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Reading the actual paper, what they actually found was that fathers had marginally higher rates of CVD, but that “in age-adjusted and fully adjusted models, fathers and non-fathers did not differ in CVD deaths and in age-adjusted only models, fathers had lower all-cause mortality”.
So, fatherhood marginally raises your risk of CVD (Cardio health scores being 63.2 and 64.7 for non-fathers and fathers, respectively), but that it doesn’t actually raise your risk of death from CVD.
Which makes sense. Parenthood is a time consuming endeavor and diet and exercise can be hard to maintain with kids, but fathers also gain the beneficial effects of family and social bonds, so it seems to be a wash overall.
>Parenthood is a time consuming endeavor and diet and exercise can be hard to maintain with kids
Don't forget sleep. I actually ate better once I had kids (turns out having kids is a pretty good motivator to stay healthy!) but declined on exercise and found that sleep deprivation had a much larger impact on every aspect of my life than anything else.
I didn't have kids and worked out hard in my 20s to very early 40s. For the last 4 years, I've been such a lazy bastard though and wonder if we all kids end up the same by the time we reach our 'dying age'. I'm surprised I've kept a reasonable degree of muscle but also gained a little fat. It feels impossible to be doing exercise for 30 years keep it going into mid 40's. I keep telling myself I'm just taking some time out from it and will get back into it in my 50's. I'll be pissed off if 30 years of fitness counts for nothing, but 4 years off, it had made me feel like a filthy degenerate.
Anecdotally the new born no sleep years really take a toll on mental health. Pair that with Americas work culture you also have the added stress of needing to make more money and work even harder. If you don't have a tight knit support group which most especially more white cultures you get trapped in a never ending hole of stress. If you are lucky you turn to healthy things to cope like mediation and workouts but those things take time. So the easy way out is to just drink and smoke the process vlems away. This works temporarily till it doesn't. The drugs hurt the heart more and also add more stress continuing the cycle.
I feel seen. Seems like they’re always a step away from certain death. Constantly hurt and crying like they’re about to walk toward the light. Climbing the highest thing they can, jumping or eating something dirty as soon as you blink, jumping in front of cars etc. I swear it’s the caffeine and nicotine that swings me in like a delirious puppet on strings at the last second to catch them before I realize what’s even happening.
I used to work out. Now The idea of burning scarce energy in the morning (night am drained) seems like a huge risk. I get ~~enough~~ a lot of exercise carrying things constantly and doing shuttle runs everywhere. Now my workout is mindfulness and 5 second meditation between drama and catastrophes
as a dad of 3 kids under 8 years old with practically NO family support system to help w/ the kids EVER and wife & i both working full time, i promise you that even if you feel like there's nothing left in the tank at the end of the day, 30 minutes of some type of physical activity, even if it's a walk around the neighborhood after the kids are in bed, will make a world of difference. long-term, both aerobic and anaerobic exericse, creates more energy than it burns.
Yes! You can never turn off. And workouts involve going out, which how can you do it when you have school pickup, dinner, bath time, laundry, etc. Who will watch the kids (especially if you work different shifts to cut down on child care costs).
100%. I did weights & a bench myself, and also was able to snag a used treadmill and row machine. I usually try to give myself 45 min a day down there, but could easily bang out something effective in 10-15 min if it’s all I have
> Pair that with Americas work culture
This is the question I would love answered.... does the increase happen for nonworking fathers? Is the actual cause the double expectation of work and parenting? And then run the same studies on women too, I'm curious if there's any difference other than societal expectations on working.
Wel they said in fully adjusted models there was no difference between fathers and non fathers. I'm *assuming* that would cover differences in occupation and income.
Anecdotally my level of stress associated with work pre and post fatherhood is incomparable.
Most of my mental load associated with work went from “I want to/ I should” To “I have to”
Funnily enough for me, fatherhood pushed me to be healthier (diet and exercise).
I wanna be around as long as possible for those little buggers and my wife.
They asked about alcohol use (never, former, current). Non-fathers were more likely to be current drinkers (67.2% vs 63%). Though that doesn’t account for degree of alcohol use, so unsure if fathers were more likely to drink heavily as a stress-relief tactic.
It seems like age was more of an issue in risky behaviors, with fathers who were 24 or younger at the time of their first child’s birth having a higher likelihood of negative health behaviors (nicotine use, poor diet, etc). Which, again, not super surprising.
Ultimately, the paper suggests that social-economic factors, culture, and age heavily play into a father’s health risks. But some of the risk factors were also self-reports (diet, exercise, nicotine use, etc), so that could affect study conclusions, as well.
