Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #489 Complementary Roles of Mums and Dads With Jenet Erickson

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#489 Complementary Roles of Mums and Dads With Jenet Erickson · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast.
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  Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
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  Speaker 2: answers now.
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  Speaker 3: Hello.
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  Speaker 2: This is doctor Justin Coulson, the parenting expert on Channel
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  Speaker 2: nine's Parental Guidance and the host of the number one
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  Speaker 2: parenting podcast in the country in Australia, the Happy Families Podcast.
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  Speaker 3: Kyle is not with me today.
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  Speaker 2: I wish she was because my guest as a repeat
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  Speaker 2: guest a return offender. Associate Professor Janet Ericsson is a
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  Speaker 2: researcher in looking at the complementary roles of mums and
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  Speaker 2: dads in the way that children develop. Also a research
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  Speaker 2: fellow at the Institute for Family Studies in the United States,
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  Speaker 2: and after a fantastic conversation recently, Janet joins me again.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for coming back on the podcast.
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  Speaker 2: We had so much fun last time.
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  Speaker 1: It's so great to be on Justin.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you so Last time.
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  Speaker 2: We were talking about how COVID has affected work in
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  Speaker 2: family balance and how many many people it's the overwhelming
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  Speaker 2: majority is saying we want to keep on working from
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  Speaker 2: home because we can have more time with the kids
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  Speaker 2: and it's just working out better for our families. Today,
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  Speaker 2: I want to talk a little bit about the main
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  Speaker 2: area of your research, which is what you describe as
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  Speaker 2: the complementary roles that mothers and fathers play in the
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  Speaker 2: nurture and raising of their children. Can you just talk
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  Speaker 2: a bit about that, because whenever I hear a conversation
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  Speaker 2: like this, I'm always nervous that somebody's going to end
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  Speaker 2: up saying, well, there's a reason for tradition.
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  Speaker 3: And things need to be the way they've always been.
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  Speaker 2: And yet we've seen tremendous advancements that have led to
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  Speaker 2: better outcomes for kids and better it comes for adults
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  Speaker 2: as well, as we've changed what our society is about.
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  Speaker 2: So how do moms and dads raise their kids differently
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  Speaker 2: and why is this important that they have that involvement,
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  Speaker 2: and how do we balance that against the needs of
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  Speaker 2: a negalitarian society.
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  Speaker 3: That should be easy to answer in five minutes or less.
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  Speaker 1: Right, Yes, that's I love this topic. I feel like
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  Speaker 1: we just have this window into the remarkable complimentarity of
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  Speaker 1: mothers and fathers. We know, biologic we're different, right, We've
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  Speaker 1: got different hormones, we've got different brain structures, we've got
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  Speaker 1: different physiology going through us. And it really is fascinating
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  Speaker 1: to look at where it shows up. So, just to start,
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  Speaker 1: there was an author who wrote this, men illicit tickling
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  Speaker 1: and tossing, women ilicit cooing and cuddling. And what was
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  Speaker 1: being described is that oxytocin floods both mother and father
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  Speaker 1: in the process of giving birth. She's flooded with oxytocin,
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  Speaker 1: the bonding hormone. He also experiences increases in oxytocin vassal
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  Speaker 1: press and but what it elicices from her behaviorally is
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  Speaker 1: cooing and cuddling and communication with that baby and holding
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  Speaker 1: that baby clothes and looking in the eyes of that baby.
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  Speaker 1: And father's experiencing that flood and he's responding with tickling
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  Speaker 1: and tossing. It's why all these women are like, what
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  Speaker 1: are you doing with that job? Drawing them up the air? Right?
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  Speaker 1: And what you'll see over and over again is there's
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  Speaker 1: something about men's experience of that bonding process that elicits
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  Speaker 1: a stimulating, an exciting and openness to the outside world,
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  Speaker 1: and you see it carry through development. So the other
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  Speaker 1: thing you'll notice right away is that women tend to
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  Speaker 1: hold an infant close to their body. Men tend to
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  Speaker 1: hold an infant like a football, and no woman does that.
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  Speaker 1: And it's so interesting that when we look at how
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  Speaker 1: father's impact development and how mother's impact development, you see
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  Speaker 1: kind of it revealed in the way they actually hold
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  Speaker 1: that baby. So's she plays such a role in building
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  Speaker 1: core that right brain, right brain development, in attachment, relationship
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  Speaker 1: and building sense of self, building a sense of wellbeing core,
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  Speaker 1: and he is impacting how that child relates to the
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  Speaker 1: outside world. And so holding that baby, he's putting that
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  Speaker 1: baby to look at the world the way he's seeing
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  Speaker 1: the world. And so what we see show up is
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  Speaker 1: dads are really important for how children. It's why you'll
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  Speaker 1: see incarceration rates are higher for children who've grown up
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  Speaker 1: without a father boys who've grown up without a father.
