London - If your husband isn’t doing his bit when it comes to looking after the little ones, here’s something that might change his ways.
Fathers who carry out a fair share of childcare duties enjoy a better love life and a healthier marriage, a study has found.
Sociologists who studied more than 900 married couples found that those who split the childcare equally had better and more frequent sex. Not only that, but they also had a happier marriage overall.
When women were mostly or wholly responsible for childcare – taking on more than 60 percent – the quality of the relationship and satisfaction with sex tended to be lower, for both husband and wife.
Researcher Daniel Carlson, from Georgia State University in the US, said it showed there was ‘generally little to no downside’ to men doing their fair share of childcare.
‘We conclude that being an engaged father is very important to men. If it weren’t, we wouldn’t see such a high level of satisfaction,’ he said. ‘It suggests that father engagement and sharing childcare with one’s partner is important to both sexes.’
There was one caveat, however. A man taking on nearly all of the childcare burden seemed to set the stage for problems in the bedroom.
In that situation the frequency of sex stayed the same, and wives remained happy with their sex lives – but men were not as satisfied. Both husband and wife, however, said they remained happy with the marriage overall.
Mr Carlson presented his findings at the American Sociological Association’s annual meeting held in Chicago.
He said the study was limited in that it included only heterosexual couples and did not examine who fed or bathed the child, which has traditionally been seen as a mother’s responsibility. Further research would look deeper into the reasons why couples who shared childcare got on better together.
‘We are trying to understand what it is about sharing that couples view so positively,’ he said.
The research comes after another study found that you can have too much of a good thing when it comes to sex.
A team from Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania found that increasing the frequency of sex only made couples more miserable.
The authors said that extra nights of passion may leave people tired out and viewing sex as a chore.
Researchers studied the intimate habits of 80 married couples, asking half to try to have sex twice as often as usual for three months and the others to stick to their normal routine.
Those prescribed to have more sex, who increased the number of sessions from an average six times a month to nine times a month, reported reduced libido, happiness and sexual enjoyment.
Daily Mail