Nancy Hazen-Swann Talks with MyFoxAustin's Keri Bellacosa

Dr. Nancy Hazen-Swann talks with Keri Bellacosa

Nancy Hazen-Swann stopped by the MyFoxAustin studio to talk about a study she published with her husband William Swann and a colleage Takayuki Sasaki. The article, "The supermom trap: Do involved dads erode moms' self-competence?" reported the survey responses and video taped interviews of 78 dual-earner couples with 8-month-old infants.

While the connection to Father's Day might not seem apparent, what is apparent is that the roles of fathers are evolving. And dads are really quite good at what they do.


When both members of a couple are working, the role of caregiver is more likely to be shared, and dads are slowly moving away from the more traditional "bread winner" role. While the transformation is taking place, those dads who have shifted roles are proving to be quite skilled caregivers. What impact does this have on moms? What impact does this shift have on marriages?

The study found that moms whose husbands were the most skilled caregivers appeared to be trapped between their desire to "help with childrearing and the threat to their personal competence posed by failure to meet socially constructed ideals of motherhood." There seemed to be no such correlation for the dads.

The silver lining? Moms in marriages with involved dads rated their satisfaction with the marriage higher than moms in marriages with less involved dads.