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  Speaker 1: You'll see academic achievement really impacted by fathers. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: in the US college graduation the number one predictor of that,
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  Speaker 1: that key predictor is presence of a father. In a
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  Speaker 1: talk play and a gooldment of a father and their
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  Speaker 1: way of relating to boundaries and the outside world is
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  Speaker 1: really shaped by dad, his presence, his involvement, his closeness.
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  Speaker 1: So it shows up again in for example, how fathers
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  Speaker 1: impact the sexual trajectory. We'll cover the trajectory of a
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  Speaker 1: daughter's sexual development.
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  Speaker 3: Well, hold off, just to set there, jenneral.
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  Speaker 2: Before we talk about that, I need to I need
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  Speaker 2: to wind back a bit, because we've gone We've covered
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  Speaker 2: a whole lot.
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  Speaker 3: Of ground in about like three minutes.
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  Speaker 2: We've gone from the baby is born and the way
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  Speaker 2: mum holds the baby is like this, and dad does that,
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  Speaker 2: and now we're talking about jail and university graduation and
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  Speaker 2: all that kind of thing. I just want to I
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  Speaker 2: just want to pull it back and highlight a couple
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  Speaker 2: of things before we talk about sexual trajectories, as.
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  Speaker 3: Important as that is.
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  Speaker 2: The first is that you've made a comment that I
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  Speaker 2: know that some people are going to be affronted by,
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  Speaker 2: and that is that there is such a thing as
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  Speaker 2: a blue brain or a pink brain. There's a message
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  Speaker 2: that's out there that babies are born as a blank
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  Speaker 2: slate and the environment shapes them. But there's plenty of evidence,
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  Speaker 2: and I think this needs to be underlined, It really
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  Speaker 2: needs to be emphasized that the actual structure of brains
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  Speaker 2: is different from birth. Babies are different based on the
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  Speaker 2: gender with which they're born, right, So different levels of
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  Speaker 2: corpus colosum.
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  Speaker 3: Connection and development.
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  Speaker 2: They're different inter versus intra hemispheric communication, all these different
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  Speaker 2: size of brain. So a baby's a boy brain is
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  Speaker 2: a six to ten percent bigger than a girl's brain.
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  Speaker 2: That doesn't make them smarter. By the way, anyone, anyone
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  Speaker 2: who's watched Boys and Girls can attest that the size
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  Speaker 2: of your brain doesn't affect how intelligent you are. But
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  Speaker 2: I just want to emphasize that for people who are
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  Speaker 2: questioning and going, hang on, I've not heard that before.
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  Speaker 2: There's a library of books and loads of evidence that
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  Speaker 2: shows out. The other thing that I wanted to highlight,
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  Speaker 2: which is just a quick personal reflection. When you said
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  Speaker 2: mums and dads hold their babies differently, Now I know
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  Speaker 2: that as a dad, there's been plenty of times where
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  Speaker 2: I've held my precious babies up to my chest and
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  Speaker 2: my shoulder and melted into me and I thought, oh,
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  Speaker 2: this is amazing. But as soon as you said carrying
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  Speaker 2: them like a football, I almost laughed out loud because
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  Speaker 2: I'm thinking, I remember when I used to I would
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  Speaker 2: pick up my babies. And I've had six of them,
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  Speaker 2: so my wife and I've she's actually had them I
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  Speaker 2: just carried them. I need to be careful about what
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  Speaker 2: I say here, you know what I mean. But as
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  Speaker 2: I'm holding my babies, I used to. I used to
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  Speaker 2: pick them up and I would either put their back
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  Speaker 2: to my belly literally so though I'd be carrying them
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  Speaker 2: along and I'd be bouncing them along so they're watching
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  Speaker 2: what I'm watching, exactly what you said, or the football thing.
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  Speaker 2: I would lay them along my arm when they were
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  Speaker 2: little babies, so that their head was in my hand
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  Speaker 2: and their body was stretched out so their backside was
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  Speaker 2: sort of up near my elbow, and I would walk
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  Speaker 2: with them literally like a koala.
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  Speaker 3: Attached to my arm. I'd just carry them that way.
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  Speaker 2: My wife would never she would get so cranky at
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  Speaker 2: me when I'd carry the babies like that.
