Neuroscientist Reveals What Fatherhood Actually Does to Men's Brains | Dr. Becky & Dr. Darby Saxbe

[00:00:00]A new dad walks into a room. He looks the same. Same face, same body, same sweatshirt he's been wearing for 3 days.

[00:00:07]The baby cries and something in him changes. Not metaphorically, not just emotionally, biologically.

[00:00:16]When a woman gets pregnant, her body physically reorganizes itself around the grown baby. Every system adapts. And over the last decade, we've learned that the brain does, too. There's a name for this transformation. matressence and we talk about it a lot on Rattled our podcast for new parents and that science kind of makes intuitive sense. Of course, the person whose body grew the baby would be wired for deep connection with that baby. And the flip side of that assumption, the one that almost nobody questioned, is that fathers just weren't wired that way. Dad brain was just regular brain. Dr. Dr. Darby Saxby spent two decades running brain scans on men to test that. And the same regions that change and morph in new mothers change and morph in new fathers. The more hands-on a dad is, the more pronounced the changes are. Dad brain is real.

[00:01:17]Darby is a psychologist and neuroscientist at USC, one of the only researchers in the world collecting longitudinal brain data on men as they become fathers. Her book is Dad Brain.

[00:01:30]I'm Dr. Becky. This is Good Inside.

[00:01:35]So, Darby, your husband developed a stress related eye condition when you were pregnant with your first kid. And I want to start there because I feel like there's something in this story that is in some ways the premise of a lot of your work or led you to kind of pull a thread. So take us back to that moment.

[00:01:51]>> Yes. So he got this mysterious blurry smudge in the middle of his vision and it was almost like he had this little blind spot when he was trying to see.

[00:02:02]And of course he freaked out as one does when you know your vision is suddenly obscured.

[00:02:07]And um he went to the doctor and the doctor said it's this condition called central saras retinopathy and it's stress related. So what's been going on?

[00:02:17]Have you lost your job? Are you having money trouble? Any big moves? He said no but my wife is expecting a baby. And the doctor said aha tell her to go easy on you. And of course I did not go easy on him. And um the condition went away um after our first child was born and then a few years later I was pregnant with our second and it came back. So we thankfully stopped at two children. So that's as far as he went.

[00:02:48]>> Yeah. Like pull on that a little bit more. What was going on for him or if you know if you knew then what you know now maybe what's your today lens on what was happening.

[00:02:56]>> Yeah definitely. So, you know, when you're getting ready to have a new baby, I think culturally we see this as this joyful event. You must be celebrating.

[00:03:05]You must be thrilled. But I think for both moms and dads who are expecting a new kid, there's also a lot of stress.

[00:03:12]There's a lot of uncertainty. People start to worry about money. They're worrying about where they're going to live. And so he I think was much more concerned about all these different uncertainties around my pregnancy than even I realized. And I think that was a helpful insight for me that you know we see the visible transformation of motherhood. It's so obvious when a woman is expecting and we have all these cultural rituals kind of centered around that right of passage. But for dads, there's so much that's invisible that's kind of happening under the hood. And he was kind of grappling with all these worries that I hadn't even been aware of >> and they were causing this stress related eye condition.

[00:03:58]>> Now, you had a really interesting experience watching your husband go through this kind of stress related medical condition. But I feel like some of your experience that inspired your work happened earlier than that happened watching your own dad, right? So your parents got divorced, your dad ended up as a primary parent, and you described him going from kind of the father who would, I don't know, be doing his own thing in the study to the parent who was arguably, you know, the most patient present one. So what what happened?

[00:04:28]>> Yeah, that's exactly right. So my dad was this kind of typical checked out 1980s father kind of hiding in the study while my mom was doing all the hard work of getting us into bed. And after my parents got divorced, they negotiated joint custody. So one week gone with our dad, one week gone with our mom. We were switching every Monday. And so all of a sudden, my dad went from, you know, peripheral person in the background to primary parent for four very feral children. And he had to really like figure out how to step up. He did all the cooking, he did all the laundry, he did all the cleaning, he drove us places, he taught me how to drive. And he ultimately became this really steady presence in my teenage years and really in a lot of ways the more patient of my two parents. Both of whom are great thankfully both of of whom are still with us and both of whom have read my book.

