Fatherhood: Attachment & Authenticity with Dr. Michael Lamb
What makes a “good dad?” How has the pandemic impacted fatherhood? And what pandemic-driven changes should we strive to keep moving forward?
In this episode, our hosts, Dr. Amanda Zelechoski and Dr. Lindsay Malloy, are joined by Dr. Michael Lamb, emeritus professor at the University of Cambridge, renowned developmental psychologist, and one of the world’s leading experts in fatherhood.
They discuss the trust and reliability children need from their parents, what we can learn from other cultures about fatherhood, and why your child needs you to keep being your authentic self.
In this episode about fatherhood and attachment:
What does “attachment” refer to in child psychology?
What do we now know about fathers in regards to attachment?
What makes a “good” dad? Are there universal qualities or characteristics?
What about LGBTQ families where perhaps neither partner identifies as male or both partners identify as male?
How has the pandemic changed the lives of fathers? Will any of these changes be long lasting?
What sorts of policy changes would help families specifically in terms of fathers and fatherhood coming out of the pandemic?
Bite-Sized Excerpts from this Episode
Trust & Reliability: Forming a Strong Connection with Your Child
What makes a "good" father?
The Impact of the Pandemic on Fathers
How Policy Changes Can Support Families Beyond the Pandemic
It's Okay to Parent Differently
You Are Your Child's Safe Haven
Meet Our Guest Expert
Dr. Michael E. Lamb
Michael E. Lamb is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Cambridge. He has long focused on the importance of child-parent relationships in diverse family and childcare contexts and on factors that enhance or diminish children’s capacities as witnesses, especially of abuse. That work has helped shape the law and practice in relation to post-divorce relationships between children and parents; fostering, adoption, and parenting by LGBTQ+ adults; developmentally appropriate forensic interview techniques; and cross-examination of young victims and witnesses. His research has earned multiple awards, including from the American Psychological Association, Association for Psychological Science, and the Society for Research in Child Development, as well as honorary degrees from the Universities of Goteborg, East Anglia, Abertay, and Montreal. He currently edits the APA journal Psychology, Public Policy, and Law.
Full Audio Transcript
[THEME MUSIC UNDER INTRO]
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Can you say... “This is Dr. Amanda Zelechoski.”
Child 1: Why do we have to?
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Just try it!
Child 1: I can't.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Deep breath.
Child 2: [Laughter] This is Dr. Amanda Zelechoski.
Child 3: [Yelling] Lindsay Malloy! Ah!
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: Wait, say Doctor Lindsay Malloy.
Child 3: [Yelling] Dr. Lindsay Malloy!
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: [Laughing] No, come back!
Child 4: This is Dr. Lindsay Malloy.
Child 2: Welcome to the [unintelligible] Parenting Podcast (laugher).
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: [Laughter].
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: One more time.
Child 4: And then after that can I have a candy?
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: [Laughing] No.
Child 4: Please, Mommy!
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: Okay, ready?
Child 4: The Pandemic Parenting Podcast!
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: Excellent!
[MUSIC ENDS]
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Welcome to the Pandemic Parenting Podcast. I'm Dr. Amanda Zelechoski.
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: And I'm Dr. Lindsay Malloy. We are two psychologists, scholars, and moms, and together we co-founded Pandemic Parenting.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: We're here to share science-based research and help all who care for kids navigate this challenging time together.
[MUSIC INTERLUDE]
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Please note that the information contained in this podcast and on the Pandemic Parenting website are intended for educational purposes only. Nothing discussed in this podcast or provided on the website are intended to be a substitute for professional psychological advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
No doctor-patient relationship is formed between the hosts or guests of this podcast and listeners. If you need the qualified advice of a mental health or medical provider, we encourage you to seek one in your area.
[MUSIC ENDS]
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: In this episode, we're discussing all kinds of things, including attachment to what kids need from parents, but especially from fathers. What makes a good dad? What can we learn from other cultures about being a father? How has the pandemic impacted fatherhood, and maybe what changes should we keep moving forward? And why do your kids need you to keep being you?