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  Speaker 3: But to me, it was just this, that was naturally
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  Speaker 3: how I carried them. Yeah, fascinating when you pointed.
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  Speaker 1: That out, It is so fascinating, right, and I appreciated
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  Speaker 1: you talking about those brain differences, how that is and
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  Speaker 1: that it just shows up so we even see an
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  Speaker 1: infant right even before they could hold a toy. A
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  Speaker 1: girl brain there's more wiring in there for her to
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  Speaker 1: pay attention to the face of a human being. And
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  Speaker 1: so you hold up a doll, and that infant girl
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  Speaker 1: will spend more time looking at that face. An infant
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  Speaker 1: boy will spend more time looking at a truck or
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  Speaker 1: a car and the movement. And when we look at
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  Speaker 1: the way the brain is structured, we can see actually
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  Speaker 1: they are wired to pay attention to different things. And so,
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  Speaker 1: of course, right, fathers and mothers are impacting that development.
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  Speaker 1: And fathers and mothers carry that same biological reality in
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  Speaker 1: them and they're influencing development. We mentioned you know this,
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  Speaker 1: how you said showing the baby what you're seeing the
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  Speaker 1: outside world, and this impact that fathers have on the
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  Speaker 1: way children relate, right, whether it's achievement, whether it's risk taking.
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  Speaker 1: Fathers tend to promote risk taking. You have Andrew do
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  Speaker 1: say out of Canada looking at stay at home dads,
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  Speaker 1: and she said, I'm watching these dads who are at
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  Speaker 1: home with their children, mothers at work, or there's divorce,
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  Speaker 1: and there's not a mother there. And the dad says
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  Speaker 1: it's time for lunch, and he says, go make your
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  Speaker 1: own sandwich. She's in a home with a mother and
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  Speaker 1: the mother says, what kind of sandwich do you like,
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  Speaker 1: and she's over there making a sandwich and she sees
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  Speaker 1: a dad, go put your own backpack on. You can
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  Speaker 1: tie your shoes right, And at first she's thinking these
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  Speaker 1: selfish dads, you know, he's like disconnected, and then she
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  Speaker 1: says it was fascinating over time to realize nurturing is
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  Speaker 1: both holding close and letting go. Both are essential. And
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  Speaker 1: fathers seem, for whatever reasons, to be oriented towards facilitating
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  Speaker 1: that developmental process of becoming independent. And so they'll say,
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  Speaker 1: climb higher, get hier, get hire. She's there, come down,
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  Speaker 1: you're gonna hurt yourself, and he's saying, I'll catch you.
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  Speaker 1: You'll watch him when they've got a mother father behind
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  Speaker 1: the children taking a test, you know, with a six
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  Speaker 1: year old, seven year old, and you'll watch how that
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  Speaker 1: child's trying to solve the math problem. They're struggling. The
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  Speaker 1: mother's steps in and says, remember how to do this,
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  Speaker 1: and she's coaching them through it, and the dad is
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  Speaker 1: behind saying you got this, you can do that. And
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  Speaker 1: you'll see it in all kinds of ways, this complementary
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  Speaker 1: nature to the way they parent that facilitates a well rounded,
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  Speaker 1: whole kind of developmental process that children depend upon. Dads
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  Speaker 1: tend not to intervene with discipline is frequently. Mothers will
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  Speaker 1: intervene and they'll correct, and they're much more flexible in
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  Speaker 1: how they carry out consequences. So she's negotiating and dad
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  Speaker 1: doesn't negotiate, he'll say I intervene. He will intervene less frequently,
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  Speaker 1: but when he does, the line holds, and you see,
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  Speaker 1: children need both processes going on. Do they benefit from
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  Speaker 1: both of those processes going on, and it just carries
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  Speaker 1: out across development. So you can see why, right there
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  Speaker 1: will be this sense of that difference itself in his
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  Speaker 1: size and structure and voice, tone and face and composition
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  Speaker 1: as a male and hers and a child. Interfe Facing
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  Speaker 1: with both of those actually expands their capacity to work
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  Speaker 1: with difference, to identify their sameness. There's just a whole
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  Speaker 1: lot that happens in that complimentary dynamic that you know,
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  Speaker 1: creating life and facilitating its development.
