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Adam Fishman (author of a top business newsletter on Substack with 11K+ subscribers) interviews executives, entrepreneurs, and company leaders in technology companies who are also fathers. They discuss the tough aspects of work, parenting, family, the mistakes made and lessons learned along the way. All episodes at www.startupdadpod.com.
[00:00:00] Richard Petts: when men share more of that labor, not only are women’s outcomes Better. So they report higher relationship satisfaction, less depression, feeling less stress. Men also experience those positive benefits as well. So men are more satisfied with relationships.
[00:00:17] Richard Petts: Men are less stressed. Men are less depressed. And so that, you know, was not the finding we were necessarily expecting.
[00:00:24] Adam Fishman: Welcome to Startup Dad, the podcast where we dive deep into the lives of dads who are also leaders in the world of startups and business. I’m your host, Adam Fishman. Today, I’m joined by Richard Petts, professor of sociology and associate dean at Ball State University and author of Fatherhood Involvement and Gender Equality in the United States.
[00:00:49] Adam Fishman: Richard brings a unique academic perspective to fatherhood research, having spent years studying the very topics that many of us navigate as working dads. He’s married to his wife, Amy, who also works at Ball State, and together they’re raising two kids, ages 13 and 12. What makes Richard’s story particularly compelling is that his research into fatherhood involvement was deeply shaped by his own parenting experiences, including a month-long NICU stay with his daughter that opened his eyes to the gaps in support for fathers in healthcare settings.
[00:01:22] Adam Fishman: Today, we talked about how fatherhood is viewed in American society and why those perceptions matter, the structural and cultural barriers that prevent fathers from being more involved at home despite wanting to be, his research on paternity leave policies and why the United States lags so far behind other countries, the concept of cognitive labor in relationships and how it differs from just dividing up household tasks, how his traumatic NICU experience influenced his academic focus and revealed the lack of resources for fathers in medical crises, the role of masculinity in parenting outcomes, and practical strategies for getting fathers more engaged in family life.
[00:02:02] Adam Fishman: We also took an interesting detour and discussed how religion impacts father involvement and the workplace policies that could make the biggest difference for working dads. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to Startup Dad on YouTube or Spotify so you never miss an episode. You’ll find it everywhere you get your podcasts. I hope you enjoy today’s conversation with Richard Petts.
[00:02:21] Adam Fishman: Welcome Richard Petts to Startup Dad, and a big shout-out to Alison Daminger for the introduction, of the two of us. So thank you, Richard, for joining me today. Uh,
[00:02:31] Richard Petts: Thanks for having me, Adam. Looking forward to it.
[00:02:33] Adam Fishman: Alison’s episode on mental load is the most listened to episode of this podcast, so I have very high expectations for our conversation here.
[00:02:42] Adam Fishman: I’m sure you’ll deliver.
[00:02:43] Richard Petts: All right. Those are big expectations.
[00:02:47] Adam Fishman: Um, I’ve become really focused on fatherhood involvement. It’s a big, and important part of my life. it’s one of the reasons I started this podcast, and it’s why I have talked to people like Alison, and I just re-interviewed Darby Saxbe, who you probably know in the world of academia.
[00:03:05] Adam Fishman: folks that stud- study things like mental load and the male brain and parental participation. And it’s a big reason that I’m super excited to have you on the show, because you wrote this amazing book, which I have right here, called “Fatherhood Involvement and Gender Equality in the United States,” which is, the Venn diagram of things that I love to talk about on this, podcast.
[00:03:25] Adam Fishman: So, we’re gonna get to the book in a little bit. but, we’re gonna talk about, there’s three central questions. I’m kind of previewing that a little bit here. And those questions are, how is fatherhood viewed today? Why aren’t fathers more involved at home? And how do we get them more involved?
[00:03:42] Adam Fishman: Which are all topics that I’m excited to, to talk with you about. And I wanna spend time on all of them, but beforehand, I wanted to ask you a few questions about your own family.
[00:03:50] Adam Fishman: you have a couple teenagers, or one teenager, one almost teenager. So, uh, you and I are very similar boat to that. I have a 13-year-old, you have a 13-year-old.
[00:03:59] Adam Fishman: You have a 12-year-old, and I have an 11-year-old,we’re right there. B
[00:04:12] Adam Fishman: ut also, fascinating thing, you and your wife Amy work at the same university. So I’m wondering, do you guys, like, bump into each other in the break room or, like, around the water cooler? What is it like, when you have a spouse…
[00:04:13] Adam Fishman: Like, you don’t work in the same departments, but you do work on the same campus. like, do you see each other? Do you plan lunch together? Like, how does that work?
[00:04:20] Richard Petts: Yeah. So it’s a big university, you know, so we don’t see each other every day, but our paths do intersect. We’re on a few committees together. There are things that our worlds collide, and so we’re in meetings together. It is an interesting dynamic of, addressing her as Dr. Petts instead of Amy, you know, in, in certain situations.
[00:04:41] Richard Petts: there’s an ongoing, issue with one of our office staff just typing emails really quick, and so she’ll get emails that are meant for me, ‘cause she’ll just put in my last name, and it’ll go to Amy as opposed to me. So we get those kinds of situations, as well. But it’s great. we do try to get together every now and then, you know, “Hey, let’s go get coffee or something.”
[00:04:58] Adam Fishman: And that’s a, perk that most spouses don’t get when you can just walk two minutes down the street Uh, be able to get coffee in the morning, Yeah, it may– imagine it’s a little tougher when you’re, like, complaining about your colleagues ‘cause you each know each other’s colleagues,
[00:05:10] Richard Petts: so in separating home talk versus work talk lines do very much blur.
[00:05:17] Adam Fishman: Yes.
[00:05:17] Adam Fishman: Yeah.
[00:05:18] Adam Fishman: I’m very curious, where were both of you in your academic careers when you decided to start a family?
[00:05:25] Richard Petts: Yeah. So interestingly, we met, in graduate school. I, signed up to be her buddy when she was a prospective student, and that became a lifelong commitment I was not anticipating at the time. we got married,we had been employed for a year, prior to getting married, and she was ready for kids, like, immediately.
[00:05:42] Richard Petts: it didn’t happen immediately. She was not in her current role at that time. She had a couple professional jobs, one here at the university, one elsewhere, and she decided to take time off, when we had kids. the sort of typical academic life where you sort of have two professors and trying to land a job together was not, our path.
[00:06:00] Richard Petts: she pivoted, from our PhD program, ended up getting a, a master in library science, so she had some, professional jobs in the way that made it a little bit easier for us to navigate moving, starting a family,
[00:06:14] Adam Fishman: I have a friend who has a master’s of library science. it’s fascinating degree. yeah. It’s very cool.
[00:06:20] Richard Petts: And now I will say, she then decided to go back and get her PhD when our kids were very young, three and four. So that made, in terms of timing of things, that was really hard, um, for both of us. it was hard for her to be away and focus on her studies. it put more pressure on me, to do more at home, and we made it work.
[00:06:38] Adam Fishman: Yeah. Well, it’s interesting that you mention, like, you didn’t kind of follow the typical tried and true path because I, you know, from what I know about academia, it is really hard for two professors who are married or want to be married to find, both find roles and then both get tenure at the same institution.
