My buddy and me hanging out at the park
Being an involved dad is tough work and hilarious fun. It’s sleepless nights and joyful days. It’s both hard work and fun work.
Being an involved dad is natural for some guys, unnatural for others, and just plain confusing for many. But being there for your children day in and day out has an incredibly positive effect on your kids’ development and well-being.
Here’s five very good reasons why you need to be an involved father.
#1: Your kids will be smarter.
Dads have a lot to offer when it comes to their kids’ future.
A 2008 University of Newcastle study demonstrated that fathers who spend quality time with their children have higher IQs and are more socially upwardly mobile, with the differences detectable even when the kids are in their early 40’s.
This study notes that it is not enough for dads to simply hang around the house. Actual time needs to be invested for this to count.
This makes intuitive sense to me. From the people I’ve known in my own life, those who did the best in life came from intact, functional families.
#2: Your kids may even live longer if you’re around (and not imprisoned, divorced, or dead).
Fatherly involvement might even increase how long a child lives.
A 2017 Princeton study in molecular biology has linked the absence of a father with the length of a child’s telomeres, the end caps of chromosomes. Telomere strands shrink with age, and are thought to be protective of DNA.
The absence of a father in the household due to death, divorce, or imprisonment is detrimental to telomere length.
Kids who have lost their father between birth and 9 years of age had significantly shorter telomeres, with an average reduction of 14% compared with children who still had their fathers.
This is completely mind-blowing. If a dad checks out of his kid’s life, it may actually decrease the child’s lifespan. The trauma of losing a father is actually written into a child’s DNA.
This sort of result should instill in every dad the absolute need to be present in the household, to maintain a good marriage, to make triple-sure that the family is financially stable, and to not do anything stupid like rob a bank.
When it comes to, uh, dying, you can’t always avoid it when life throws you a randomly-aimed lethal dagger. That being said, at least you can decrease the chances of cancer, being violently murdered, or getting hit by a bus by eating your veggies, not being a jackass to others, and looking both ways before crossing the street.
#3: Your kids will get in far less trouble with you around all the time.
There are tons of studies linking fatherlessness with juvenile crime, teenage pregnancy, and failing grades. I’m not going to cite any of them here. You can Google “fatherlessness” + “some-negative-outcome” and read all about it.
Rather, here’s some obvious points on how being an involved dad can improve your kid’s life and keep her out of trouble.
- You help your kid with his homework, which leads to: better grades, higher education, and good socio-economic status.
- You spot negative behaviors and nip them in the bud, which leads to: well-behaved young adults who would never even think about joining a gang or committing a crime.
- You provide a strong, mature example to your kids of how an adult should act, which leads to: socially mature adults who can navigate through this crazy world.
- You have a good marriage with your wife, which leads to: a much higher probability of marital success for your adult child.
- You eat dinner at the dinner table every night, which leads to: your kid developing life-long healthy eating habits (both in the nutritional and social sense).
Being around helps keep your kid out of trouble. It also keeps your kid on an upward trajectory.
#4: You’ll live longer.
Believe it or not, your kids will help you live a longer life. Yes, those rambunctious little tykes who give you stress migraines can actually extend your life.
A 2017 study published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health demonstrated that parents live longer than childless individuals.
Researchers examined the life spans of 1.4 million people between 1911 and 1925 in Sweden, as well as whether or not they had children.
They found that at the age of 60, fathers gained two years of life expectancy compared with childless men. Mothers gained 1.5 years of life expectancy by virtue of having at least one child.
The authors may have merely found a correlation between having children and life expectancy—i.e. perhaps more fit humans are more likely to have children.
They do posit a possible causative factor in their results. It may be that older parents benefit from social support from their adult children, which may be particularly important when they are struck by an ailment.
It may also be that just having kids around leads to a healthier lifestyle. I know that I get more cardio as a dad chasing my little daughter around the house. I’m also more keen on keeping healthy as I know that falling sick is a detriment to my family. And I’m less stressed because at the end of each day I get anxiety-dissolving hugs from my little one.
Yeah, I can totally see how kids can extend my own life!
#5: You’ll have someone to hold your hand as they wheel you into surgery.
You can’t count on anyone but family as you get older.
Here’s a hard truth in life: No one outside of your immediate family will give a fuck about you when you’re in trouble.
The more serious trouble you are in, the less that non-family people will give a fuck about you—it’s an inverse relationship.
Here’s another hard truth: Eventually, something out there is going to curb-stomp the crap out of you. That’s when you need your family.
If you have some health thing that you have to deal with, it’s your family that will be there as you go to doctor’s appointments, to the ER, or as they wheel you into surgery.
If you have some tragedy in your life, then it’s your family that will sit for hours with you at the funeral home soaking up your tears and snot with a gross, over-used hanky.
It’s at those times in your life you really need someone there with you that your family will step in to support you.
This is of course, reciprocal. It is rewarding to support your family members whenever they are dealing with a thing that is super difficult for them to handle alone.
You can’t count on anyone but family, and your family can’t count on anyone but you.
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Don’t have enough spare time to be an involved dad? You need this book. Get your valuable spare time back so that you can spend it on the people who matter most to you.