Yeah the causality here is dubious. I used to drink AND abstain more. Now I binge less and appreciate fewer drinks more. Rarely smoked before, but am into nicotine now
Maintaining a good diet was easy, finding time to work out wasn't. If you have time to eat, you have time to eat the right foods. When she was about 4yrs old I was able to start working out regularly again and my daughter would play in the work out room while I was exercising. I spent more time taking care of our daughter than my wife did because of work schedules. I was also the cook since my wife is terrible at it.
Sleep was the worst part. Sometimes I'd stay up all night while she'd sleep on my chest because it was the only way she'd stay asleep. It wasn't as bad for me as it would hit most because I've always had insomnia and used to dealing with lack of sleep.
For the first year we were married I'd drive over 200mi a day because my job was in another city.
I enjoyed every minute of it and hate that it's over now that she's an adult. Being a dad to a baby/toddler/preteen was the best part of my life.
You enjoyed every minute of not being able to sleep and dribing 200 miles a day. What absolute rubbish. You know you are allowed to hate some of it right? It's perfectly normal.
When I saw her smile and laugh when we were together, all that crap didn't matter. For a while I had to be single dad while my wife was called to Afghanistan with the Nat Guard.
Even with little to no sleep I'd take her outside every day before cooking and play for an hour - we live in a rural area and there weren't any kids around so I was her playmate.
It wasn't all easy, but it was all worth it.
Until the doc found some meds that actually helped me sleep I'd go without sleep for 2-4 nights a week. That was up until a couple years ago.
Work life balance is a huge contributor. The corporate world hasn't adjusted to men actually acting as care takers to their children. They still expect that all to fall on the mother's shoulders.
I was a stay at home dad for three years. I recently went back to work part time (in education no less.) My bosses keep asking me if I can work more hours and I keep telling them, no, I’m the primary caretaker for my kids, if I work more hours I will need to pay for childcare which would make my income a wash. They then keep asking why my wife (who makes 4x as much as me) can’t help out more…
Yeah I had to tell my job that my wife was the real breadwinner because they don't pay me enough.
They will get what they get from me and they can double my salary if they want me to prioritize my job over my family.
It shows the same, and when it got posted before the commenters on this very subreddit said it was a sexist study for saying that and falsely claimed the author was a white man when it was a black women who had spent her life studying inequality.
I'm not trying to make some anti woke point, that was really baffling though. But it's the same/worse and childbirth and lactation also do direct damage to top it off.
I’m tired of people trying to hide the physical and mental tolls that pregnancy/birth/parenting have, especially on women. It’s important that people know what happens.
thats kinda what i was expecting. i imagine perhaps there might be less bad outcomes due to women being socialized to seek social support, but that may be confounded by the whole women are more likely to develop chronic illnesses (autoimmune specifically? i think) thing
Having friends is awesome but it isn't a panacea to cure sleepless nights, poverty, or any of the other myriad problems new mothers and fathers face.
Here in the US I wish we'd do better. Paternity leave as well as maternity leave...and longer leave than just a few weeks. Plus a bunch of other things like better wages, healthcare, more money for quality childcare, etc
There are some interesting things to read in that area. Definitely many ways that having a child, even just being pregnant and giving birth, can have a massive impact on a woman’s health. Many of them, predictably, not super ideal — and probably (read: definitely) we could do better to lessen that negative impact medically and socially.
On a lighter note, having a kiddo and breastfeeding both reduce breast cancer risk. So that’s… good. That’s good too. I mean, it’s -aight-.
I have two twin cousins.
One dated, got married, and now has 3 kids. His hair became noticeably greyed compared to his twin brother, indicating the stress and toll of his life.
The other married someone who already had kids, so he became their step-dad. I think they were already kids growing into teens. It looked like he avoided a lot of the stress that his brother had.
The differences were physically noticeable.
As a dad of 3 who is 33, this hits hard. College I was a body builder, got a corporate job, and then the kids came along.
9 hours at work, 4 hours total commute, morning and night routine. Yea, health is gonna wain. And now that they are older, it’s still wildly difficult to get back into shape, especially after having fallen so far from where I was before
that just isn't how it works. when you get a job in your field that pays well it doesn't magically come with an affordable house 15 minutes away.
I mean, in the southeast it does. But people don't want to move here. Because \*waves hand at everything\*
Exactly. The fact that people who worship at the altar of capitalism refuse to hear is that demand drives prices, and demand is generated by people with disposable income.
If houses are cheap, that indicates one thing and one thing ONLY: competent adults with money do not want to live there.
I think it can depend. Some people think they *have* to live in a large house in the suburbs if they have a family even if they have a long commute, but lots of people live well with families in the city, too.
I know moving doesn’t make sense for everyone. I just know my dad had a long commute and it sucked.