[00:06:57] Adam Fishman: Like the, as far as I know, there just aren’t that many jobs in academia these days.
[00:07:02] Richard Petts: so
[00:07:02] Richard Petts: really hard. Yeah. And when she got her PhD, she looked into faculty jobs. She was able to get a couple offers, but no jobs for me. And so it’s been a delicate balance the whole way.
[00:07:13] Adam Fishman: yeah.
[00:07:14] Adam Fishman: so I wanna go, all the way back to, something that happened with the birth of your daughter. you shared something with me that, like, I wouldn’t wish this experience on anyone, but it is something that happened to me as well, and that is both of our daughters ended up spending some time in the NICU after they were born.
[00:07:32] Adam Fishman: both of our kids are just fine now, so let’s, like, get that out of the way before people are worried. I’m not gonna bury the lead here. our trip to the NICU was frightening but a significantly shorter stay than yours. yours was something else entirely. So can you tell us a little bit about what happened there?
[00:07:47] Richard Petts: so we still don’t really know what happened. my wife had a scheduled C-section, because my son was born via C-section, and so that was just planned all along. my daughter was born. they brought her over, weighed her, and were like, “Hey, let’s take a quick picture.” And then it was like, “You need to come with us.”
[00:08:02] Richard Petts: and so I was whisked away with her, and she really couldn’t breathe on her own. and so she was immediately put on a ventilator. I was stuck out in a waiting room with my wife having to be stitched up, my daughter getting ventilated and being like, I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know where I’m supposed to be.”
[00:08:19] Richard Petts: so very confusing situation. she ultimately was on every ventilator, uh, the hospital had in the NICU for a week. She was transported to a children’s hospital. we had everybody in the NICU in our room because we weren’t sure she was gonna make the transport. she was that, that sick. I mean, her lung had collapsed many times, all the things.
[00:08:41] Richard Petts: when we arrived at the children’s hospital, we were briefed for an indefinite stay and the likelihood of not bringing her home. and they told us she was the sickest kid in the largest children’s hospital in the state. so she was effectively the sickest kid, in the state of Indiana.
[00:08:56] Richard Petts: just as we don’t know what happened to her to cause her to not be able to breathe, we really don’t know how she got better, but she did. and so yeah, she’s a happy, healthy preteen now.
[00:09:05] Adam Fishman: And of course, when you were going through this, you had a one-year-old son
[00:09:09] Adam Fishman: at home too. So it’s not like you didn’t have another human being that, I mean, couldn’t care for himself, like he’s one. So you’re dealing with this and having a, you know, one-year-olds are not very self-sufficient at all.
[00:09:21] Adam Fishman: So what was that experience like?
[00:09:23] Richard Petts: as with many academics, we don’t live by family. we went where jobs were. And my family’s in Michigan, my wife’s family’s in Iowa. and so our families, took an impromptu trip to live in our house for a month while we lived at the hospital, ’cause the hospital is– was an hour away from our house and we were there– we were living there, at the Ronald McDonald House.
[00:09:43] Richard Petts: And so my son got devoted grandma and aunt time. So he was spoiled rotten, for that month. but yeah, it was really hard for us. we didn’t see him much. They would bring him, you know, a couple of times a week to hang out. He’d ride the elevator all day and thought– and think it was awesome. we would try to go home, like, once a week if we could.
[00:10:05] Richard Petts: I mentally couldn’t handle it. Uh, I couldn’t handle being away. I think my wife could handle it a little bit better. Having that time with him sort of helped her well-being.
[00:10:13] Adam Fishman: We learned throughout the whole process that we were polar opposites, sort of what works for her, it was horrible for me.
[00:10:19] Richard Petts: What works for me was horrible for her.
[00:10:20] Adam Fishman: s
[00:10:22] Adam Fishman: o I wanna ask you a couple of, questions about the NICU experience, in a second. One of them is piggybacking off of something that I just talked with Darby Saxbe about. But first I wanted to ask you, um, one of the things you told me is that you and your wife were lucky to have both the time and the knowledge to navigate the healthcare system and to be able to speak up for your daughter.
[00:10:41] Adam Fishman: And, you know, that is one of the things that kind of matters these days in the healthcare system, is advocacy for yourself and your loved ones. I’m interested, in this because I think the word lucky is doing a lot of heavy lifting, I mean, you’re not medical doctors, so how is it that the two of you were prepared for this or, like, figured out how to navigate this system under such stress?
[00:11:01] Richard Petts: lots of people have asked us and asked us during the time, like: “How are you doing this?” And the answer is just,what else can we do? this isn’t a choice that we made, and there’s no way you could ever prepare for it, but you just have to go, right? Like, you just have to sort of, of do it.
[00:11:17] Richard Petts: and so we did the best we could. I– We are certainly not medical doctors, but we understand the world of academic literature. We know how to search for things. You know, we’re used to sort of reading academic publications. So while some of the sort of, super specific medical jargon is outside of our wheelhouse, we knew enough to be able to pick up important pieces, to be able to ask questions, right?
[00:11:41] Richard Petts: Like, we didn’t understand everything, but we could learn enough to be like, “Hey, what about this? Hey, what about this? Hey, what about this?” and ask those important questions. So I think that background, And maybe luck wasn’t part of that, but,it certainly helped. It also helped that we had the time.
[00:11:57] Richard Petts: So my daughter was born at the end of April, and so I had already planned we were moving in the summer, so I didn’t have to be on campus, and my wife was staying home with our son. So we also had the time to be there twenty-four seven to be able to talk with doctors.
[00:12:12] Adam Fishman: to ask you about that 24/7 thing, because in my recent conversation with Darby, which is gonna come out I think right around Father’s Day, good timing,she talks about some of the research from her book. She talks about Craig Garfield, who studied, dads in the NICU based on his own experience.
[00:12:29] Adam Fishman: And then she also talked about this grad student that she has, a woman named Alyssa Morris, who described the NICU as no man’s land. and I’m wondering if that matched your experience. I think the, the no man’s land descriptor basically means, like, is not really a place that is particularly welcoming to dads or inclusive of dads because, there’s no hospital code for the dad who is there staying with the kid.
[00:12:55] Adam Fishman: The baby has a code, the mom has a code, but, like, the dad’s not a patient, and most of the workers in the NICU are women, and so it’s, like, very much a no man’s land. So I don’t– I’m sure that they were excellent in providing the care and very supportive of you, but I’m wondering what your experience was like with that kind of label.
[00:13:12] Richard Petts: Yeah, there were not many dads. you would sometimes see some dads come on the weekend, maybe some in the evening, but even that, by and large, very few men. I think the hospital staff got sick of us at times. They, they kicked us out one time, because we were so proactive in staying there so much.
[00:13:30] Richard Petts: so there was some of that. it is an odd situation, and I’m in a unique situation, studying fatherhood and sort of being more aware and attuned to these things than I think the average dad would be. but I even– You know, during our first week, we had like a consultation with a psychologist, you know, sort of offering her services.
[00:13:48] Richard Petts: What can I do to help? this is a traumatic experience. And I asked her about, what kinds of resources are there for dads in this situation? and she was basically like, “Yeah, there are none.” I know there’s been some work since then, like Garfield’s research is great.