[00:05:27]>> So thumbs up hopefully from both of them. But um but I really got to see in real time him going through this transformation from very secondary parent to primary parent and I saw how he it changed him and he derived a lot of meaning and I think a lot of purpose from that transition. Okay. So let's link that to a lot of your work today, right? because at the time when you were noticing those changes in your dad, you weren't doing kind of such deep research, but maybe it was kind of real things in your environment that inspired this research now. So, you scanned father's brains before and after their babies were born. What were you expecting to find? And yeah, like what what surprised you along the way?

[00:06:12]>> Yeah, so you know, they say in psychology research is me search. So we're always like trying to go into the field that we want to figure out. So of course I was studying parents and stress and dads and families and um and so when I was setting up my lab and I wanted to do a neuroiming study, I was really interested in the transition to parenthood. Initially I thought I might scan moms. I could not get ethics board permission to get moms into the scanner.

[00:06:39]And I thought >> dads are fascinating. I should scan dads. And as soon as that light bulb went off, I was like, "Oh, actually dads are so underststudied. There's so much to learn." And so, to be honest, I wasn't totally sure what to expect because there weren't a lot of studies looking longitudinally at how father's brains might change. And you know, the null hypothesis would just be that you wouldn't see any change at all because dads are not undergoing pregnancy or breastfeeding or any of the big reproductive transitions that fire up the hormones. And um about halfway through my scan study, this really big landmark paper came out in Spain that looked at mother's brains and how they were remodeling across the transition to motherhood and found that actually moms were losing gray matter volume, which I always say this, it sounds bad. It's probably a good thing because it's the streamlining that is making the brain work more efficiently and the pathways that are are where volume um is getting reduced are kind of what we would consider to be mentalizing network like empathetic social brain pathways that are getting a lot of exercise in early parenthood and so we're sort of developing faster more efficient connections. So, I was so excited. I saw this study. I hopped on a plane. I went to Spain and I collaborated with the research team and we pulled their sample of dads who were partners of the women in that motherhood brain study with my sample from USC. And we found that the dads were also losing gray matter volume in some of the same regions. And that was super exciting because it suggested that there's something about brain remodeling that is not specific to one gender and it's not solely something that shows up in mothers.

[00:08:35]>> Okay. So, break that down for me again.

[00:08:37]You went past it, but I want you to say it again because I want to fully understand it. So, you said it sounds bad when you lose gray matter, but what what's what's your understanding of what's really happening at that time?

[00:08:47]Say it again.

[00:08:48]>> Yeah. So when we parent, we have to do a lot of really hard cognitive work to try to figure out what is going on inside this little person who cannot communicate clearly with us. And we're recruiting what's called the mentalizing network, which kind of comes online when we think about other people's minds and intentions. And so where we see the most change in the mothering brain is in that network. And what is happening is we're losing volume which reflects that we're streamlining and we're becoming more efficient because we're getting so much practice along those pathways. And you know we also see the brain loses volume in early childhood as kids sort of start to learn and get ready for school. It's like we're pruning and we're consolidating and we're developing sort of more fastworking pathways. kind of like the difference between a bunch of little dirt roads that are going off in all kinds of directions and like a super highway.

[00:09:49]>> Super highway. Okay. So, when you say mentalizing, right, I I is that kind of the process when we have a baby of like what's what's going on for them and I wonder why they're crying and I wonder why they're whining in that way. Oh, maybe they're they're trying to figure out how to move and how to crawl and that's so hard. And I is that kind of my understanding of mentalizing is it's the process of kind of trying to think through understand how someone else's mind works. Is that is that right?