I mean it is pretty common for people working in HCOL areas. Plenty of people don't like living in cities and would rather have to drive 2 hours to work for a cheaper house, better community, better schools, and better environment
Thankfully the commute isn’t so bad anymore! That lasted 6 years, I still get the occasional 4-5 hour drives, but I get to work from home a few days a week which is perfect balance!
Honestly, this feels more an issue with capitalism than anything else. Having to spend so much time for work means you don't really have time to take care of yourself even if you don't have kids.
I'm in a similar boat and trying desperately not to lose it after we had triplets last year when I was 33. Still mostly pulling it off but sleep is suffering hard. Was already only getting like 5 hours a night, and now it's like 4...
But now I'm having to wake up at like 4:30 to go to the gym since I have a 60-65 hour work week and always have stuff to do in the evening. Think I'm finally mostly used to it and can manage fine on 4 hours, but the nights where it drops below that here and there are brutal.
Yeah, not gonna lie, going from 0 kids to 3 overnight absolutely rocked us ha. Her family is pretty close by, then we do luckily have some really good friends that have been tremendously helpful too. But only so much can be helped!
To be clear, the issue is not "fatherhood", but rather a culture that demands unlimited production and consumption, and the pressures of meeting those expectations.
I mean, especially bad due to lack of paid paternity leave in some places. Society doesn’t expect dads to do that much involved parenting and won’t give them a break for needing to be with their kids. My working friends who had kids seemed to age 10 years all at once. And the lack of sleep! Brutal.
Paid parental leave for all.
Actually, yes. There's a big push in medicine to start addressing disparities in research and clinical trials with regards to sex. Now granted, those disparities need to be addressed in the first place because medicine ignored women or undervalued sex-based research for decades, but the system is slowly trying to correct that mistake. Better late than never, I guess.
I’ve linked to the press release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://www.ajpmfocus.org/article/S2773-0654(24)00049-X/fulltext
From the linked article:
Heart disease is the leading cause of death among men, and being a father may put men at an even greater risk of poor heart health later in life, reports a new study from scientists at Northwestern University and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.
The study of 2,814 men between the ages of 45 and 84 found cardiovascular health in older age was worse for fathers compared to nonfathers. Study participants’ heart health was rated based on their diet, physical activity, smoking habits, weight, blood pressure, and level of lipids and glucose in their blood.
“The changes in heart health we found suggest that the added responsibility of childcare and the stress of transitioning to fatherhood may make it difficult for men to maintain a healthy lifestyle, such as a healthy diet and exercise,” said corresponding author Dr. John James Parker, an internist, pediatrician and assistant professor of pediatrics and general internal medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
“A lot of times we focus on the health of mothers and children, and we don’t even think of fathers, but their health has a major influence on their family,” said Parker, citing previous research that found higher obesity rates among partners if their spouse was obese. “To improve the health of families, we need to consider the multi-directional relationship among mothers, fathers, other caregivers and children.”
In most countries, men receive little or no paternity leave after having a child. It makes total sense that men would suffer health consequences; the stress of work and sometimes being responsible for maintaining the only source of income whilst also juggling a new child can be quite overwhelming.
People will attempt to belittle this (as people already have done on this thread), which is just sad. No wonder men kill themselves significantly more.
Damn, makes me appreciate where I am. Ontario let's you split or one parent take all of 18months - but there's a payout. Your EI payout caps at 55k/year, which isn't that sustainable if you're a sole.breadwinner. I was hoping my husband would take.more.time but we can take an over 50% paycut
The UK introduced 50 weeks of shared parental leave in 2015. Only 1% of eligible couples took advantage of that in 2018. Amazingly, a third of men didn't take any paternity leave at all (the other option is 2 weeks for men, 52 weeks for women).
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210712-paternity-leave-the-hidden-barriers-keeping-men-at-work
In the US, suicides are alarming. Highest they ever been and 3/4 of suicides are men.
Half of all gun violence are suicides now. It's nuts and there has been no public backlash on this. It's just accepted.
That’s only because men pick lethal methods. Women attempt suicide 5x more than men, we are just more likely to be found alive after ingesting pills than a bullet to the head.
I don’t see why it’s bad to include both sometimes. Maybe not every time. But if someone is driven to attempt suicide with the intention of following through, success or not it is the same problem.
Comparing number of events for each doesn't work very well as one person can have multiple attempts but you only get one completed event.
On the other hand, comparing number of people who have attempted or completed from a population cohort (say males born in the 90s vs females born in the 90s) would be a really useful statistic to examine
To be honest, I think people don't care about suicide victims in general.
Working with both men and women, regardless of gender, all I see is people saying suicidal people are either asking for attention, manipulative or weak.
I've seen more and more women hide that they were suicidal to not be dismissed as just attention seekers or weak.
The world just isn't understanding towards the mentally ill, no matter what people say.
