That's episode two.
Thanks so much for watching, everybody.
I super appreciate it.
2021 has been wild.
I am a dad.
That quitting video popped off, and I know exactly why.
The Great Resignation.
Big deal.
For those who asked, yes, I did quit one of my jobs,
and then it freed up time in my schedule
to pick up another job.
But either way.
Thanks again, friends.
I am Trace.
I'll see you in the future.