Reacción a "Study looks at men's problems with fatherhood due to lack of information and emotional support"

This article examines the experience of fatherhood from the perspective of fathers, a topic that, according to the authors, has been largely neglected in research. Specifically, it examines the transition to fatherhood and its impact on fathers' mental health and emotional and social well-being, as well as their perception of accompaniment in the perinatal period. Importantly, the study does not use primary data, but is a meta-analysis based on the findings of 37 academic articles, from which it synthesises the main conclusions. This implies that the article is not based on a statistically representative sample of fathers, but collects some of the narratives expressed by male interviewees, which are not representative of fathers as a whole in their respective countries. The authors point out that in the studies analysed, the profile of the British male, white, highly educated and over 25 years of age, predominates.

In my opinion, this study does not allow generalisations such as ‘men tend to have difficulties in the transition to fatherhood’ because they do not have a representative sample of fathers and the fathers analysed correspond to biased samples. However, interesting narratives emerge from this study, such as the recurrent complaint of fathers about feeling excluded from childbirth classes and support for pregnant women. However, the results of this meta-study, which highlight fathers' distress in the first year and their difficulties in bonding, need to be understood in a broader context, such as the significant gender differences in the parental leave system. In the case of the UK, for example, working mothers are entitled to 52 weeks of maternity leave, while fathers have only one or two weeks of paternity leave. The system thus establishes a social norm whereby the mother becomes the primary caregiver in early childhood. The study also fails to provide a contextual analysis of structural gender inequalities in the labour market, which would facilitate a deeper understanding of the distance created in couples by the arrival of children.