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: Joining us for this conversation is Professor Michael Lamb, emeritus professor at the University of Cambridge, renowned developmental psychologist, and one of the world-leading experts in fatherhood.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Share this episode with all the dads you know and love, and let us know any thoughts or questions you have on this topic. By tweeting us @pandemicparent or by sending a message through our website www.pandemic-parent.org.
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: Alright, let's get into our conversation. Welcome, Professor Michael Lamb. I'm so excited to have you join us today. I was lucky enough to do my postdoc with Michael many years ago. Now over ten years ago, which is hard to believe at the University of Cambridge, which were some of the best years of my life for sure. And, so I got to see you first hand as a mentor and as a father as I got to know your family, and so it's really great to have you here to talk about attachment and fatherhood today. So, welcome.
Dr. Michael Lamb: Thanks so much, Lindsay. Yeah, it's amazing to think that it's over a decade, yeah?
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: I know it's terrifying too. So OK, so I guess.
Dr. Michael Lamb: How do we all still look young?
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: Yeah, for sure. Except for the pandemic that has aged me about, you know, ten years, I think in one, but it's been rough. So I think we'll get into some of that and what it's meant for parents. So, let's start out by talking about and defining what we mean in this psychology research when we talk about attachment because I think people have a lot of different ideas about what that means. So, what do we mean in psychology when we talk about attachment?
Dr. Michael Lamb: Well, in psychology, I think we're particularly focused on the relationship between infants and children and those who care for them. So, the focus is very much on the child as the center of this. Obviously, we're talking about relationships with parents, and so they involve at least two people, the child and/or somebody else. But, I think a lot of what's described as attachment more generally really refers to relationships and I think that's a slightly different take on this. What's of greatest interest to us is how these relationships formed early in life and what it is that brings about what turned out to be both very close and very formatively important relationships in early childhood.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Yeah, so when we think about forming those relationships (which we know is really important and they can look different in lots of different ways), what are some things that just in general parents can do to promote their child being securely attached to them?
Dr. Michael Lamb: The crucial thing about attachments is that the underlying dimension is a dimension of trust, and what's critically important over those early months of life is for children to come to trust, to count on, and to know that they can count on adults to respond to their needs and their signals. And it's that growing process of coming to realize that this person these people are there for me when I really need them and you know really need them. When you are four months old it’s not quite the same as really needing them when you're 15 or 35 –it's a much more pressing demand at the end as early ages. But it’s developing a sense of trust and the reliability of those people to be there.
That's critical for the concept of secure attachment. You know when we talk about a secure attachment, we mean a child who essentially believes and trusts that that person is going to be there. When they're needed, less secure relationships or relationships that involve various degrees of uncertainty about the trustworthiness of that person, whether or not they're going to be there at all, or whether they're going to provide the appropriate and needed response, and both of those issues are what leads to insecure attachment. So the critical issue to go back to your question is learning to read your trial signals, understand what the child needs, and provide a timely and appropriate response to those signals.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Yeah, I think I'm just thinking about what you were saying related to trust, and where I see this come up a lot recently in conversations with parents is, you know, when they're frustrated that their child seems to act one way in school? You know, maybe they're very well behaved and compliant. All of those things, and then they get home and sort of completely fall apart. You know? And so the parent doesn't understand what's going on, and that's one of the things like trying to explain that it's because your child feels comfortable with you and trusts you and feels safe. That they can sort of really show you how they're actually feeling, or demonstrate that in the ways you know, depending on their developmental state and age. So, I do think in a lot of ways sometimes that's a sign you know that there is a strong attachment there because to your child you are the safe haven that they can kind of be honest to about how they're really feeling, yeah.
