Parenting will make you sleepier, sadder, fatter and happier
The downside of parenting and what we should really do to support families.
This is the second part of my conversation with neuroscientist Darby Saxbe, who writes the Natal Gazing newsletter. Saxbe researches the changes men undergo when they become parents - what she calls, ‘dad brain.’ Last week’s post explored the surprising benefits of those changes, but they also have a dark side. This post explores why parenting puts parents at risk and what policies parents actually need.
One of the subtitles Saxbe considered for her book ‘Dad Brain,’ which is due next year, was “how being a new dad will make you sleepier, sadder and fatter.” (The publisher discouraged it). In a 2018 article, Saxbe reviewed studies on both men and women’s transition to parenting and found that alongside the positive changes of parenthood - the streamlining and pruning of brain connections to facilitate parenting - parents also became more vulnerable to postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety and sleep problems. These risks apply to fathers as well as mothers. Men may also gain weight during the transition to parenthood, just like women, likely due to hormonal and behavioral changes. “Is the parenting brain change good or bad? Well, it depends on who you’re asking and what you’re asking about,” says Saxbe.
The sense of transformation is familiar to anyone who had their sleeping and waking hours abducted by a tiny but incredibly demanding human. It can be a time of sensitivity and risk - and also a great opportunity, because the harm is not predetermined. Social connection and good sleep decrease loneliness, mitigate depression and anxiety risks, and improve physical health. “The lesson is that we should see parenting as a real challenge requiring resources and investments, not just from individuals but from society. We should view this transition as a time of vulnerability. How do we protect and shore up resources to support parents?”
When you’re up at three in the morning with a screaming infant, it may seem like survival - yours and your child’s - is solely up to you, but parenting is actually a collective endeavor. And this is a point Saxbe wants to make about the latest pro-natalist (or rather, ‘bro-natalist’) panic: shaming people for not having children is not a great way to get them to have children. Even if it works - and there’s no evidence that it does - the outcome for these children and families will be bad as long as they lack support.
“I see the birth rate as an existential issue that we should be concerned about, regardless of political leanings,” Saxbe says. “I think it does threaten our global well-being in future generations. But there’s inherent hypocrisy to a lot of right-wing politicians championing more births while defunding Head Start, defunding Medicaid, kicking out immigrants, and being cruel and hostile to them rather than having a stronger safety net - all things that would be good for the birth rate.” I agree. I had my children in Israel, which grants parents 3.5 months of paid parental leave. Although that’s skimpy compared to other OECD countries, it's more than the bupkes afforded by US laws. I don’t know how I would have done without it. I certainly would not have had three children.
Saxbe thinks the solution is to help fathers contribute more. In a 2021 study, Saxbe found that men who took paid paternity leave had an easier adjustment to parenting, less stress, and depression - and so did their partners. “Not only is it good for dads to have time to bond, it’s actually good for moms. We know how high the cost of postpartum depression is, for society and for babies, so in every way a paternity leave is a cost-effective policy.”
Her solution: get more progressive voices into the natalism debate. “If we let the right own the issue, we’re losing a unique opportunity to create bipartisan momentum for policies that could really help families. Because it’s also about, once you have kids, are the parents happy or miserable? Are kids living in poverty? Are families flourishing or not? That is the universe I want to live in.”
Two of my favorite writers collaborating!
If the global Net Reproduciton Rate fell to 0.75 (the level in most wealthy countries) it would take at least a century for the world population to fall back to the level it was in the 1960s, when people started worrying about rapid population growth.