[00:10:15]>> Yeah, that's exactly right. And I think that's one of the things that makes us a skilled parent, right? Is that ability to kind of intuit it and then problem solve to comfort someone who doesn't share our consciousness, right? And it's like if you think about when a baby cries, all the things that your brain has to do in a split second of like why are they crying? Okay, I changed them an hour ago. When did they last eat? How well did they sleep? Is there something sticking into their diaper? Right? Like there just so many things that we have to rule out and we have to problem solve and we might have to experiment, try different strategies to soo them. And then when we've got them calmed down, we have to enjoy that interaction enough that we're willing to re-engage with it, right? Because babies require constant care. Let me ask you a question.

[00:11:12]Something I hear from new moms a lot is I feel like I'm one step ahead of, you know, of my husband. Like I hear I hear the cry first. I go to the baby first.

[00:11:24]Or, you know, I'm faster at reading cues. Is is there any reality to that based on your work? Is that is that just a frustration a lot of people, you know, kind of share? But yeah, what what do you see? What do you see around that?

[00:11:38]>> Yeah, I think this is a really common complaint and it can kind of drive a wedge between couples in early parenthood. Like in a lot of ways, if it's been a biological pregnancy, mom just has this huge head start. Like she already feels a bond with the baby. if she's breastfeeding, she has this perfect way to soothe the baby. And I think a lot of dads just feel very left out of that just really close relationship.

[00:12:06]And um and you know, that can lead to frustration. You know, it can lead to dad feeling like I don't know what to do. I'm useless. It can also lead to mom feeling like why am I always the one who's, you know, doing the default caregiving work? And I think it's just one of those things that takes a lot of communication and it's helpful if couples kind of anticipate that this might happen. One thing I kind of argue in my book is that for a lot of dads, they feel like they come into their own as parents when the kid is a little older and they feel like they can take them on excursions, you know, do more activities. And so it's like dads may really shine at kind of different stages along the parenting journey. And you don't necessarily want to plant these ideas within couples that, you know, mom's the good parent and dad is useless, right? You kind of want to give dad a lot of opportunities and a lot of windows to really show up as the best parent that he can be. I also think you found, tell me if this is right, that the more direct care you have as a father with your baby, the more your brain changes, right? Which I think about this idea of like, uh, just am I wired for it? I'm not wired for that stage. I'm not good at that stage. But it it seems like Tom, this is right, Darby, that just like so many other things in life, the more time you put in when it does feel awkward and unnatural, right? Like all new things do, the more my brain will adapt along the way. Is that true? Yeah, that's exactly right.

[00:13:38]I, you know, I say great parents are made, not born. You know, we might think that we just know what to do and that maybe moms are wired to have this instinct that we'll just tell them exactly what the baby needs. And it's really about the practice and it's about the motivation. It's like when dads want to engage and when they show up consistently, they build that brain circuitry that makes them more responsive and more sensitive as parents. So, you know, that's why I think we need to think about the policy that's giving dads opportunities to spend time with his baby. We want to think about how to empower couples so that dad can build his confidence and his confidence because the brain will show up if the dad is really participating.

[00:14:28]>> Now, shift with me to kind of the period after you have a baby when maybe some fathers are actually having a really hard time, >> right? They're having a hard time. Um, we know depression can be very real for new fathers, right? Maybe somewhere between 10 and 25% of new fathers feel this. Again, separating this out from what we know is kind of a high maternal postpartum depression rate as well. Um, what what's going on for new fathers, you know, with their mood after what might be underlying kind of the difficulty transitioning?

[00:15:01]>> Yeah. So we know the transition to fatherhood is a risky period for depression. So new dads report depressive symptoms at about twice the rate of men in the general population.

[00:15:16]And you know, if you think about what are the risk factors for a mom, it's brain changes, hormonal changes, relationship changes, sleep disturbance, wrestling with sense of identity, sense of self, and a lot of those overlap for dads. So, they're also experiencing neurobiological change. They're also having their sleep disrupted. They're also grappling with who I am. and you know, am I cut out to be a parent? Um, and and dads might also feel this additional kind of breadwinner pressure because we society expect men to be income earners and so having a baby can be expensive and you know that can also prompt a lot of stress and worry for dads. So >> the risk factors are there and and you know we see it in the data that dads do have this increased prevalence.

