Dad Brain

The New Science of Fatherhood and How it Shapes Men's Lives

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A groundbreaking exploration of how fatherhood transforms men’s brains, bodies, health, skills and relationships - showing that men are wired to participate in care, just as women are.

In recent years men’s attitudes to fatherhood have changed dramatically. But only now are we learning how profoundly fatherhood changes men’s brains and biology – and the effects these changes have on their health, skills, relationships and sense of purpose. In Dad Brain, one of the world’s leading researchers of fatherhood, Darby Saxbe, provides a captivating account of this new science, revealing that:

• Fathers’ brains shrink and their testosterone drops
• Fathers undergo a host of hormonal changes once thought only to affect women
• Fathers can suffer post-partum depression but enjoy better long-term health
• Fathers’ style of play makes their kids more resilient
• Dads who do more housework are generally happier

Above all, Dad Brain shows that these are all crucial adaptations that enable better parenting but they only come online when fathers invest time into parenthood: the more they do, the more they change for the better. Ultimately it shows a good father is not something you are, it is something you become.

Darby Saxbe’s deeply researched and entertaining book fills a crucial gap in our understanding . . . with a refreshing new take on fatherhood through the lens of neurology and hormones . . . a call to appreciate fathers and to bust the stereotypes of fathers as clueless or uncaring . . . Ultimately, [Saxbe’s] cause is not just to explain the new science of the Dad brain: she also urges us to think more broadly about masculinity
Camilla Cavendish, Financial Times

This is the difference that is at the core of Saxbe’s fascinating book. Motherhood is obligatory. You can’t escape a kid that is inside you. Fatherhood, though? It is “facultative”. It’s “an optional but very useful adaptation”. And when you choose that option, when you eschew the sports car and start listening to the contractions again, your body responds in more subtle — but no less significant — ways. That day, in a biological as well as psychological sense, [you] become a dad
Tom Whipple, The Times

About Darby Saxbe

Darby Saxbe is a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Southern California who has conducted one of the world’s only longitudinal studies on men’s brains as they become fathers. A former Fulbright fellow, she has published over eighty scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals, written for the New York Times and Scientific American and has earned awards from the American Psychological Association and the Society for Research in Child Development.

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