[00:14:00] Richard Petts: Like he started a NICU dads group. Like we’ve come a ways. but at the time, like there really wasn’t, any sort of support.
[00:14:07] Adam Fishman: Yeah. That is, it is wild. And I’m sure we’ve come a ways, but we’re probably still not fully caught up on where we should be.
[00:14:14] Adam Fishman: it- it’s interesting. Did having that experience in the NICU, push your research in any new directions, or was it just sort of something that lived separately alongside your research and didn’t, influence that in any way?
[00:14:25] Richard Petts: It is intrinsically intertwined. so I kind of pivoted a little bit when my son was born, based on my experience in sort of trying to take leave and thinking about leave and realizing opportunities for dads aren’t very good, and we don’t know a whole lot about it. and so the experience in the NICU really sort of nailed home, right?
[00:14:45] Richard Petts: Like if, if you don’t have Like none of what we were able to do was possible. Like if I had to go back to work three days after my daughter was born, I, I don’t even know how I would have handled that. And talking with fathers who’ve had that experience, it blows my mind. and so my daughter’s story has really been at the core of like why I continue to be passionate, about this because for me, that opportunity, even though it wasn’t officially leave, was life-changing, and I can’t confidently say she’d be here if we weren’t there
[00:15:19] Adam Fishman: Yeah.
[00:15:20] Adam Fishman: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sort of matches what Darby says, which is research is me-search, right? Like, it’s all very related.
[00:15:26] Adam Fishman: okay, speaking of research, I wanna talk about your book. and we’re gonna spend a lot of time here ‘cause I am just, fascinated by this topic, and I’m sure many of my listeners are.
[00:15:34] Adam Fishman: I wanna cover the central questions in your book. So as a reminder, your book asks three primary questions: How is fatherhood viewed today? Why aren’t fathers more involved at home? And how do we get them more involved? Great topics. So I wanted to start with the cultural considerations. There’s this phrase that I love, which is the new fatherhood ideal.
[00:15:53] Adam Fishman: can you define that for listeners?
[00:15:55] Richard Petts: New fatherhood ideal is basically the idea that fathers are expected to be more engaged in nurturing than previous generations. So new fatherhood really, it, it’s hard to define it except in contrast to traditional fatherhood, right? Like we have this image of the traditional father who goes to work, comes home, his wife is waiting for him, you know, with a cocktail and a
[00:16:18] Richard Petts: hot meal and hands him the newspaper, and he, you know, waves at his kids and relaxes after a hard day, right?
[00:16:25] Richard Petts: and so the new fatherhood ideal is the idea that we expect more of fathers today. that that’s not good enough. Uh, you need to actually be doing something. You need to be engaged in your children’s lives.
[00:16:35] Adam Fishman: What does it actually mean to be a fully engaged dad? I’m sure this is a spectrum of things, but,
[00:16:39] Richard Petts: Yeah. So,
[00:16:40] Richard Petts: so one challenge I have with sort of the new fatherhood ideal as a label or people have called this involved fatherhood or engaged fatherhood, is that the expectations of sort of how involved or how engaged we expect fathers to be is really just more than traditional dads, which is not a whole lot.
[00:16:59] Adam Fishman: Right. The bar is low.
[00:17:01] Richard Petts: the bar is very low, right? If you play a board game with your kids once a week, like you’re good, which doesn’t seem like alotso I sort of use the phrase fully engaged dad to better articulate what we really need to be striving for, which is that fathers are engaged and involved, equally engaged and involved in all aspects of family life.
[00:17:21] Richard Petts: So not just the parenting But the housework, you know, the stuff that no one likes to do, like laundry and dishes, and the cognitive labor, all the thinking, the planning, the managing, that is a big burden that no one really thinks about.
[00:17:34] Adam Fishman: a lot of the dads I talk to on this show, and, and I think in general, they say they want to be more engaged than their fathers were. A lot of them can point to examples, “My dad never changed a diaper, but I changed a lot of them,” you know? I think it’s a pretty universal give it– like in our generation, you and I are f- of a similar generation.
[00:17:52] Adam Fishman: But it, it’s interesting ’ cause your data shows that a lot of those same dads who are talking a good game still embrace this traditional breadwinner role. so are men trying to do both even with the growth of women in the workplace? Like is it even possible? Like what leads to that kind of dichotomy of say one thing, kind of do or act in a different way?
[00:18:15] Richard Petts: So I think, you know, there’s a lot of pressures and expectations in society. so even though we say men and fathers should do more, we also say they should be breadwinners first. and so that pressure very much exists. I mean, is it possible? I hope it is because I don’t know of any family that can be a good parent and not work.
[00:18:35] Richard Petts: so the reality is just we have to be, income earners, in addition to our family obligations. And we increasingly expect,moms and women to do it, right? Like most mothers work. and we don’t talk about this as like, is it really possible, to sort of make this all work? We’re like, well, moms are superheroes.
[00:18:53] Richard Petts: Of course they can do it. But for men, you know, they really struggle with it. I think the fact that the expectations for men is work first and then anything you can do in regard to helping out with parenting is sort of icing on the cake, is really what fuels this. So when men are sort of prioritizing their time, there’s a lot more pressure to make sure you’re a good worker, and then the other stuff is extra credit.
[00:19:15] Adam Fishman: Yeah. There’s sort of this like innate drive in men to be like, if I’m providing, I’m doing a great job as a dad,” and like that’s first and foremost, and it’s just been generationally through, centuries drilled into people’s heads and still kind of rewarded, TV shows and things like that.
[00:19:34] Adam Fishman: There’s not a lot of stay-at-home dads or balanced dads on popular culture.
[00:19:40] Adam Fishman: you know, it’s interesting because dads have this desire. Moms certainly have this desire as well, and yet there’s still a gap and still in, in all the studies I’ve read, like Most households, women, the mom, carries the bulk of the cognitive and often the physical labor as well.
[00:19:58] Adam Fishman: And there’s three buckets that you identify that are barriers in your book: cultural norms, structures, and personal factors. if you had to pick the year 2026, which we’re in, if you had to pick the single biggest barrier, which one would be first in that list and why?
[00:20:14] Richard Petts: I really think it all starts with the cultural norms, barriers, expectations, because I think everything stems from that. I think the way workplaces are structured are based on the assumption that men work and women take care of the home, and that men are always available to work. I think if we didn’t have that assumption, workplaces would have to look different, to accommodate a new gender expectation.
[00:20:39] Richard Petts: I think our personal choices and factors are grounded in sort of our social expectations and social norms. We’re socialized, to think certain things about family and gender and work. And so I really do think it all sort of starts with culture. The challenge is that’s the hardest thing to fix.
[00:20:54] Adam Fishman: Um, if it was something smaller, we could be able to fix it a bit easier, but it, it’s so deeply ingrained.Yeah. Yeah. Well, we’re gonna talk about paternity leave in a second, which, is another kind of, thing that you are probably more expert on than anyone else, on the planet. Before that, though,a lot of fathers cite lack of time as the primary barrier. I think time is a structural issue and a personal one.
[00:21:18] Adam Fishman: how much of this lack of time do you think is fixable via policy, and how much of it is individual choice? Like you could do it, but you know, you’re creating your own blocker.