Dr. Michael Lamb: I think that's absolutely true, and while it's particularly marked at the ages and context that you're talking about, the sort of getting home from a stressful or demanding time in child care. That's also true in adolescence that you know kids may act out and show a side of themselves to their parents that they don't in other contexts because these are the relationships that they feel allow them to ventilate and express their emotions and perhaps explore those emotions in safer contexts.
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: When I teach about attachment in my undergraduate classes, one of the questions that I get a lot of times from students is, you know well what happens if you don't have that early in life, like what happens if you don't have parents who are responsive and consistent and sensitive to your needs, maybe you do form an insecure attachment? Is it possible to form secure attachments to others?
Dr. Michael Lamb: Yeah, the answer is clearly yes that kids typically form multiple attachments and that those attachments can be very different in quality depending on the characteristics, that is, the responsiveness, the sensitivity, the reliability of those individuals. It's extremely rare for kids not to form attachments. You know, kids growing up, even in remarkably neglectful, abusive families, do form some kind of attachment. In almost all cases, and as you say, some of those may be insecure in nature, but that doesn't mean that the child can't form other relationships. It probably means that the formation of those relations, the new relationships will be a little bit more difficult. It probably means that the impact of that first uncertainty, lack of trust, is going to initially color the formation of the second relationship, but as these other individuals show their characteristics, show their reliability, show their commitment. Then it becomes possible to form other relationships that care and provide the support and the security that the child needs.
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: Yeah, I think that's always very relieving to students to share that side of it. It's not set in stone, so in thinking about forming multiple attachments, obviously, one of our big focuses this month is on Father's Day with Father's Day on the horizon. And for a long time, fathers were definitely an afterthought in the research; they weren't really discussed much in terms of attachment. The focus was always, for the most part, on moms, and it was just assumed that children's attachments to their fathers were less important. So, I guess now you know, knowing what we know now, what can you tell us about these assumptions and what we know about fathers and the importance of Fatherhood for children and their development.
Dr. Michael Lamb: Well, as you say, we've learned quite a lot over the years, and there are a lot of things that hadn't changed very much when I started studying attachment in the very beginning of the 1970s, the prevailing view was that children were limited to one key attachment relationship. That they might later in life form other relationships, for example, with secondary parents, but that there was even a biologically determined narrowing to one single relationship, and there were a number of studies in the 1970s that, I think, put that belief to bed and made clear that, actually, children formed multiple relationships from the very beginning early in infancy.
See that the typical child is growing up in a two-parent family, including what was the typical arrangement at that time, which was a stay-at-home mother and a Breadwinning father. Even in those contexts, most children formed attachments to at least both of their parents and sometimes to other people as well that could have been a grandparent. They could have been an au pair or some other person who was providing care for that child. Now, having said that, most children formed those relationships, it also seems to be the case that those relationships can differ in terms of their importance for children and the relationships that children form with the person who is primarily responsible for their care. They do seem to be more important if we think about the importance in terms of the formative impact on child development than the other relationships that they form.
Where psychology, as I think, continues to have a problem is its inability to recognize that just because something is less important than another relationship doesn't mean that it's unimportant. We have lots of evidence that you know even for children living in traditional situations where one parent is more responsible for child care than the others nevertheless form two important relationships, at least two important relationships. And in some circumstances such as the one you talked about earlier, where say, the first relationship was insecure and the second relationship is more secure. Then it's especially important to have that second relationship because there is pretty nice evidence today that there is.
But you know, even if the relationship with your primary parent, if I can use that term, is insecure, you are in some sense inoculated from the less positive effects of that relationship by virtue of having a second attachment that is more positive. So it's really important, I think, to understand that having multiple relationships is common. It's typical that those relationships may not be the same in character, and they may not be the same in terms of the level of importance, but that doesn't mean we don't need to consider from a sort of a research point of view that there are multiple impacts. But, also from an understanding the real lives of real children to recognize that there are multiple influences on their lives and multiple people they count on to support them in important ways.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Yeah, which I think is such a relief right when we think about the idea of the village, and we need multiple people in our children's lives to fill different buckets. And, so I think that's it.