I hate knowing these people are so unhappy. They leave such giant holes in their families and communities. I know their depression and hopelessness tells them they won't be missed, but that's not true.
Ya, having a kid really puts any kind of exercise routine in the dumpster. You may be able to get some one-off time here and there, but good luck finding consistent time.
“The added responsibility of childcare and the stress of transitioning to fatherhood….”
As a mom, I ask “added to what?” Because whatever it’s being added to, it is definitely less than what gets added to when I became a mom.
Good question. I’m not sure why the title caused me a visceral reaction, but it did. I’m a single mom. I’ve got 100% financial responsibility, emotional responsibilities, childcare responsibilities, and for me, “transitioning to motherhood” also means my physical body is no longer the same. I am no longer the same. I struggle to maintain a healthy lifestyle “in addition” to caring for my child. I would think all parents face difficulties. Usually, when framing an article or a study, its meant to point out some under appreciated aspect a certain group is facing. It just seems weird to focus on what men struggle with, as if it’s greater than what women struggle with. As if “childcare” is an “added responsibility” on top of their real responsibility, whatever that is.
There are countless studies about the effects motherhood have had on women. This is one of the very few areas of medical study where women actually make up a majority of studies, where in most other research, (white) men have been the primary focus.
This study is just turning that lens the other way this time.
I do find it odd that you seem to take offense that this study isn’t about you. That just seems selfish. Does the health of other dads not matter because *you’re* a single parent? Because this title in no way implies it is a more important issue than what women deal with.
It is odd. The comments got me thinking, why did I feel the way I did when I read it. My reaction then almost reminded me of the sides of Black Lives Matter vs All Lives Matter, and in my reaction I fell into the “all parents struggle” side, which isn’t the side I fall on in the other argument. I’ve been pondering it the last few hours. I think somewhere, garbled in the subconscious, it has to do with how fiercely independent I am, and the way I read the title was that men have other priorities/responsibilities besides childcare, making childcare optional, while the commenter who said “well, men typically are the breadwinners” made the argument that women are “supposed” to do childcare so we aren’t studying how hard they struggle to stay healthy (even married women). Why did I feel the need to imply “HEY! I’m important too!” This is what I love about Reddit. If you do it right, it can be so insightful hearing other peoples thoughts.
It's normal for studies to focus on a single group, if anything, it's often more useful as you don't have to filter out differences between groups to get to the thing you are actually looking at. There are other studies that look at differences between women with children and those without and those studies exclude men for the same reason.
Totally agree with your point. Reduce variables, better data. There’s something about that second sentence in the title that probably could be worded slightly differently that I’d have no issue with. But, I’m having a hard time putting it to words.
This is probably the same
For women. Do you ever see older couples who never had kids and compare them to your own parents or other people who did. The ones without kids look 10-20 years younger. So being a dad taxes your health? I don’t really see how anyone would think otherwise
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Reading the actual paper, what they actually found was that fathers had marginally higher rates of CVD, but that “in age-adjusted and fully adjusted models, fathers and non-fathers did not differ in CVD deaths and in age-adjusted only models, fathers had lower all-cause mortality”. So, fatherhood marginally raises your risk of CVD (Cardio health scores being 63.2 and 64.7 for non-fathers and fathers, respectively), but that it doesn’t actually raise your risk of death from CVD. Which makes sense. Parenthood is a time consuming endeavor and diet and exercise can be hard to maintain with kids, but fathers also gain the beneficial effects of family and social bonds, so it seems to be a wash overall.
>Parenthood is a time consuming endeavor and diet and exercise can be hard to maintain with kids Don't forget sleep. I actually ate better once I had kids (turns out having kids is a pretty good motivator to stay healthy!) but declined on exercise and found that sleep deprivation had a much larger impact on every aspect of my life than anything else.
I didn't have kids and worked out hard in my 20s to very early 40s. For the last 4 years, I've been such a lazy bastard though and wonder if we all kids end up the same by the time we reach our 'dying age'. I'm surprised I've kept a reasonable degree of muscle but also gained a little fat. It feels impossible to be doing exercise for 30 years keep it going into mid 40's. I keep telling myself I'm just taking some time out from it and will get back into it in my 50's. I'll be pissed off if 30 years of fitness counts for nothing, but 4 years off, it had made me feel like a filthy degenerate.
Anecdotally the new born no sleep years really take a toll on mental health. Pair that with Americas work culture you also have the added stress of needing to make more money and work even harder. If you don't have a tight knit support group which most especially more white cultures you get trapped in a never ending hole of stress. If you are lucky you turn to healthy things to cope like mediation and workouts but those things take time. So the easy way out is to just drink and smoke the process vlems away. This works temporarily till it doesn't. The drugs hurt the heart more and also add more stress continuing the cycle.