[00:16:14]Does it look different in dads than in mom's?

[00:16:17]>> Yeah, and that's a really important point because I think postpartum depression often doesn't get recognized in dads because it doesn't show up in exactly the same way. So, you know, instead of crying, instead of tears, we might see irritability, um, dad's withdrawing, dad's not wanting to hold the baby or spend time with the baby. you know, it can even turn into hyperfocus at work. So, dads are at the office all hours of the night and, you know, aren't as engaged in the new family. Like, those are all ways that depression can manifest that can easily be missed.

[00:16:56]>> Yeah. And I'm also just thinking that, you know, the withdrawal to an area of life where you feel competent, >> right? Um, in some ways gives us insight. I I think dads, the dads I talk to, they really want to feel competent at home. And they don't they're like, "I don't really know. I feel awkward even holding my baby. I mean, this is the first baby I ever held, right? Or I don't really know how to diaper. I don't know how to swaddle." Now, let me just put it out there. I know a lot of women, too, who say, "Uh, yeah, this is the first baby I held. First baby I diapered, first baby I swaddled, and I'm the one figuring it out 100%." Right?

[00:17:31]sometimes that withdrawal in the workplace, I just wonder if it's a new dad's way of saying it's really hard for me to be in an environment where I I don't know what to do. And I think if we look at it with with that lens, um it's a little easier to invite to invite someone in and and also to demand, okay, this is our child. We both need to become involved. We both can learn. We both can fumble. We both can, you know, do do this stuff awkwardly.

[00:17:57]>> Yeah, I think that is exactly right.

[00:17:59]That's such an important point that you know it's scary when you're not sure what to do and the stakes feel really high like this is this little baby and you don't want to make a mistake. And it's also a really important point that you just made that for a lot of parents the first baby they they've held is their own cuz that's just so unique in our human history. You know, like we evolved in these communities where there was a lot of intergenerational care.

[00:18:31]There was a lot of community care. Like we are designed to parent, you know, it's called alo parenting. Like we are it's called cooperative breeders. Like we're supposed to be helping each other out and instead we're in these very isolated nuclear families where we just don't give as much experience with baby and child care. And so I think it's it can be a huge shock for both mom and for dads to just be like, how does this little creature even operate? You know, I don't know what to expect. We don't have that intergenerational wisdom. And I think for men who we really socialize to expect to be good at things, be competent, be making money, you know, be striving and achieving, it is really hard to admit that they're not good at this.

[00:19:22]>> Yeah. And I think you're exactly right.

[00:19:24]It just needs to be a conversation like neither of us know what we're doing and that's why we're going to practice.

[00:19:30]>> Looking back now on what might have been happening with your dad, what was going on for him, you think in that time he was thrust into this role of primary parent for the days he had you? What was going on in his brain? Yeah. What was happening from a neuroscience perspective?

[00:19:44]>> Yeah. I mean, I think it was really hard for him at first to just be like, I don't know what I'm doing. and I have to suddenly be in charge of all these kids.

[00:19:55]And and then I think through embracing it, he actually started enjoying a lot of it. Like I write about this in the book, but we had these routines like every Monday night we'd go pick out a movie at the video rental store. Every Friday night we'd go to friendlies and we'd get Sundays, you know. Um he would take us to church on Sundays and he sang in the choir. So, we had these things that we did together as a family. And he wrote me this letter that I got as an adult in which he said like the divorce was one of the hardest things I've ever experienced and the thing that kept me going was being a parent. It was like the thing that made me want to put one foot in front of the other. And I have to say like I was so touched and also surprised cuz I was like we were such brats like you know he's like alone in our small town with these kids but I think he felt like it just gave him this level of meaning and that he ended up loving it. What stands out to me about that is is something that I I think is really true for anything we really throw ourselves into, which is it always feels hard at first. It always feels awkward.