Dr. Michael Lamb: We for a long time recognized that the village metaphor, when it first came out, was sort of applied to non-western cultures, and I think we do need to understand that the metaphor really does apply to many of the lives we live, even though they are much more constrained. And, God knows they've been constrained over the last 15 months with many of us, you know, confined in these little bubbles where our children only see their parents and maybe one other chosen person.
It is important to nourish whatever relationships they have. And of course, to recognize that even if they lost 15 months of opportunity to form new relationships, that doesn't mean that they can't and shouldn't and wouldn't benefit from, you know, reestablishing and rekindling relationships with grandparents and other people outside their home now.
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: That's right.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Yeah.
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: Doing that right now, yeah.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Yep! Exactly, I was thinking that, yeah.
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: And it's amazing. I mean, yeah, this– it's been brutal, you know, over the years where we haven't had any sense of a village. If we ever did, you know, had that before. It's just been completely obliterated, and I know that's been really hard for us and for a lot of parents, but one thing that I see—
Dr. Michael Lamb: and I think it's also been really hard for the grandparents and for those other people in many countries. And again, we're thinking of the more affluent cultures where parents with grandparents had been denied the opportunity to see their grandchildren. It's both the children who have suffered. The grandparents have suffered, and the parents have suffered from the lack of access to those alternative sources of care early on.
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: Yeah, yeah. I see a lot of questions. Sometimes in these, you know, online parenting groups –typically mom groups– where parents are worried that their child is forming an attachment to the nanny or the childcare provider or the teacher, and they almost feel like, well, if they're forming this attachment to this other person, then what does that mean about my relationship with my child. And it's good to hear that this is not, you know, it's not pie like there's enough to go around for everybody. And that you know, kids can form these meaningful relationships, and it doesn't detract from your relationship with your child because they've done that.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: That's right, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Michael Lamb: Absolutely not, no.
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Dr. Lindsay Malloy: At Pandemic Parenting, we're committed to sharing our expertise and research in ways that are immediately accessible and useful to families. As part of our efforts to sustain and expand this work, Amanda and I are also available for virtual speaking engagements at your business organization, PTO, and more.
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Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: So, I'm thinking about, you know dads in particular because, as you said, Michael, you know a lot of the research has been focused on that primary attachment with the mother, and you've been such a pioneer in this area. You know, one of the first to really look at attachment in fatherhood and how important that is. And, as part of that, you've done a lot of cross-cultural work on fatherhood and parenting, examining how it looks at different, you know, cultures and content. So, as you've looked across all these contexts, you know what makes a good father. Are there some sort of universal qualities or characteristics that make a good dad?
Dr. Michael Lamb: Yeah, it's an interesting question, and because I think that the more research that we've done in different contexts with both mothers and fathers. The clearer it's become that what makes a good attachment relationship is much the same whether you're talking about mothers or fathers or grandparents or care providers. It's not the distinctive features of motherly behavior or fatherly behavior. It's the ability to read and respond to the child's needs, to provide them with love and care too. Be engaged with them to meet them where they are and to authentically share with them. And, that's where the differences come in.
I think it's important if we're talking about fathers for men to feel that they can be authentically themselves with their children and if– for some men a crucial part of themselves is, say, engagement in sport and activities like that, then it's important for those men to really share those and to be engaged in those aspects of their children's lives because that's what's important to them. And if a man, by contrast, is really not interested in sport and is more interested in literacy or perhaps fine arts, then it's important to share those sorts of activities. So, I think for a long time there was a focus on, you know, the need for fathers to demonstrate masculine behavior and with the mask their behavior and characteristics that they brought to the table.