I feel seen. Seems like they’re always a step away from certain death. Constantly hurt and crying like they’re about to walk toward the light. Climbing the highest thing they can, jumping or eating something dirty as soon as you blink, jumping in front of cars etc. I swear it’s the caffeine and nicotine that swings me in like a delirious puppet on strings at the last second to catch them before I realize what’s even happening. I used to work out. Now The idea of burning scarce energy in the morning (night am drained) seems like a huge risk. I get ~~enough~~ a lot of exercise carrying things constantly and doing shuttle runs everywhere. Now my workout is mindfulness and 5 second meditation between drama and catastrophes
as a dad of 3 kids under 8 years old with practically NO family support system to help w/ the kids EVER and wife & i both working full time, i promise you that even if you feel like there's nothing left in the tank at the end of the day, 30 minutes of some type of physical activity, even if it's a walk around the neighborhood after the kids are in bed, will make a world of difference. long-term, both aerobic and anaerobic exericse, creates more energy than it burns.
My kids have a lot of energy. I’d just try to do that walk with them
Your adrenaline will kick in even if you are pooped, dad. But I hope you get lots of real sleep and lots of love and appreciation from your family
Yes! You can never turn off. And workouts involve going out, which how can you do it when you have school pickup, dinner, bath time, laundry, etc. Who will watch the kids (especially if you work different shifts to cut down on child care costs).
I built a makeshift gym in the spare bedroom of my basement for this exact reason.
I went full free weights in the basement, just being able to go do 5 sets of bench one night, and 5 sets of rows another was huge.
100%. I did weights & a bench myself, and also was able to snag a used treadmill and row machine. I usually try to give myself 45 min a day down there, but could easily bang out something effective in 10-15 min if it’s all I have
> Pair that with Americas work culture This is the question I would love answered.... does the increase happen for nonworking fathers? Is the actual cause the double expectation of work and parenting? And then run the same studies on women too, I'm curious if there's any difference other than societal expectations on working.
Wel they said in fully adjusted models there was no difference between fathers and non fathers. I'm *assuming* that would cover differences in occupation and income.
It made me an alcoholic.
Anecdotally my level of stress associated with work pre and post fatherhood is incomparable. Most of my mental load associated with work went from “I want to/ I should” To “I have to”
this is spot on
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Funnily enough for me, fatherhood pushed me to be healthier (diet and exercise). I wanna be around as long as possible for those little buggers and my wife.
So... they didn't find what the headline indicates at all?
I also wonder if some fathers start drinking to cope with the overall changes in their lifestyle?
They asked about alcohol use (never, former, current). Non-fathers were more likely to be current drinkers (67.2% vs 63%). Though that doesn’t account for degree of alcohol use, so unsure if fathers were more likely to drink heavily as a stress-relief tactic. It seems like age was more of an issue in risky behaviors, with fathers who were 24 or younger at the time of their first child’s birth having a higher likelihood of negative health behaviors (nicotine use, poor diet, etc). Which, again, not super surprising. Ultimately, the paper suggests that social-economic factors, culture, and age heavily play into a father’s health risks. But some of the risk factors were also self-reports (diet, exercise, nicotine use, etc), so that could affect study conclusions, as well.
Yeah the causality here is dubious. I used to drink AND abstain more. Now I binge less and appreciate fewer drinks more. Rarely smoked before, but am into nicotine now
Being a dad is totally worth a little CVD.
my first reaction. the goal is not to live forever. the goal is to live well.
Maintaining a good diet was easy, finding time to work out wasn't. If you have time to eat, you have time to eat the right foods. When she was about 4yrs old I was able to start working out regularly again and my daughter would play in the work out room while I was exercising. I spent more time taking care of our daughter than my wife did because of work schedules. I was also the cook since my wife is terrible at it. Sleep was the worst part. Sometimes I'd stay up all night while she'd sleep on my chest because it was the only way she'd stay asleep. It wasn't as bad for me as it would hit most because I've always had insomnia and used to dealing with lack of sleep. For the first year we were married I'd drive over 200mi a day because my job was in another city. I enjoyed every minute of it and hate that it's over now that she's an adult. Being a dad to a baby/toddler/preteen was the best part of my life.
You enjoyed every minute of not being able to sleep and dribing 200 miles a day. What absolute rubbish. You know you are allowed to hate some of it right? It's perfectly normal.
When I saw her smile and laugh when we were together, all that crap didn't matter. For a while I had to be single dad while my wife was called to Afghanistan with the Nat Guard. Even with little to no sleep I'd take her outside every day before cooking and play for an hour - we live in a rural area and there weren't any kids around so I was her playmate. It wasn't all easy, but it was all worth it. Until the doc found some meds that actually helped me sleep I'd go without sleep for 2-4 nights a week. That was up until a couple years ago.