[00:21:30] Richard Petts: Both are true. I, I mean, providing people with more time doesn’t mean they necessarily use it, to be an engaged parent. and so we can’t force people to spend more time with their families. but we don’t do the greatest job of providing them with opportunities to do so if they wanted to.
[00:21:48] Richard Petts: and so I think, structural things we can do to provide more time, flexible work policies, parental leave at least gives fathers the opportunities, to have more time with their families. And there’ll always be fathers that opt out, or choose to spend their time in leisure or whatever with friends or whatever else.
[00:22:08] Richard Petts: but, you know, I think most fathers, that’s not the case,I don’t think. And one thing we learned from the pandemic is that when structure changes, right? Like during lockdowns, everything changed. Everybody was at home. You didn’t have a choice. And what we saw is that fathers in that situation, even fathers who didn’t want to work remotely They did more at home.
[00:22:32] Richard Petts: They were more engaged in their children’s lives. And so that signals to me, at least to some extent, that even the fathers who perhaps, if given the choice, wouldn’t choose to do so when they’re forced into a situation, they still embrace more engaged parenting. So I think that sort of says to me that even though it’s not gonna be perfect, structure matters.
[00:22:52] Adam Fishman: Yeah.
[00:22:53] Adam Fishman: let’s talk about paternity leave. and I know leave is not the only thing that matters here when it comes to fatherhood involvement. I’ve had somebody on the show who’s trying to advocate for better leave policies in the UK, which I understand is, it’s abysmal over there, which is actually counter to what I believed about most of Europe.
[00:23:09] Adam Fishman: but the UK seems especially bad. The US is not particularly great. this is like in your wheelhouse. You’re probably the most published, person on US paternity leave than anyone else in the country. And so I wanna get into that data. But first, for the startup dads who are listening, or the dad-curious, as I like to call them, why is paternity leave so important?
[00:23:31] Adam Fishman: Why have you focused on this element, in so much of your research?
[00:23:36] Richard Petts: the focus really stemmed from my own experiences of wanting to be home, being told I really couldn’t, and wanting to understand why. why it’s important is because it, it’s really the critical time that parenting starts. I mean, yes, it starts before the birth and you prepare and all of those sorts of things, but you don’t really figure anything out until your child is there, right?
[00:23:57] Richard Petts: Anyone who has become a parent and realized that, wait a minute, like I’m in the hospital a couple days and then they just let me take this kid home and are like, “Good luck,” and you just have to figure it all out. And so if, if dad isn’t there for that, mom’s the one figuring it all out and mom becomes the parenting expert.
[00:24:15] Richard Petts: and so if dad is home alongside with mom, that presents the opportunity that they’re figuring it out together. And so that expertise, that understanding, that knowledge, those parenting patterns all get established together in addition to bonding and getting close to your child and all of those kinds of things which are crucially important at an early age.
[00:24:35] Richard Petts: and we know the earlier that fathers are involved, the more likely they are to stay involved and remain involved throughout a child’s life. And so you can’t start any earlier than at birth,
[00:24:44] Adam Fishman: It’s like paternity leave policies, assuming, you know, you lean in as a dad and don’t go play golf all day, give you the reps to get better at the job of being a dad. And then if you’re better at it, you’re likely to spend more time at it ‘cause you’re like, “I like doing the things I’m good at,” you know?
[00:25:01] Adam Fishman: Um, yeah.
[00:25:03] Adam Fishman: Uh, there’sfinding in one of your papers that taking paternity leave is associated with a lower likelihood of divorce, especially among socioeconomically disadvantaged families. Why is that? how did you come across that finding?
[00:25:17] Richard Petts: as you mentioned, we did a lot of work on paternity leave. And we saw that it was linked to higher father involvement. And then we’re like, what about relationships? It improves relationship quality, relationship satisfaction with mothers, co-parenting support from fathers. And so we were like, if it’s better for relationships, like, does it keep families intact?
[00:25:32] Richard Petts: and so this was sort of the extension of how we were investigating this. And it really sort of boils down to these other factors, right? That if fathers are taking time off, it demonstrates commitment to their family, which goes a long way in, relationship stability, and it does all these other things.
[00:25:49] Richard Petts: So fathers are helping out more at home. if mothers feel more supported as a result of fathers helping out more at home, then it makes sense, uh, that families are more likely to remain together. There’s more invested, there’s more cooperation. you know, we weren’t necessarily expecting to find it, for disadvantaged families.
[00:26:08] Richard Petts: They face so many additional, challenges. but the way we think about it is they also have access to sort of the fewest supports. And so I think if we think about leave as a support system, as a way for them to sort of build this kind of connection, then it can actually have an even bigger impact,
[00:26:26] Adam Fishman: Yeah.
[00:26:27] Richard Petts: there are so few opportunities available
[00:26:29] Adam Fishman: you know, your research found that in surveys that, like this is something Americans, speaking specifically about the US, Americans believe fathers should get something like 10 and a half weeks of paid leave on average, and moms should get 16. if you compare that to where the public was in like 2017, when you sort of originally started studying this, like what’s changed in that, nine, 10 years of time?
[00:26:55] Richard Petts: we’ve come a long way in some ways. We’ve come a long way in some ways, at least in regards to, I think, awareness, and in support for leave. one clear indicator to me of this is state level paid family leave policies. So in twenty seventeen there were three states, California, Rhode Island, New Jersey, that had paid leave policies.
[00:27:15] Richard Petts: now we have thirteen states. so just in less than a decade, we have, you know, what is that? a fourth of the country or so, that have paid leave policies. We had a serious discussion about a paid leave policy at the national level a few years ago. so those are things You know, I was not anticipating or expecting.
[00:27:35] Richard Petts: so that seems to suggest that there’s a greater awareness and appreciation of paid leave.
[00:27:40] Adam Fishman: Yeah.
[00:27:43] Adam Fishman: Well, hopefully in the next 10 years we get to another, 13 plus states, the typical American father takes one week or less of paternity leave. which, you know, in the field that I work in, I was shocked by this because, typically startups and technology companies tend to be more liberal with their policies and, you know, we’re not doing open heart surgery, we’re building software.
[00:28:03] Adam Fishman: and so the job feels lower stakes, and I think people are more okay taking the time off. But the fact that the most of American fathers take a week or less was like mind-blowing to me. Why is the gap between what people say they want and what they actually do so, so massive?
[00:28:23] Richard Petts: I think access to leave differs a lot. and so for in certain industries, right, where these policies are widespread, it seems so foreign. But there’s many, many, many industries where there are no paid leave policies. and there are no paid leave policies for fathers, in particular. And so for a lot of fathers, it’s just,I’m not able to.”
[00:28:43] Richard Petts: All they have is vacation or sick time, and they’re constrained by those, you know, if they have those policies. I think the other part of it is fears. So there was a study done a few years ago now, sort of asking why fathers don’t take leave. and the number two reason behind, “ I don’t have access to it,” was, “I’m afraid that if I use it, I’m going to be disadvantaged in the workplace.