And I think that put a pressure on some fathers, which was unnecessary because I think what we know is much more important is the authenticity and the ability to share emotions and to be able to show the child who you are, what you are, what you care about, and what makes you passionately in love with that child because ultimately it's that passion and commitment that that's really important in keeping that relationship important.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: There's so many things I was, yeah, just thinking about as you were saying that, in many ways sometimes what I most appreciate about, you know my husband, the father of my kids, is the ways that he pushes back against so many of the stereotypes you know you mentioned that he is happy for them to see him be emotional about things and be tender about things and I'm so grateful in many contexts that they're having that example because it frees them to feel and be whoever they are in whatever context makes sense. But, I think you're right, there's all these expectations of how dads are supposed to be and which buckets they're supposed to fill, and that's hard to push back against in different cultures.
Dr. Michael Lamb: Absolutely, and I think it's important to sort of add and maybe not necessary to add, but I add it anyway. I think they're the same stereotyping demands on women and that other–
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Oh, don't get us started, Michael.
Dr. Michael Lamb: Yeah, that mothers likewise are all sort of told that they have to, you know, only manifest and draw on particular aspects of what makes them special or what makes them unique and to the extent that you are, you know, trying to live up to some standard or stereotype rather than being who you really are and who you want your child to know. I think that's limiting and restricting those relationships too.
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: So, I don't have to try to do the Lego store with my kid, is what you're saying? Because it is painful, painful, but I'm like no, I want to show him that you know you– maybe now you know women can build things and they can enjoy it, but it's just like it's awful for me, but I got through it.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Yeah, well and I think those stereotypes come in too– I don't know– Sometimes is the way and this will get in you know I can get into when we're talking about different family structures, but sometimes in a, you know, heteronormative example where you have, you know, a mom and a dad. What each of their roles are supposed to be with the child, right? And, so, as the mom, I'm supposed to do these things, and as the dad, I'm supposed to do these things, and there isn't one right way to parent kids. They need different things from each of us in different ways, and your different children might need different things from each of you. So, it is that attunement and attachment piece I think we keep coming back to.
Dr. Michael Lamb: Now that's really nicely put, yeah.
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: Yeah, and you've done a lot of work with LGBTIQ+ parents as well and research on parenting in those families. And, so what can you tell us about that?
I sort of, I guess, sort of just briefly like what if neither parent identifies as male, or both parents identify as male, for example?
Dr. Michael Lamb: Again, what's critically important in all families and in all contexts is the sensitivity of the parent's' behavior and their degree of investment in sensitivity to their children, regardless of their sexuality or sexual orientation, regardless of their gender. What's important is the specificity of their behavior and another issue which we haven't really talked about, but is the quality of the relationships between those different attachment figures. Because I think one of the things that I think we underestimated early on in this research was the importance of that relationship-focused very much on the dyadic qualities.
You know how those two parents were relating to the child, but increasingly it's clear that actually the harmoniousness of the total context is also really important for children. So that even if they have good dyadic relationships with parents, the quality of the or, the harmoniousness, the uh, willingness of the multiple adults to get along and support one another is also really important. Perhaps, it is especially important in situations where parents no longer live together. You know? We know that in those situations, kids do better when they have meaningful relationships with both of their parents, and they do better yet when those parents can at least get along where the children are conserved.
Even if they no longer wish to be together, they need to convey to the children that they are both fully committed to that child's well-being and at least share that one commitment in their life. You know, as we approach Father's Day, there's quite a lot of fathers who don't live all the time with their children. And it's important for those to remember that their relationships with their children are still really important. Not only do they need to commit themselves to those relationships, but their partners need to understand them. Mothers of the children need to understand that for the children's needs, it's important to support and maintain those relationships.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Yeah, and I think the pandemic has caused some of those separations even more, too, in terms of if our custody or visitation schedule usually was this way. I mean, all of these added layers of complexity this past year has made those schedules a challenge, so let's talk about the pandemic for a bit. So, I know we may not know this yet, but how you know, just given what you've been observing over the last year related to all the work you've done previously. Like how do you think the pandemic has changed the lives of fathers? And do you think some of those changes will be around for a while?