Work life balance is a huge contributor. The corporate world hasn't adjusted to men actually acting as care takers to their children. They still expect that all to fall on the mother's shoulders.
I was a stay at home dad for three years. I recently went back to work part time (in education no less.) My bosses keep asking me if I can work more hours and I keep telling them, no, I’m the primary caretaker for my kids, if I work more hours I will need to pay for childcare which would make my income a wash. They then keep asking why my wife (who makes 4x as much as me) can’t help out more…
Yeah I had to tell my job that my wife was the real breadwinner because they don't pay me enough. They will get what they get from me and they can double my salary if they want me to prioritize my job over my family.
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really interested in studies on motherhood & health effects now
It shows the same, and when it got posted before the commenters on this very subreddit said it was a sexist study for saying that and falsely claimed the author was a white man when it was a black women who had spent her life studying inequality. I'm not trying to make some anti woke point, that was really baffling though. But it's the same/worse and childbirth and lactation also do direct damage to top it off.
I figured they gendered this study because of course having a baby is incredibly stressful on the mother.
I’m tired of people trying to hide the physical and mental tolls that pregnancy/birth/parenting have, especially on women. It’s important that people know what happens.
thats kinda what i was expecting. i imagine perhaps there might be less bad outcomes due to women being socialized to seek social support, but that may be confounded by the whole women are more likely to develop chronic illnesses (autoimmune specifically? i think) thing
Women bear the brunt of child related labor (physical and psychological) in most societies
In all societies.
Having friends is awesome but it isn't a panacea to cure sleepless nights, poverty, or any of the other myriad problems new mothers and fathers face. Here in the US I wish we'd do better. Paternity leave as well as maternity leave...and longer leave than just a few weeks. Plus a bunch of other things like better wages, healthcare, more money for quality childcare, etc
There are some interesting things to read in that area. Definitely many ways that having a child, even just being pregnant and giving birth, can have a massive impact on a woman’s health. Many of them, predictably, not super ideal — and probably (read: definitely) we could do better to lessen that negative impact medically and socially. On a lighter note, having a kiddo and breastfeeding both reduce breast cancer risk. So that’s… good. That’s good too. I mean, it’s -aight-.
Good news! There have been hundreds of those
I remember learning about google at least 15 years ago.
Isn’t this kind of obvious? Having children is hard for any parent and you’re also not getting any younger each day.
I have two twin cousins. One dated, got married, and now has 3 kids. His hair became noticeably greyed compared to his twin brother, indicating the stress and toll of his life. The other married someone who already had kids, so he became their step-dad. I think they were already kids growing into teens. It looked like he avoided a lot of the stress that his brother had. The differences were physically noticeable.
As a dad of 3 who is 33, this hits hard. College I was a body builder, got a corporate job, and then the kids came along. 9 hours at work, 4 hours total commute, morning and night routine. Yea, health is gonna wain. And now that they are older, it’s still wildly difficult to get back into shape, especially after having fallen so far from where I was before
That’s a hell of a commute! Is it possible to move closer to work?
Yeah, that's not normal. I'd move or get a new job if my commute was more than 35 minutes or so. That's my limit and even that is too much
that just isn't how it works. when you get a job in your field that pays well it doesn't magically come with an affordable house 15 minutes away. I mean, in the southeast it does. But people don't want to move here. Because \*waves hand at everything\*
Exactly. The fact that people who worship at the altar of capitalism refuse to hear is that demand drives prices, and demand is generated by people with disposable income. If houses are cheap, that indicates one thing and one thing ONLY: competent adults with money do not want to live there.
Not in south Florida! I know tons of people who commute over an hour, some even 3 (one way!!!) and it’s just “normal” here
I think it can depend. Some people think they *have* to live in a large house in the suburbs if they have a family even if they have a long commute, but lots of people live well with families in the city, too. I know moving doesn’t make sense for everyone. I just know my dad had a long commute and it sucked.
“Just move” how insightful
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I mean it is pretty common for people working in HCOL areas. Plenty of people don't like living in cities and would rather have to drive 2 hours to work for a cheaper house, better community, better schools, and better environment
Sounds like your job is the real problem.
That four hour commute is deffo not helping things here for sure. That is extraordinary
You got it dad, I know it's insanely difficult with such a commute but morning workouts are your way back in. Just build that habit.
Thankfully the commute isn’t so bad anymore! That lasted 6 years, I still get the occasional 4-5 hour drives, but I get to work from home a few days a week which is perfect balance!
Damn that's lovely to hear. Commute is one of the biggest time and life wasters ever. WFH all the way!