[00:21:13]It always is met with resistance. Like you said, you were being brats. I don't know. Or part of you was also adjusting to this divorce and also adjusting to like, hey, you've always been in the study. Like, I don't really know this guy. Who is he? Is this guy going to stay? Are you always going to be patient? Are you always going to be involved? Are you going to go back and retreat? We all have reactions to new things. And I think about the father listening who feels hopeful like, "Okay, it's not too late. Darby's dad kind of changed it. Okay, the awkwardness maybe isn't a sign I'm doing it wrong. Maybe it's a sign I'm doing it new." And that's how, you know, new things feel.

[00:21:48]Um, and I just think all of those signs, the push back, the gh, this is hard, gh this feels awkward. I think to know that that is all part of a journey that leads to what your dad said. Like this is actually what led me to keep going. This is what became the most meaningful part of my life. Um I I see about how hopeful that is for the for the dad listening.

[00:22:10]>> Yeah. I love the way you put that and it's like men can do hard things, right?

[00:22:15]Like we grow when we do hard things. And I think it's it's when you're sort of brave enough to try doing something that's scary that feels daunting that you kind of reap the greatest rewards.

[00:22:30]And I think when people feel like they're parenting and they're really giving their best, there's an honor in that and there's a pride in that that I think we can celebrate for both moms and for dads. Like >> I think we we we undervalue I think a lot of like the hard work that goes into parenting and the stress that parents are under. And I think if you think about parents as like our most precious natural resource, right? Like is there anything more important >> than raising the next generation of humans? It's like this is what life is about more than making money or having the perfect body fat percentage or you know anything else that we can strive to do.

[00:23:15]>> This is legacy, right?

[00:23:17]>> Yeah.

[00:23:17]>> It's literally building the future.

[00:23:19]Yeah.

[00:23:20]>> What else do you want to leave a dad with? A dad who's listening. Oh, my brain changes, too. Oh, that's why things feel awkward. Oh, I can also lean in and learn these skills. What else do you want to say to him?

[00:23:30]>> Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think building confidence through practice, through repetition is, you know, the project of parenting and it's also kind of just the project of of growing as a person when we tackle any new challenge. And you know what the research shows us is there's nothing about motherhood that means you're innately wired to care. It's like we don't just have a maternal brain, we have a parental brain. And >> men can build that too.

[00:24:02]>> And you know, not every man is gonna be the world's greatest dad.

[00:24:07]>> But what makes us human is that we have this capacity to care and to be flexible and to be adaptive and to build brains that, you know, fit to match the challenges that we're undertaking. So, you know, I think if dads are feeling nervous or uncertain or like they're not good at it, then, you know, the best thing they can do is try. And it's actually in the trying that you kind of show up. And I think your kids can see how hard you're trying and that's what they're going to remember more than you being a perfect parent, right? Like there's no such thing as a perfect mother or a perfect father.

[00:24:46]>> I've never met them. Never met them.

[00:24:48]>> They don't exist. And there's just the parent that tries and there's the parent that shows up. There's the parent that is consistent.

[00:24:56]>> And I think that's what really counts for kids.

[00:24:59]>> I want to end with some rapid fire. You ready?

[00:25:02]>> Yeah.

[00:25:02]>> Okay. What is something you wish someone had said to your dad when he was in the thick of adjusting to solo parenting?

[00:25:10]>> Oh, wow. I I mean, I think just like keep going, keep putting one foot in front of the other. And also, um, when your kids sleep late and don't wake up for church cuz they, uh, watch too much TV, maybe don't unplug the TV and throw it out the window.

[00:25:25]>> Although that did work. We did stop watching TV after the TV went out the window.

[00:25:30]>> Short-term effective, maybe not, you know, the best long-term impact, right?

[00:25:33]These are the the hard decisions we have. Um, okay. What do you think is a I don't know a mistake or a misreading or a misunderstanding um we make about new dads?