Dr. Michael Lamb: Yeah, that's a great question. I, I mean, I think it has– this clearly affected the lives of both mothers and fathers. But in quite different ways, and I think it also has been quite different for parents whose line of work made it possible for them to work from home and those who were not able to do that. You know there's been a lot of survey research, particularly in the UK, but also in the US, and somewhat less in Canada showing that one of the key impacts of the pandemic has been to disproportionately affect women is that they have disproportionately had to assume the responsibilities of childcare and homeschooling, and even when they and or their partners were working from home.
So there's been– I think it's very clear that the burden has not been equally shared and that the disproportionate responsibility that existed before has been exacerbated. So that's kind of a– I think the headline finding from what we've seen, I think. If we focus then specifically on fathers, there's been a fair number of fathers– hard to know whether it's a majority, but that's a substantial number where fathers who've been able to work from home have started to become more involved with their children have come to realize all aspects of parenting. A lot of the aspects of parenting that they didn't see before that has given them first.
Some degree of empathy and understanding of their partner's responsibilities hasn't a substantial number and lead those men to change their view of what they should and could and actually do. There's been quite a lot written about this subgroup of fathers, and I suppose the interesting question going forward is whether, now that they've discovered more if you like active involvement in Fatherhood. Are they going to continue with us? I'd like to think that they will because I think for at least those few fathers who've been highlighted in their research. They've sort of seen this as a realization of something that they missed out on and that this will be a more permanent change.
I think there's another large group of all fathers whose response to the pandemic LED them to or force them to work more outside the home because they couldn't be done from home. Perhaps 'cause they had to assume more of the breadwinning responsibilities because a partner was prevented from doing that. For those men, there's been a sense of losing out, and they've become less involved in their children's lives, and I don't know what's going to happen with that group? I suppose– I hope that as they return to two breadwinning families, that there will be a recalibration within the home as well, and that those families will at least return to where they were before.
You know, I–I think we know much less about those, and you know, as always, our surveys tend to elicit much more information from the chattering classes than from people who don't matter like we do go out for our daily work and it's a little unclear what's going to happen in those situations. But the impact is not going to be evenly spread. I think it's going to be quite different for some families, and for the second group of families, there needs to be some kind of dialogue within the family about what will determine where things go in the future, so.
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: Do you think that there are policy changes or sort of bigger? You know societal things that could be done to allow some of the good that has come out of this to be longer-lasting for fathers?
Dr. Michael Lamb: See, well, you know, I think one of the hopes I have is that we'll be more aware of the possibility of working from home, and I was pleased to see this week that the US government has recommended that federal workers be allowed to engage in teleworking more than they were in the past. You know, in my former life, I was a federal worker, and even though my work could be done quite well from home, I was under a lot of pressure to spend that time in an office, uh, when actually, that wasn't the most efficient for my job.
And I learned to compromise by going to a nearby coffee shop where I didn't have the telephone, and I didn't have interruptions 'cause this was the pre-Internet days when they didn't follow you. But you know, there's that would be one of the policies, but things that I would hope for. I would also hope that there will be a continuing willingness to recognize the importance of relationships with both parents and to, you know, increase the opportunities for parents to take parental leave when children are born and especially, this is a long term commitment.
To see people realize that parental leave needs don't end in the early months of life, kids get sick, especially when they go to childcare, especially when they go to school and being able to take time off from work to be home with a sick child isn't absolutely essential policy. You know, if you look at this utilization of childcare in the more civilized countries in Scandinavia, where you actually have these policies, you see at just how much time it's necessary for parents to take off to be parents, long after the first months of life, it's not something that should be limited to infancy.
You know my, my earnest hope is that we will see a much greater recognition of that and realize that you know if a parent knows that they can take their time off to be home with a sick child. They're going to be better workers overall, and they don't do poor quality work. Right? It's much, but you get much better work out of somebody than when they're not worried about what's happening with the child, right?
