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Fathers are happier as parents, says study
Fathers experience more well-being from parenthood than mothers do, according to a study of over 18,000 people.
Past studies have considered whether people with children have greater well-being than those without kids. However, few have considered the relative happiness of fathers and mothers, according to the study published in the journal, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
Researchers and colleagues from the University of California (UC) Riverside in the US analysed three separate studies totalling more than 18,000 people to determine whether fathers or mothers experience greater happiness from their parenting roles.
Across the three studies, researchers looked at measures of well-being that included happiness, well-being, depressive symptoms, psychological satisfaction, and stress.
“Fathers may fare better than mothers in part due to how they spend their time with their children,” said Katherine Nelson-Coffey, who worked in UC Riverside psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky’s lab as a graduate student. The first two studies compared well-being of parents with that of people who do not 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 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.
The third study considered parenthood and well-being while engaged in childcare or interacting with children, compared to other daily activities.
Gender significantly impacted the association between childcare and happiness. Men were happier while caring for their children, while women were less happy.
In terms of daily interactions generally, both men and women were happier interacting with their children relative to other daily interactions.
However, men reported greater happiness from the interactions than women, said Nelson-Coffey, who is now an assistant professor at Sewanee: The University of the South in the US.
Los Angeles designer Pierre Davis made her debut at the ongoing New York Fashion Week, becoming the first openly transgender creator to present a collection at the fashion week, shaking up an event further that had already featured trans models.
The Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA), which says it represents more than 500 creators and has made diversity its battle cry, announced that Davis’s No Sesso brand will be ‘making NYFW history’ at the event, which opened with a parade of whimsical garments.
Davis told CFDA that she hopes the brand ‘will inspire people to be more communityminded and to realise that not everything is just about aesthetics or commerce. It’s also about humanity’. She adds that it is important ‘that people of all intersectional identities are given a fighting chance, regardless of their identity. The playing field isn’t level in the world, and it is even more difficult in fashion’.While, she embraces her identity as a trans woman in the design field, Davis doesn’t want it to be a gimmick.
“I just want to show the work,” she says about No Sesso, which was launched in 2015 and counts fans, including R&B artists Kelela and Erykah Badu. “I am just humble and happy that I got to show at fashion week,” Davis said.
For her Chapter 2 collection — she calls them chapters rather than seasons — Davis came up with the idea of a wardrobe that blends the sartorial codes associated with the two sexes.
For several years, trans models have regularly appeared at New York Fashion Week, and in September 2017 Calvin Klein featured a 16year-old trans model. Last September Marco Marco, another Los Angeles designer, went further with a podium showing trans models.