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  Speaker 2: After the break, we're going to dive into how mothers
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  Speaker 2: and fathers work together to help their kids to make safe,
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  Speaker 2: healthy decisions around sex and morality, and a whole lot
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  Speaker 2: more on the Happy Families podcast. Imagine a relationship where
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: you felt seen, heard, and valued one where as your
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: partner enters the front door, they see you and their
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: eyes light up. A relationship like that is a gift.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: If you don't have it now you can. The Happy
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Family's webinar Better Together gives you the insight, tools and
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: support you need to have a happier relationship. Available now
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: at the Happy Family's webshop. It's The Happy Family's podcast,
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: the podcast for the time poor parent who just wants
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: answers Now. This is doctor Justin Colson on hanging out
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  Speaker 2: with Associate Professor Jenet Erickson from Brigham Young University, also
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  Speaker 2: a research fellow at the Institute for Family Studies in
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  Speaker 2: the United States, having this fascinating conversation about the complimentary
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  Speaker 2: way that mums and dads influence the way that their
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  Speaker 2: kids are raised. Before the break, Jennet, you mentioned something
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  Speaker 2: about the sexual risk taking and the sexual development of
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  Speaker 2: kids based on whether or not dads are present and
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  Speaker 2: how they're present versus mums.
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  Speaker 3: Do you think you could explore that a little bit
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  Speaker 3: with us.
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  Speaker 1: Yes. So it's so fascinating justin this and painful a
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  Speaker 1: little bit. You see, what we saw initially in repeated
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  Speaker 1: studies was that girls who grew up without fathers their
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  Speaker 1: sexual trajectory, and researchers will even see it's almost as
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  Speaker 1: if the presence and closeness of a father sets the
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  Speaker 1: sexual trajectory of his daughters. Those girls were more likely
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  Speaker 1: to engage in safe sexual relationships earlier on set and
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  Speaker 1: not to demand in a sense the kind of treatment
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  Speaker 1: of a male who was both protective and romantically involved
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  Speaker 1: with her as those girls who had fathers who were
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  Speaker 1: both close to them and present. And the data is
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  Speaker 1: really interesting because they were looking at daughters whose parents divorced,
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  Speaker 1: and you could look at sisters, So one girl would
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  Speaker 1: be three years old when the parents got divorced, and
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  Speaker 1: now there would be nine years old, and just looking
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  Speaker 1: at how that shaped the length of time they had
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  Speaker 1: a father present, how its shaped or predicted when they
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  Speaker 1: engaged sexually, and the quality the sexual relationships that they
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  Speaker 1: had and what came out as dads really really are
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  Speaker 1: important for daughters. It's as if he communicates to her
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  Speaker 1: what protective love that is not sexually interested. It looks like,
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  Speaker 1: how it feels, how it should be, and it sets
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  Speaker 1: her expectation and a host of other things are going
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  Speaker 1: on psychologically that way. Now, for boys, I think we've
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  Speaker 1: highlighted how fathers impact girls, but for boys, right, there's
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  Speaker 1: a recognition that fathers will shape how boys relate to
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  Speaker 1: women sexually and children. And so the presence of a
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  Speaker 1: father who is protective and loving and shows that kind
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  Speaker 1: of attentive care in non sexual, non selfish ways in
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  Speaker 1: a sense that the boys are shaped by that, and
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  Speaker 1: they grow up with increased capacity to develop healthy relationships
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  Speaker 1: in terms of how they relate to women and children
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  Speaker 1: as well. So dads are in that data. Dads really
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  Speaker 1: are important, and especially in girls' way of relating to men,
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  Speaker 1: to male love, to male sexual interest.
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  Speaker 2: What about when dad is present, but girls are still
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  Speaker 2: perhaps more inclined to make decisions that are uncipher unhealthy
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  Speaker 2: and boys as well, Rod, I mean, the presence of
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  Speaker 2: a father doesn't guarantee these things, nor does the absence
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  Speaker 2: of a father ensure that they will happen.
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  Speaker 3: There's a lot of variability.
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  Speaker 1: Correct, Yes, of course, because we're all human beings right,
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  Speaker 1: acting for ourselves. And yeah, it's so interesting that when
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  Speaker 1: that data came out, it wasn't just his being present though,
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  Speaker 1: it's interesting that father's presence, it's like his sheer presence
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  Speaker 1: in a home communicates a sense that I'm monitoring your
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  Speaker 1: behavior and protecting. He's at the door when the guy
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  Speaker 1: comes to pick up his daughter, and just his presence
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  Speaker 1: signals I'm watching over this child, and someone is watching
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  Speaker 1: over and protecting this child.
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  Speaker 2: You're not talking about that horrible stereotype from the nineteen
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  Speaker 2: seventies nineteen eighties where dad's standing there with a gun
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  Speaker 2: or a baseball bat saying I'm You're not talking about
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  Speaker 2: a protector in that sort of.
