As previously documented in these missives, after my second child was born, I fell apart. I didn’t want to be around family or friends. All the joy had been sucked out of my life. It took me months to call it what it was: depression. When I looked for answers, I found none.
Because no one was asking how dads were doing.
I didn’t know then what I know now: my life wasn’t just going through a fundamental shift—my body was, too. My hormones were changing. My brain was reshaping itself around my son. And nobody told me this because, back in the hazy days of 2019, no one was asking those questions.
Thankfully, things are changing. Researchers are finally putting dads under the microscope and into the MRI machine. What they’re finding would have helped me make sense of those early months, and could help the millions of men who become dads every year.
Earlier this month, I spoke with one of the researchers leading that charge. Darby Saxbe is a professor of psychology at the University of Southern California and the author of Dad Brain: The New Science of Fatherhood and How It Shapes Men’s Lives. Darby has spent years studying dads’ brains and the changes that happen when we begin caring for the tiny humans we’ve invited into our lives. We’ll get into why that shrinking brain is really a renovation, why the research says that dad bod is for the best, and why you and your partner sink or swim together.
This season of The New Fatherhood is presented by Matic. Matic was founded by two fathers who love technology and wanted to spend less time cleaning the house and more time playing with their kids. That’s about as on-brand for this newsletter as it gets. It’s a floor-cleaning robot that vacuums and mops on its own, builds a 3D map of your house using onboard cameras, and keeps all that data on the device rather than in the cloud. WIRED gave it a 10/10, the only perfect score their reviewer had given in over a decade. Readers of The New Fatherhood get a free annual bag pass; go to maticrobots.com/fatherhood and take vacuuming and mopping off your chore list.
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Where to Find Darby Saxbe
Darby’s book Dad Brain: The New Science of Fatherhood and How It Shapes Men’s Lives
Episode References
The New Fatherhood Therapy Fund
The New Fatherhood Mental Health Checkpoint—everything I’ve written about dads’ mental health can be found here
Olly Murs’ before-and-after photos—the viral moment that proved the dad bod has fans
The 7 Up series—the British longitudinal documentary that’s just wrapped at 70, and the inspiration for Darby’s seven-year follow-up study
Boyhood—Richard Linklater’s twelve-years-in-the-making film
The Aka and Kipsigis tribes—how fatherhood varies by culture
Timestamps
0:00 — Intro
2:38 — The daughter of a divorced dad
8:32 — A shrinking, more efficient brain
10:05 — Animal dads
14:06 — Culture shapes fatherhood
20:32 — Dad bods
23:43 — Myth: Testosterone equals masculinity
33:11 — Diaper changes across the generations
36:36 — GenZ dads, neo-trad dads
41:39 — Maternal gatekeeping and weaponized incompetence
47:00 — Adolescence is dad’s time to shine
47:45 — Depression and anxiety, mental health, is real for dads
Credits
Host: Kevin Maguire
Managing Producer: Elizabeth Van Brocklin
Sound Editor: Sam Williams
Theme Music: SOHN