[00:29:04] Richard Petts: I’m gonna get passed over for promotions, for raises, all of those kinds of things. I’m gonna be seen as a lesser worker than the, the dad who comes back to work.” I was talking to my colleague the other day. We were talking about paid leave. he’s older than I am, and so he talked about how when one of his kids was born, he had a meeting like two hours after the child was born.
[00:29:23] Richard Petts: And so he went, he went to the birth and then came to the work meeting, and that was just the expectation at the time. And so I think a lot of that still persists in, in corporate America.
[00:29:32] Adam Fishman: Yeah. There was a recent, I would say scuttlebutt on the internet about some big mega companies starting to make adjustments to their paid leave policies, specifically Zoom, the, you know, conferencing company, and then Deloitte, the big consulting,tax company, things like that. they both just reduced their parental leave policies across the board for both birthing and non-birthing parents.
[00:29:56] Adam Fishman: And I guess my question on this, you know, not to get too speculative, but like, what are they thinking? You know, this is like, this seems to run counter to what society is demanding right now, and of all the ways to save money, this seems like maybe this should be at the bottom of the, of the list.
[00:30:12] Adam Fishman: Like, how do you think these companies can justify this? Like, what are they thinking here?
[00:30:16] Richard Petts: my guess is they’re thinking we’re cutting costs. we saw this in the year or two after the pandemic too. We saw fewer companies offering paid parental leave, I think for the same reasons, right? we’ve had people gone for so long, we need people back. the more pragmatic person in me wonders, this is not a great reason, but companies that have really long periods of leave often don’t really, uh, look favorably upon people who use those policies.
[00:30:41] Richard Petts: And so I wonder if they’re like, “Well, if we offer twenty weeks, but we really only accept people for taking ten.” If some of this is sort of aligning policy and practice that, yeah, we say we promise a year, but anyone who takes more than a month gets fired. So
[00:30:55] Adam Fishman: Yeah.
[00:30:56] Richard Petts: it a month, and that works out.
[00:30:58] Adam Fishman: Yeah. Yeah, that’s really interesting. We’ll see what happens, if they adjust that or if they keep it or, you know, whatever.
[00:31:05] Adam Fishman: So, on the same note, you ran a study that looked at Fortune 500 paid parental leave policies, which I found fascinating. And the statistics are 72%
[00:31:14] Adam Fishman: of those companies offer some form of paid leave.
[00:31:17] Adam Fishman: and a typical company gives the birthing parent about two plus times more leave than the non-birthing parent. and you describe this in like, there’s like three different ways. There’s gender unequal, gender equal, and then gender modified, which is sort of like a ca- a catchall for everything else.
[00:31:36] Adam Fishman: I wanna ask you this ‘cause there’s a lot of startup founders who listen to this podcast, and they are thinking about the policies that they offer at their company, you know. And as somebody who worked at a fast-growing early stage startup and was the first person to have a kid, we had zero written policy when my daughter was born, like zero.
[00:31:57] Adam Fishman: so for the founders who are listening to this, the people who are building companies that are going to hopefully become quite big and set the tone, like what’s the right policy design for them?
[00:32:07] Richard Petts: it needs to be paid, ideally fully paid, because if it, it’s an income hit, it’s gonna be a burden to workers. it needs to provide a good chunk of leave. you know, I think the sort of standard in the US has come to be twelve weeks. I think that’s a pretty good amount of time, that allows people to really establish patterns and relationships at home.
[00:32:26] Richard Petts: and then something that I think is sort of counterintuitive to some extent to discussions of gender equality in the American way, Is there either needs to be a a policy specific for fathers, or there needs to be a clear plan in place to ensure that fathers take the leave. Because I think if you just have a parental leave policy, which is great in that it’s equal opportunity, it’s not gendered, all of those things, I think the working assumption is often that it’s a policy for mothers and it’s not a policy for fathers.
[00:32:56] Richard Petts: and so it really takes a lot of effort to get fathers to recognize this is a policy for me, I can use it, I should use it, and so on.
[00:33:04] Adam Fishman: Yeah, and we talk a lot– I’ve talked to a lot of founder dads on this show who felt very strongly about modeling their policy themselves when they had a kid or a subsequent kid, because what you do is just as important, actually more important than what you say. And so showing that, I’m the leader and I’m taking time, the time off is, is really important.
[00:33:26] Adam Fishman: one of the silver linings that you found, or at least I took it as a silver lining, maybe patting myself on the back here, is that tech companies are a bit more likely than other sectors to offer paid leave. I guess my question maybe a slightly cynical one on this is, is that because tech companies are leading on this, like intentionally, or is it because the workforce is younger and they’re trying to attract people and get them to stay, and like the talent war demands this kind of, policy?
[00:33:53] Adam Fishman: what do you think it is?
[00:33:54] Richard Petts: I think it’s a bit of both. I think tech companies by their nature are often more innovative, and so they’re often at the leading edge of things. But there’s a, a reason they’re doing it, and the reason they’re doing it is because workers want these policies. And so if they want the top talent, they have to have the best policy.
[00:34:10] Richard Petts: So I think it’s a bit of both. I will sort of push back a little bit on your,sort of a pride in the tech industry that I sort of view it with, view it with a bit more skepticism. a number of these companies have come under fire, because they’ve had these super generous policies, but then, instances of, of workers being fired, disadvantaged, discriminated for actually trying to use, the sort of full breadth of the policy.
[00:34:36] Richard Petts: So it’s one thing to say, you know, we’ve got this fantastic policy. It’s another thing to actually have a culture that supports people using
[00:34:42] Adam Fishman: I appreciate you pushing back on that. I would actually agree. I think I’m being overly generous to my own brethren here. I’ve had friends who were in very large public tech companies, I will not name those companies, who had very generous leave policies for dads. And when they said, “Hey, I’m gonna take this,” people kind of gave them the side eye about it and were like,nobody takes all the time.”
[00:35:06] Adam Fishman: And some of– Thankfully, some of my dad friends, stood up to that and they’re like, no, you offer it, I’m taking it. you can fire me if you want, but, this is the policy, so I’m gonna take full advantage of it.” And it made all the difference, for them.
[00:35:18] Adam Fishman: I wanna stick on this workplace culture kind of challenge and come back to what you said, which is there’s this fear that a lot of working dads carry, and a very real fear of, like, if I take leave, I’ll be seen as a less committed worker, I’ll lose some ground, I’m gonna get passed over for a promotion.
[00:35:34] Adam Fishman: Not necessarily the, overt discrimination, but, like, subtle forms of that. your research confirms that this fear is very real, at least that it lowers, perceived commitment to the job. But I think there’s an interesting thing, which is you found a counterintuitive twist when it came to measuring likability.
[00:35:51] Adam Fishman: so can you tell me the story of, what you found around likability?
[00:35:55] Richard Petts: Yeah. So really that, workers who take leave are seen as more likable. and there’s a cap for men, right? So women, it’s just sort of this constant increase, more leave, more likable. for men, it’s a bit more constrained that you take a moderate amount of leave, you know, which by American standards is still a pretty long leave.
[00:36:12] Richard Petts: you’re seen as more likable. And I think, when we think about what leave conveys to your coworkers, I think it conveys that, like, you’re a person, and you care about people. And, you know, you’re not just,a robot doing your tasks at your desk. And so I think when we think about, oh, wow, like he’s willing to take eight weeks off to care for his kids and help his, his partner out at home.