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  Speaker 3: My name's onnlold and it's not I'm here to protect.
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  Speaker 2: It's rather just the fact that they're there sends an
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  Speaker 2: unspoken message. There's no threat. You're not talking about that
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  Speaker 2: sort of explicit form of protection. You're just saying the
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  Speaker 2: fact that they're there. It does something different.
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  Speaker 1: Right, Right, they know they just their presence right, And
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  Speaker 1: it's almost like asking questions. It's interesting how father's monitoring
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  Speaker 1: is very important, and monitoring is just simply saying who
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  Speaker 1: are you with last night and when are you going
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  Speaker 1: to be home? And it's not a threatening kind of thing.
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  Speaker 1: It's just saying I care about you, I care about
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  Speaker 1: who you've been with, and I'm communicating that to the
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  Speaker 1: child by the questions I'm asking and my way of
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  Speaker 1: being present. But I'm also communicating it to outsiders that
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  Speaker 1: I that I care and I'm watching over and I'm present,
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  Speaker 1: and that really matters. It's a very powerful influence.
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  Speaker 2: So, Jennal, I mean, such a fascinating conversation. We could
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  Speaker 2: keep this going for so. I've actually got a book
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  Speaker 2: called my bookshelf called Genda and Parenthood by Brad Wilcox,
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  Speaker 2: who you mentioned earlier. Fascinating looking at the way animals
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  Speaker 2: and humans consistent in all the things that you're describing,
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  Speaker 2: the way that complementary role. But ultimately there's a lot
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  Speaker 2: of single moms and single dads who are listening. There's
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  Speaker 2: probably some same sex couples who are listening. There's a
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  Speaker 2: whole lot of different families that instructured in all kinds
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  Speaker 2: of different ways who want to get the dynamic right
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  Speaker 2: and maybe or maybe not have the capacity to get
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  Speaker 2: that complementarity working. If there was one overarching take home
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  Speaker 2: message when it comes to our children, their wellbeing, our
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  Speaker 2: families happiness. When you look at all of the research
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  Speaker 2: across societies, not just America or not just Australia, but
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  Speaker 2: right around the world. What would the most important thing
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  Speaker 2: you think be for any parent listening to this conversation.
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  Speaker 1: To hear Yeah, Wow, that's the fantastic question. Justin I
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  Speaker 1: was so stunned, like maybe everybody, seeing the Harvard Grant Study,
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  Speaker 1: this seventy five year longitudinal study never done before, taking
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  Speaker 1: the same group of students from Harvard's nineteen thirty six class,
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  Speaker 1: tracking them for seventy five years, looking at every part
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  Speaker 1: of their lives, and it ends and Grant Valance says
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  Speaker 1: the take home message is love is happiness, full stop.
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  Speaker 1: And then he just dives into how powerful, warm and
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  Speaker 1: nurturing relationship in childhood are and how that pattern is
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  Speaker 1: carried across development. That what really matters in all the
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: dimensions of our well being is the quality of our relationships,
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  Speaker 1: the quality of our connections, beginning with those most core relationships.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: And so I think about single mothers and single fathers,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: I'm marvel at how they find ways to connect with children.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: That powerful statement from Bill Doherty, the Great Marriage Family Therapist,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: where he says the intentional family is a ritualizing family
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: and that you find ways ritualizing mean ways to connect
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: with each other on a daily basis, whether it's hugs
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: and kisses at night, or it's how you say goodbye
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: or how you say hello, or doing family dinner, or
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: that there is a time when we know this is
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: the most important thing to us, is connecting together, and
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: it could be brief, but it's so important that we
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: want to protect it. And so you see a single
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: mom she's able to navigate the transition through divorce or
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: whatever else with rituals of connection that confirm that the
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: most important thing in this world is our connection to
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: each other, that closeness that we have with one another,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: and married parents trying to do the same thing right
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: in a world that would pull us apart. It's finding
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: ways to really ensure that those connections happen on a
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: daily basis so that we have that priority of relationships.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: We just say nothing else, nothing else really in the
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: end matters more than this working together, loving each other,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: caring for each other, being there for each other.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: What a great what a great take home message.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: Associate Professor Janet Erickson from Brigham Young University, thank you
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: again for your wisdom on the Happy Families podcast.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Thank you justin love to being on.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: As always, we appreciate justin ruling from Bridge Madeor and
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: Craig Bruce putting together the podcast and making it sound fabulous.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: If you'd like more info about making your family happy,
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: please visit happy families dot com dot au