POSITIVE Parenting

The headline read 'Testosterone study shatters stereotype of part-time dads' and the article, courtesy of the University of the West Indies, Mona, delivered on my expectations which it raised (no pun intended). The study by professors Maureen Samms-Vaughn (UWI) and Peter Gray (University of Las Vegas), published in November 2007, finds that men who do not live with their children have lower-than-expected testosterone levels when they are visiting them.

And this reduced level indicates strong emotional engagement.

OK, the correlation between lowered testosterone and fatherhood (made in another section of the article) is a surprise. I guess it is because I instinctively associate testosterone with all things male and, for me, being a father - as different from siring like a horse - is the pinnacle of being a man.

Workplace maltreatment

Guess that shows how much I know. And maybe that's why organisations like to hire men who have families they live with. I always thought that was because they would take more workplace maltreatment and 'bway up' because they needed the money for their families.

The study was done with part-time pops who had a cordial relationship with the mother of the child. Naturally, I got to thinking about the men who have a horrible relationship - if any at all - with the women they once combined with to create the miracle of new life and what this study might imply for them.

And I got to thinking that just maybe, there are not as many 'wutless men' who do not care two hoots about their children as we might think. On the contrary, just maybe they may care too much to go through the emotionally harrowing experience of seeing their children once in a while and then be forced to say goodbye almost as soon as they say hello.

This is not a small step for me, as I thoroughly despise men who choose not to be a part of their children's lives. I never thought of it this way previously, but I should have.

After all, I know of sufficient cases where the mother of a man's child or children is an outright 'zutupek', 'virago', 'czar', 'warboat' and 'tegereg', intent on humiliating the man at every opportunity and hurting him in every conceivable way (and they are very creative when it comes to cruelty). This invariably comes at the point of their unbreakable bond, the child, so the punishment the woman may mete out, coupled with the emotion he feels towards the child, may just be too much for the father.

For him, then, none at all is a better option than part-time. For me, I'll take full-time fatherhood, which is what I'd always conceived it to be. (Note that the article states children in two-parent families have higher academic performance and fewer behavioural problems.)

But I must admit, if my 'glee' levels were tested when our children go visiting for a day or two, chances are it would be sky high. Because even the most enthusiastic of full-time fathers (and mothers) need a break.

Not for too long, though.