[00:36:36] Richard Petts: those are things that are looked upon favorably by other people. And so I think intuitively it makes sense, even though it’s not something you
[00:36:43] Adam Fishman: Yeah. The key word there is moderately for fathers. And I think there’s an uncomfortable takeaway that kind of emerged from that data, or at least it sort of sat funny with me, which is like, if you’re a dad, you get this likability boost from taking moderate leave. But there was like a decay if you took extended leave, like the long leave, you kind of got penalized for it.
[00:37:04] Adam Fishman: So like, that’s kind of depressing, you know, to think about it. how do we break that? Like, how, how do we break out of that, that, uh… It seems like it’s not an easy answer.
[00:37:13] Richard Petts: no. I– ‘Cause I think it comes back to these gender expectations. I think if you’re taking too long, then it’s like, oh, well, you’re not providing for your family. And so then, like, I think it’s those perceptions that are kicking in. I don’t think it’s like, oh, like he cares too much about his family.
[00:37:29] Richard Petts: That’s weird. At least I hope not. I think it’s more, oh, wow, like he really doesn’t care about his job. and so he’s less of a man. he’s less of a breadwinner, and so it starts to have those negative effects.
[00:37:40] Adam Fishman: Yeah, that perceived commitment thing really goes through the floor. Yeah. in 2021, which I know feels like, a thousand years ago, but is really not, the co-founder of Palantir, which is a company that a lot of people on this podcast will know, a guy named Joe Lonsdale, he tweeted that any– This is horrible.
[00:37:59] Adam Fishman: Tweeted that any working man who takes six months of paternity leave is a loser. now Palantir’s known for having kind of a very specific culture,little bro-y you might suggest. you actually joined in, you weighed in, on this publicly when that happened. I know it’s five years ago, but as you reflect on that, what was so corrosive about that comment that he made, and do you think we’ve made some progress, since then?
[00:38:22] Richard Petts: So unfortunately, I don’t know that I view that as that outlandish in the sense that I’ve heard it before. Pete Buttigieg got harshly criticized when he said he was gonna take leave publicly. There’ve been a number of athletes, who have taken leave under their respective professional league leave policies and been criticized, like, how could a pitcher miss a start, to be at home for a week with his child?
[00:38:45] Richard Petts: and so I– like I– it didn’t strike me as so outlandish because it just seemed like one in a line of many comments about negative perceptions of leave. I do think we’ve made progress. I mean, I haven’t seen or heard as many of those kinds of backlashes happen, at least on a, on, on the same level of stage as some of these examples we’re talking about.
[00:39:08] Richard Petts: but I don’t think we’ve gotten to the point where leave-taking beyond a couple of weeks is viewed as normal or just typical to the point where we wouldn’t even pay attention to
[00:39:17] Adam Fishman: Yeah. Well, hopefully we can get there.
[00:39:20] Adam Fishman: I want to come back to, actually the research of Alison Daminger and the concepts of cognitive labor, mental load. and again, thanks to Alison for introducing the two of us. so her work on cognitive labor is what you and a lot of your collaborators have, built on top of.
[00:39:35] Adam Fishman: you have a paper from 2024 in the Journal of Marriage and Family on cognitive labor and relationship satisfaction, and there’s a pretty, striking finding in there about the division of housework and things like that and the physical labor. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
[00:39:51] Richard Petts: Yeah. So we did two studies I’m gonna talk about them together, trying to understand, what are the consequences of sort of either bearing the brunt of the cognitive labor or sharing that cognitive labor. and not surprisingly, we found, you know, that when women shoulder most of the burden, they’re less satisfied in their relationships, they’re more stressed, they’re more depressed.
[00:40:10] Richard Petts: Not shocking news. what we were surprised by is that when men share more of that labor, not only are women’s outcomes Better. So they report higher relationship satisfaction, less depression, feeling less stress. Men also experience those positive benefits as well. So men are more satisfied with relationships.
[00:40:30] Richard Petts: Men are less stressed. Men are less depressed. And so that, you know, was not the finding we were necessarily expecting. And it seems to suggest that when men share in the cognitive labor, everybody wins. Everybody’s better off than when the mothers are, are shouldering that burden.
[00:40:46] Adam Fishman:
[00:40:46] Adam Fishman: It’s interesting because, like, that’s, that cuts against the story that I hear a lot. It doesn’t mean that it’s true necessarily, but I hear this idea that, men like the arrangement where they don’t have to do as much because it lets them off the hook, you know? But your data suggests the opposite.
[00:41:01] Adam Fishman: Like why is it that, that finding, do you think, hasn’t traveled more or hasn’t, like, gotten more legs?
[00:41:07] Richard Petts: You know, the, the arc of translating research into public dissemination, I sometimes the things that I think I’m like, “This is it. this is gonna land. I’m gonna get a New York Times feature piece about it.” it has fallen completely flat. And some of the things that I’m like, “This is interesting, but not groundbreaking,” people have ran with.
[00:41:26] Richard Petts: So I don’t fully understand the world of, how it gets into the public. But I mean, I do think people are skeptical, about the findings. I, you know, I think that it speaks to the idea that, most men want to be more involved and more engaged. And so I think when they have the opportunity to do so, there are some benefits from that.
[00:41:46] Richard Petts: I also think sort of more cynically or, we know that because men’s bar for what they’re expected to do is so low, when they do more, they often get more praise for it. And so you get all the benefits of being praised.
[00:41:56] Adam Fishman: You, you get the ego stroking of, “You’re such a great dad,” you know.
[00:42:04] Adam Fishman: “You showed up to drop the kid off at school once this week.” on the note of, cognitive, labor, you mentioned to me that you and your wife Amy do a weekly planning meeting, and you also do something which I think is great, which is you split up who the contact parent is for the different kids’ activities to try to make that more egalitarian.
[00:42:19] Adam Fishman: so that’s a very concrete cognitive load split. is that the only example of the way that you’re doing this in your household? Or like, are there other ways that you try to more equitably divide that, cognitive load?
[00:42:31] Richard Petts: I mean, we’ve sort of fell into things, I guess. for example, I– like, I’m the cook in the family. I, I’ve always enjoyed cooking, so part of this was a choice. But it also means that sort of I, like, I, I don’t mind doing the grocery shopping. So really everything in the world of food is sort of my domain in the family, and I largely take responsibility for that.
[00:42:51] Richard Petts: you know, in contrast, she admittedly handles most of the emotional labor. so the kids’ struggles and things,she has a better way of dealing with that than I do, and the kids, I think, are more likely to open up to her than they are to me. and so that, like, she does most of that stuff.
[00:43:11] Richard Petts: so there are certainly things that have just sort of happened, whether it’s naturally, whether it’s, gendered. Like, I can’t speak to the underlying roots, but we have sort of, have our, our various domains that we take primary responsibility for.
[00:43:24] Adam Fishman: Yeah, that’s cool, and at least it’s kind of clear whose swim lane is whose, there’s a very real challenge that I hear from a lot of r- listeners, and I’ve talked to some folks about this on the show, is that, dads want to share cognitive labor more equally, but the partner who’s carrying it maybe doesn’t fully trust the handoff.