[00:25:47]>> Yeah. I mean I think when we see that dads are withdrawn or they're not participating fully, I think we can we can sort of assume that they are they're bad dads or that they don't care. And you and I have talked about this already a little bit, but it might not be that they're bad people or that they don't care or that they don't want to be there for their kids. It could just be that they're helpless and they're confused and they're not sure where to start. So I think like extending grace and compassion then of course like you know and men also have to extend grace and compassion cuz their partner is going to look different and act different from maybe what they're used to. I just like there, you know, I talk a lot about the least generous interpretation we can have of someone's behavior, which is most natural to all of us. Like you see your partner pulling away. The least generous interpretation is they don't care. They don't even want to be involved. They they don't even they're not bothered by the fact that I'm doing 99% of the work here. But maybe the MGI, the most generous interpretation is what if my partner doesn't know where to start?

[00:26:52]>> And so they feel kind of incompetent.

[00:26:55]And maybe when they feel incompetent, even predating our marriage, their defense is to kind of pull away, right?

[00:27:03]Again, it's not about saying it's okay.

[00:27:06]It's not about permissiveness. But does that framework shift? Would that actually help me intervene in a way that I'm going to be more likely to get what I want cuz I'll probably say something very different, you know, to my partner, whether it's the first interpretation and I'd pull away myself or say, "Ah, you don't even care about this child.

[00:27:22]You don't care about me." which probably defokes provokes defensiveness. And I think about the second interpretation, maybe I'd be more likely to say, "Hey, this is so new for both of us." I don't know about for you, but I know it can be hard to know where to start with diapering or with learning the schedule or with washing the bottles. Uh, is that going on for you? Because if it is, I think that's very workable between the two of us, right? Then I could just see that being a lot more productive.

[00:27:48]>> Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, I mean we know the transition to parenthood is such a big risk factor for couple relationship conflict and distress and I think a lot of it is around these conversations.

[00:28:02]>> Okay, last question. Um, what is something fatherhood does for men that we don't talk about or celebrate?

[00:28:10]>> Yeah, there is actually this fascinating emerging new research literature suggesting that parenthood can make the brain look younger. So there are these big studies from the UK bio bank. It's this repository of tens of thousands of brain scans and um taken from people in mid middle age to late life. And they find that when people have more children, they have markers of a younger looking brain. So if you adjust their brain age from the scans against their chronological age, they actually just look like they have younger brains. It's true for both moms and for dads. So it tells us it's not just about pregnancy hormones. It's not just about birth and breastfeeding. It's really about the experience of having been a parent. It seems to be neuroprotective and my hunch is it's probably reflecting the social integration that we get, you know, when we're invested in our family relationships and that can keep us healthier in old age. Wow. Did you hear that people? You might feel like you're older in every way, but your brain is a little younger. Anything that we do that's new always feels awkward. And I know I said that earlier today, but I really want to end on that because our brain, our body has a tendency to interpret awkward as wrong.

[00:29:36]Or maybe a lot of us, and this is a good moment to reflect, kind of respond to awkwardness with avoidance and withdrawal. That was awkward. So, I'm just going to move to a part of my life that feels easier and more natural.

[00:29:49]Anything we do that's easy or natural is just something we've practiced or probably generations before us practiced. And so if we're going to do anything differently, and maybe a lot of dads would honestly say being really involved as a father, doing that playtime on the floor, holding my baby, changing diapers, being involved in emotional conversations, anyone who would say, "Yeah, I'm probably the first dad in a long lineage to do that." I just want you to know that that awkwardness is not a sign you're doing something wrong. It's a sign you're doing something new, something that every generation after you is going to benefit from. They're going to have the privilege of that feeling natural and normal because you took on that burden of pushing through it when it felt awkward. Let's end the way we always do.

[00:30:36]Place your feet on the ground. Place a hand on your heart.

[00:30:41]And let's remind ourselves even as we struggle on the outside, we remain good inside.

[00:30:51]I'll see you soon.