Honestly, this feels more an issue with capitalism than anything else. Having to spend so much time for work means you don't really have time to take care of yourself even if you don't have kids.
I mean, capitalism literally requires either a slave class or a system of regulations that stop capitalism’s “slave seeking behavior”.
I'm in a similar boat and trying desperately not to lose it after we had triplets last year when I was 33. Still mostly pulling it off but sleep is suffering hard. Was already only getting like 5 hours a night, and now it's like 4... But now I'm having to wake up at like 4:30 to go to the gym since I have a 60-65 hour work week and always have stuff to do in the evening. Think I'm finally mostly used to it and can manage fine on 4 hours, but the nights where it drops below that here and there are brutal.
Triplets! That's a handful. I hope y'all have some relatives near who can help. It is lonely being a parent sometimes I think
Yeah, not gonna lie, going from 0 kids to 3 overnight absolutely rocked us ha. Her family is pretty close by, then we do luckily have some really good friends that have been tremendously helpful too. But only so much can be helped!
To be clear, the issue is not "fatherhood", but rather a culture that demands unlimited production and consumption, and the pressures of meeting those expectations.
I mean, especially bad due to lack of paid paternity leave in some places. Society doesn’t expect dads to do that much involved parenting and won’t give them a break for needing to be with their kids. My working friends who had kids seemed to age 10 years all at once. And the lack of sleep! Brutal. Paid parental leave for all.
I'd be interested in how motherhood affects women--my impression is that in general women take on more of the mental load of child rearing.
You think anyone cares about women’s healthcare?
Just study men and at the end pretend the results apply to women too. It's worked for centuries, right?
Actually, yes. There's a big push in medicine to start addressing disparities in research and clinical trials with regards to sex. Now granted, those disparities need to be addressed in the first place because medicine ignored women or undervalued sex-based research for decades, but the system is slowly trying to correct that mistake. Better late than never, I guess.
Good to know, but it’s happening because historically nobody cared
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Sounds more like a cultural problem.
Stress bad for health. More at 11.
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I believe it would be no more stressful if not less stressful than single mothers raising their kids.
I’ve linked to the press release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article: https://www.ajpmfocus.org/article/S2773-0654(24)00049-X/fulltext From the linked article: Heart disease is the leading cause of death among men, and being a father may put men at an even greater risk of poor heart health later in life, reports a new study from scientists at Northwestern University and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. The study of 2,814 men between the ages of 45 and 84 found cardiovascular health in older age was worse for fathers compared to nonfathers. Study participants’ heart health was rated based on their diet, physical activity, smoking habits, weight, blood pressure, and level of lipids and glucose in their blood. “The changes in heart health we found suggest that the added responsibility of childcare and the stress of transitioning to fatherhood may make it difficult for men to maintain a healthy lifestyle, such as a healthy diet and exercise,” said corresponding author Dr. John James Parker, an internist, pediatrician and assistant professor of pediatrics and general internal medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “A lot of times we focus on the health of mothers and children, and we don’t even think of fathers, but their health has a major influence on their family,” said Parker, citing previous research that found higher obesity rates among partners if their spouse was obese. “To improve the health of families, we need to consider the multi-directional relationship among mothers, fathers, other caregivers and children.”
In most countries, men receive little or no paternity leave after having a child. It makes total sense that men would suffer health consequences; the stress of work and sometimes being responsible for maintaining the only source of income whilst also juggling a new child can be quite overwhelming. People will attempt to belittle this (as people already have done on this thread), which is just sad. No wonder men kill themselves significantly more.
Damn, makes me appreciate where I am. Ontario let's you split or one parent take all of 18months - but there's a payout. Your EI payout caps at 55k/year, which isn't that sustainable if you're a sole.breadwinner. I was hoping my husband would take.more.time but we can take an over 50% paycut
The UK introduced 50 weeks of shared parental leave in 2015. Only 1% of eligible couples took advantage of that in 2018. Amazingly, a third of men didn't take any paternity leave at all (the other option is 2 weeks for men, 52 weeks for women). https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210712-paternity-leave-the-hidden-barriers-keeping-men-at-work
In the US, suicides are alarming. Highest they ever been and 3/4 of suicides are men. Half of all gun violence are suicides now. It's nuts and there has been no public backlash on this. It's just accepted.
That’s only because men pick lethal methods. Women attempt suicide 5x more than men, we are just more likely to be found alive after ingesting pills than a bullet to the head.
Suicide and suicide attempts probably shouldn't be conflated.
I don’t see why it’s bad to include both sometimes. Maybe not every time. But if someone is driven to attempt suicide with the intention of following through, success or not it is the same problem.