[00:43:43] Adam Fishman: And you’ve done some research on this. You co-authored some research on this concept of gatekeeping that suggests that this is much more about, anxiety and perfectionism than it is about ideology. So what advice would you give, based on your research, to couples who are sort of stuck in that pattern of this gatekeeping, situation?
[00:44:03] Richard Petts: I think communication is key. you know, especially when we’re talking about cognitive labor, a lot of it’s invisible, unknown. and so the fear may be unfounded, right? Like, we don’t actually know, and so we start talking and, and, and communicating about it. I think starting small, right? Like, change is hard.
[00:44:20] Richard Petts: and when you are used to doing something, you like, often like doing it your way and don’t like it done other ways. So there is some letting go that has to happen. But I think start small, right? Like, think of some, like, one little thing that you could hand off. and it- if it’s something that you could sort of hand the whole thing off to, I think that’s what’s really powerful.
[00:44:37] Richard Petts: If you get into the point of delegating, it may not be any less work. If you’re still doing all the cognitive stuff but then being like, “Go do this,” the burden’s still on you to plan and figure everything out. But if instead you can just be like, you know, “You handle our kids’ dermatologist.” So all appointments, keeping track of when the next appointment needs to be, rescheduling if it needs to be rescheduled, getting them there and back.
[00:45:01] Richard Petts: that sort of one contained small thing. And then I, my hope is that if the dad demonstrates competence in doing that, then it’s like, “Okay, well, that works. I can hand off other things, and I trust he’ll do a good job.”
[00:45:14] Adam Fishman: Yeah. It’s funny because I, you know, I, I was guilty of this in my household. You know, I do a lot of the weekly sort of organization of the kids’ stuff, and my wife and I both work, relatively full-time and in pretty demanding careers. And I had to travel for work, and I basically, like, laid out the whole schedule and sort of made sure everyone knows.
[00:45:35] Adam Fishman: But then I was still on some of the text messages with the carpools and things like that. And so I started chiming in from the other side of the country and like, you know. And then I was like, my wife basically had to be like, “Hey, I got this.” Like, “ Chill out,” you know? And I was like, “Oh, sh*t, I’m doing, I’m doing the maternal gatekeeping, but I’m the dad.
[00:45:54] Adam Fishman: I’m doing paternal gatekeeping.” And I was like, “Oh man, I’m guilty of this.” So I did have to, like, unwind that, and I’m like, “Why am I doing this?” And it, for me, it was more muscle memory. I don’t think I was anxious. I wasn’t worried, or maybe I was. But, yeah, I found myself, like, basically doing the thing that so much is written about, moms doing.
[00:46:12] Adam Fishman: So it was fascinating. And I’m, I’m like, “I’m gonna do better next time and not do this.” all right.
[00:46:20] Adam Fishman: I wanted to take us in a very different direction. you know, we don’t talk about religion very much on this show, but I wanna talk about this intersection of, like, masculinity, religion, the new fatherhood ideal.
[00:46:28] Adam Fishman: you have a body of work that I don’t think has gotten enough airtime on parenting, podcasts. And it’s, sort of how traditional masculinity and religiosity each shape fatherhood involvement. So I wanna talk about some of those findings. so on masculinity, your research finds that adherence to traditional masculine norms is negatively associated with fatherhood involvement.
[00:46:51] Adam Fishman: So basically, like The more of a, you know, bro you are, the less likely you wanna be involved, like, ’ cause that’s not a bro thing to do. it’s also positively a- associated with harsh discipline. So I’m the dad, paternal rule, like that sort of thing. basically, like to dumb it down, the more that a dad subscribes to this philosophy, like the less involved they are, and the more likely they are to wanna like spank their kids.
[00:47:15] Adam Fishman: how does that play out currently with the, wave of the manosphere that a lot of people are riding? Is this like feeding this, you know, contributing to this issue?
[00:47:27] Richard Petts: interestingly, at, at least in the circles that I’m involved with, with the various family organizations, when this conversation comes up, most of it is about the tradwife movement and sort of what it means for women’s rights and women’s equality. and I haven’t heard as much about what does this mean about our progress toward greater father involvement?
[00:47:46] Richard Petts: and I think your sense is probably right on par that, it’s probably not great, that the messages that we hear in this sort of, trend sort of brings us back to a more traditional model of fatherhood, where the father is the breadwinner and the disciplinarian, and that’s it. and so, you know, we had– we have seen some reversion back toward more traditional gender attitudes just sort of globally.
[00:48:11] Richard Petts: sort of the pandemic sort of started some of that. and I do think this sort of cultural minority, for lack of a better word, like, does have the potential implication of, uh, moving us backwards.
[00:48:24] Adam Fishman: Most dads, I would say, that I have on this show are more of on the progressive variety of dads. but I have had some who are, the typical kind of stern father or believe dads should be a certain way. And I wanna give some of that some airtime ’ cause I’d like to understand it more and talk about it.
[00:48:40] Adam Fishman: but it is uncomfortable for me to have those conversations, with beliefs that, like, I really don’t subscribe to. and the manosphere stuff is deeply uncomfortable to me.
[00:48:48] Adam Fishman: So, there’s a thing I wanna talk about is you did this really interesting cross-national comparison between dads, similar dads and similar in cultures, but very different policy environments, specifically U.S.
[00:49:00] Adam Fishman: and Canadian dads. now I don’t think of Canadian dads as being very different from us, but, you know, maybe they have a funny accent or something like that. those dads are generally the same, but they operate in very different policy and regulatory environments.
[00:49:12] Adam Fishman: And what’d you find with the comparison between U.S. and Canada?
[00:49:16] Richard Petts: really the kinds of trends that we see in the US, you know, the trends you talk about, about masculinity and, harsh parenthood and things, they’re sort of less pronounced, among Canadian fathers than they are among American fathers. And we see trends of Canadian fathers being more likely to be nurturing and warm and these kinds of things.
[00:49:34] Richard Petts: and I, you know, to your point, I don’t necessarily view Canada and the US as all that different. And most of Canada, you know, when we look at certain kinds of policies like leave policy, it’s not that different. Quebec being the exception. Quebec looks more like Scandinavia. the rest of Canada looks more like the UK, probably is a better comparison.
[00:49:52] Richard Petts: but what Canada does have is a more general social support policy system, social welfare policy system, which I think creates a culture that is more communal, you know, that is more supportive of families. We have a very, weak, social support system. we’re highly individualistic. and so I think That culture probably in very subtle ways that no one realizes has an impact in how you view things in your role as a father.
[00:50:21] Adam Fishman: really interesting.I wanted to ask you a little bit about religion too, because there, there’s findings on religion were super surprising to me. especially because, I mean, maybe wrongfully so, I’ve historically lumped conservative religion in with traditional masculinity, right? Like stern father type, religious background.
[00:50:40] Adam Fishman: but you found, something interesting and different, which is that religiously active dads are more involved with their kids, especially after the birth of a new child. they’re more engaged, they’re less stressed, and they’re less likely to use corporal punishment. So, like, what’s going on? And we’re gonna talk about, like, where that’s not true in a second, but what’s going on with the, religious, dads and being less of the stern father type?