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Yeah, and if the pandemic doesn't teach us that right, we've had this lengthy period of time for people to show, I am able to work from home. I am able to still be productive and meet my family's needs. I mean, there's a lot of constraints, it it hasn't been pleasant, but I hope that employers like you said, and policymakers can recognize the importance–
Dr. Michael Lamb: Yeah, exactly.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: –of that flexibility, but also, I really agree with the parental leave piece. And just how societal expectations of fathers are, right? Knowing what we know about attachment to science is so clear about how important that is, especially in the first few months of a child's life and ongoing, like you said, you know, so the expectation for dads that you know you'll be back two days later. You know after your child was born and isn't for your child's mother too? Uhm, to have that time right, I just think it's so critical, and I sure hope this time has taught us how important that is.
Dr. Michael Lamb: Well, that– let's hope that's true.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Yeah, so speaking just also of shifting perspectives. You know, I've been thinking a lot about just you know what you said about fathers being home more, how work has changed and what that's meant as far as the types of roles they have in kids lives, you know? So my husband usually travels for his job, so my kids have had this gift for their dad, home for the better part of a year and a half now. And so we've been thinking about how? How do you think the pandemic has changed how children view their father or their relationships?
Dr. Michael Lamb: Well, again, I think it probably, you know, varies a great deal depending upon the nature of the work and the way the pandemic has affected those people you know, I think for many kids as you say has allowed them to get to see their fathers more and in more contexts. And to learn more about their strengths, their limits, their goals, their responsibilities. One would hope in those situations that you know a lot of the people who travel for work will perhaps do more zooming in the future than traveling. As we've learned, you can do more there. In other cases, you know the essential workers.
For people who've had to work outside the home, I think it's going to be a very different kind of a context, and I don't know. I think it's quite hard to predict what will happen in those situations, you know it depends on how well the message is conveyed that a lot of those were necessary and that part of the purpose of not being there was actually to provide economically for the for the family and that those messages you know do depend on there being some kind of coherent agreement about that, the clear message is provided to the children by the various people in their lives that what's happening is important and has been beneficial.
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: What about us moms who've learned through the pandemic? What a better parent the other parent is? How are we supposed to cope with that?
Dr. Michael Lamb: Well, you know it's important to always remember the differences and that children really need to benefit from those differences we all beat ourselves up about the things that we think we don't do well, and it's important to recognize that kids need that diversity and that they recognize those differences in what you're describing, is them getting an opportunity to better know and understand how to manipulate those parents.
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Yes, oh hell on the other parent, this isn't how you did it yesterday. Why is he making us do this?
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: Apparently I don't make the frozen pizza, as well as Daddy, does.
Dr. Michael Lamb: Exactly, you know if that's the worst thing you are doing then…
Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: That's right, that's right exactly. So do you have us as we sort of sign off? Do you have any last kind of message or thoughts you might want to share with parents or Dads specifically right now?
Dr. Michael Lamb: I think the important message is that children benefit when they enjoy you being yourself and that it's really important for parents to share themselves as fully as they can. I think one of the things that many parents have been especially aware of over this last year is just how rapidly kids change and how important it is to seize the moment and make the best of it because we never get to relive those moments. So, do what you can while you can.
[MUSIC INTERLUDE]
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Pandemic Parenting Podcast.
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Dr. Lindsay Malloy: And this podcast isn't all we do, by the way, Pandemic Parenting is a 501(c)3 nonprofit providing free science-based resources for parents and all who care for children while navigating the COVID-19 pandemic.
Learn more about our organization and access our extensive library of webinars, videos, blogs, and more. Visit www.pandemic-parent.org.
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Dr. Amanda Zelechoski: Lindsay and I donate our time to this podcast, but we do have an incredible team working behind the scenes to make this all happen. If you'd like to support the show beyond leaving your five-star review, visit www.pandemic-parent.org/support and donate.
Dr. Lindsay Malloy: Thanks for listening, and we hope you can join us next time.
[MUSIC ENDS]