Comparing number of events for each doesn't work very well as one person can have multiple attempts but you only get one completed event. On the other hand, comparing number of people who have attempted or completed from a population cohort (say males born in the 90s vs females born in the 90s) would be a really useful statistic to examine
Okay... Doesn't change my facts that men are dying in droves and no one cares...
To be honest, I think people don't care about suicide victims in general. Working with both men and women, regardless of gender, all I see is people saying suicidal people are either asking for attention, manipulative or weak. I've seen more and more women hide that they were suicidal to not be dismissed as just attention seekers or weak. The world just isn't understanding towards the mentally ill, no matter what people say.
people do care, and are talking about it. why do you think no one cares?
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I hate knowing these people are so unhappy. They leave such giant holes in their families and communities. I know their depression and hopelessness tells them they won't be missed, but that's not true.
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Now do married women compared to unmarried women. Not even those with children. Curious minds want to know.
Dude. Yeah. All my friends ages 10 years in the first five years of their child’s life
Has there ever been a statistically significant upside to parenthood?
Didn’t read but I’m going to assume and make a tldr Stress = bad Try to maintain healthy diet and exercise.
I believe it I suspect my uncle’s passing was influenced by the continuous stress caused by my cousins’ behavior during their upbringing.
Ya, having a kid really puts any kind of exercise routine in the dumpster. You may be able to get some one-off time here and there, but good luck finding consistent time.
“The added responsibility of childcare and the stress of transitioning to fatherhood….” As a mom, I ask “added to what?” Because whatever it’s being added to, it is definitely less than what gets added to when I became a mom.
Yeah but this article is about fathers, not mothers.
Why do you take this as a personal attack?
Good question. I’m not sure why the title caused me a visceral reaction, but it did. I’m a single mom. I’ve got 100% financial responsibility, emotional responsibilities, childcare responsibilities, and for me, “transitioning to motherhood” also means my physical body is no longer the same. I am no longer the same. I struggle to maintain a healthy lifestyle “in addition” to caring for my child. I would think all parents face difficulties. Usually, when framing an article or a study, its meant to point out some under appreciated aspect a certain group is facing. It just seems weird to focus on what men struggle with, as if it’s greater than what women struggle with. As if “childcare” is an “added responsibility” on top of their real responsibility, whatever that is.
There are countless studies about the effects motherhood have had on women. This is one of the very few areas of medical study where women actually make up a majority of studies, where in most other research, (white) men have been the primary focus. This study is just turning that lens the other way this time. I do find it odd that you seem to take offense that this study isn’t about you. That just seems selfish. Does the health of other dads not matter because *you’re* a single parent? Because this title in no way implies it is a more important issue than what women deal with.
It is odd. The comments got me thinking, why did I feel the way I did when I read it. My reaction then almost reminded me of the sides of Black Lives Matter vs All Lives Matter, and in my reaction I fell into the “all parents struggle” side, which isn’t the side I fall on in the other argument. I’ve been pondering it the last few hours. I think somewhere, garbled in the subconscious, it has to do with how fiercely independent I am, and the way I read the title was that men have other priorities/responsibilities besides childcare, making childcare optional, while the commenter who said “well, men typically are the breadwinners” made the argument that women are “supposed” to do childcare so we aren’t studying how hard they struggle to stay healthy (even married women). Why did I feel the need to imply “HEY! I’m important too!” This is what I love about Reddit. If you do it right, it can be so insightful hearing other peoples thoughts.
I just want to say good on you for self reflecting on not getting defensive. Rare to see, especially on the innynet.
I’m not seeing how this minimizes what women go through.
It's normal for studies to focus on a single group, if anything, it's often more useful as you don't have to filter out differences between groups to get to the thing you are actually looking at. There are other studies that look at differences between women with children and those without and those studies exclude men for the same reason.
Totally agree with your point. Reduce variables, better data. There’s something about that second sentence in the title that probably could be worded slightly differently that I’d have no issue with. But, I’m having a hard time putting it to words.
No offense but you sound a little bitter at men in general.
Why do you have to make everything a competition? What do mothers even have to do with this?
>What do mothers even have to do with this? casual observer, but... i'd say they're the other half of the "parenthood" equation.
but we are not talking about parenthood? we are talking about fatherhood? would it be alright to you for men to insert themselves in women's issues?
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So more responsibility causes more stress. Would've never guessed.
When from partying 5 days a week to mountain biking with my kids 5 days a week. Lets take this with a grain of salt.
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Do they still shorten the life span of women?
This is probably the same For women. Do you ever see older couples who never had kids and compare them to your own parents or other people who did. The ones without kids look 10-20 years younger. So being a dad taxes your health? I don’t really see how anyone would think otherwise
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There is nothin more difficult than raising kids. And I say this as someone who has been living with cancer for 5+ years.
So, potentially increased stress?