[00:51:09] Richard Petts: So this is sort of where I started my career,and there was, you know, a little bit of literature at the time written by very conservative individuals sort of arguing about how religion is really the source of transformation for fathers.
[00:51:22] Richard Petts: and I think, religion promotes strong family values, right? Like it encourages family togetherness, family stability. it promotes the importance of fathers. Now, not necessarily in the ways we’re talking about,all the time, but it does sort of recognize that fathers play an important role in families, which we don’t necessarily hear a lot about, in the broader culture.
[00:51:44] Richard Petts: And I think perhaps more than anything else, people who are religiously active are engaged in a c- engaged in a supportive community. and so I do think that all of that sort of creates an environment that supports father involvement,
[00:51:58] Adam Fishman: one of the theories that I have is we talked about historically how being a, becoming a dad can be kind of isolating and very lonely, and that dads don’t have a ton of intentional community the way that moms do.
[00:52:10] Adam Fishman: But it’s interesting because being involved in a religious community kinda gives you that backstop. And so, brings dads together, I mean, usually with their families and things like that, but it’s like a built-in community and, and so yeah, I’m glad, I’m glad that you mentioned that ’cause my head was going in the same direction,
[00:52:27] Richard Petts: Yeah, ‘cause it’s not just if you’re– if you belong to a particular religion or like how high you score on various religious indexes in terms of beliefs or anything like that. It’s really involvement. Like how often are you going to religious services, Yeah. that sort of community aspect.
[00:52:43] Adam Fishman: the one caveat that you found was that the combination of religious involvement and masculinity, so like the very involved religious folks along with the very, like, strong masculinity folks,it was interesting. Like, religion can kind of attenuate the bad effects of the masculinity on fatherhood involvement, but it sort of exacerbates the bad effects of masculinity on harsh punishment.
[00:53:11] Adam Fishman: is this a correct interpretation that, the combination of highly religious, highly masculine dad is maybe a dad who’s more likely to spank their kids?
[00:53:19] Richard Petts: Yes, that is a correct interpretation of the finding. I mean, I think for better or worse, religion is highly subjective and open to interpretation. And so I think for dads who are in a mindset of sort of very traditional masculinity, and they hear messages about fathers as head of household and fathers as sort of the rule maker, you know, that sort of provides additional support for their belief that this is my role.
[00:53:46] Richard Petts: For dads who are more in the new fatherhood ideal, right? who want to be more engaged and involved, they hear things about love one another. They hear things about the importance of family and are like, that reinforces their idea to be more engaged at home. So I do think it has that kind of exacerbating both
[00:54:04] Richard Petts: the benefits of religion and the darker side.
[00:54:06] Adam Fishman: Yeah, it’s a double-edged sword in a way.
[00:54:08] Adam Fishman: okay, last religious thing. There’s a paper that you wrote that I found, which I’m fairly certain not a lot of podcast hosts have asked you about this. This is all the way back in 2018 when podcasting wasn’t even really that big of a thing.
[00:54:21] Adam Fishman: But you published a paper on the intersection of religion and family loss, called “Miscarriage, Religious Participation, and Mental Health.” can you take us through that study? Th- this was a study on women, so I want to caveat that first. But can you take me through the, that study and what the findings were?
[00:54:38] Richard Petts: Yeah. So this was a more, more example of me search. so we… My wife experienced two miscarriages prior to the birth of our first, child. And so, you know, the family researcher in me was like, “Well, what do we know about miscarriage?” and the answer is not much. and so this was, you know, I was doing work on family and religion.
[00:54:58] Richard Petts: I stumbled upon some data that I could do some of the same things. Does religion, have an effect on, on women? That’s what the data was available for on their mental health. And so what we found was that,religion sort of,
[00:55:11] Richard Petts: Attenuated,
[00:55:13] Richard Petts: Miscarriage had the biggest effect on mental health for women who ultimately ended up having a live birth. Uh, so really the negative effect of the lower mental health was for women who experienced a miscarriage and then ultimately had a child. and religious involvement, religious participation sort of reduced that effect.
[00:55:28] Richard Petts: it provided support for women, helped improve their mental health. So women who were more religious had better mental health in those situations. Women who were less religious,
[00:55:35] Adam Fishman:
[00:55:35] Richard Petts: experienced more disadvantages
[00:55:38] Adam Fishman: Uh,
[00:55:38] Richard Petts: miscarriage.
[00:55:39] Adam Fishman: interesting. Now, this study was on women. Has anyone studied this for men?
[00:55:46] Richard Petts: I haven’t looked recently. at the time, I can confidently say no, because I looked, and I was interested and, my wife started attending, support groups, and she convinced me to come along once, and there were no men, and it was very uncomfortable. and so it’s still a taboo topic. there’s not a whole lot of research generally, on miscarriage.
[00:56:08] Richard Petts: So I’m not gonna say there isn’t any research, but I would be surprised
[00:56:12] Adam Fishman: Yeah. It’s another no man’s land area. Maybe we’re due for some of it, so. okay.
[00:56:17] Adam Fishman: We’re getting close to the end of our conversation here, and I wanna talk a little bit about, what comes next and how we make things better. so you published an editorial last year called “Why the US Should Have and Why Men Should Take Paternity Leave,” which I love.
[00:56:33] Adam Fishman: and we talked about the progress we’ve made, and that we now have 13 states and DC have paid family leave. but still, it’s only 13 states, and only something like 25% of US workers have real access to it. why are we so stuck here federally? I mean, aside from the polarized nature of our politics, that where we can’t get anything done.
[00:56:55] Adam Fishman: what else is at play here, and is there any hope for us on this stuff?
[00:56:58] Richard Petts: So I think we’re a society that highly values work and place a lot of emphasis on work and the importance of hard work. we’re also a highly individualistic society. Having policies where tax dollars go to fund time for people to take off of work sort of goes against those two deeply ingrained American
[00:57:20] Adam Fishman: Yeah.
[00:57:20] Richard Petts: that’s where the challenge is really is, and I don’t have any clear solutions
[00:57:24] Adam Fishman: So even though you don’t have clear solutions to the current, morass that we’re stuck in, if you had a magic wand and you could design a federal paternity leave policy from scratch, what, what would it look like?
[00:57:37] Richard Petts: Some people might answer, “Well, we’ll look to sort of the, the gold standard policies in Sweden and Norway.” I mean, unless we’re starting from scratch in terms of a completely new society, like those just won’t work in the United States. It just doesn’t fit. I actually think our model, the model you see in the States with paid family leave, is a pretty good model for the United States.
[00:57:56] Richard Petts: Twelve weeks of leave. I think if we could increase the pay, you know,for low-income workers, it’s in, in some states it’s almost a hundred percent of pay, if not a hundred percent of pay. so I think if we could, make sure that workers get at least three-quarters of their pay, while on leave.
[00:58:10] Richard Petts: And I think the only thing I would add to sort of what states are doing or even what FML looks like if you can make it paid, is some infrastructure to support fathers. Whether that’s an educational campaign, whether that’s, the gold standard would be like a bonus, that there’s a period of leave that families only get if fathers take it.
[00:58:29] Richard Petts: so I think I would like to see something like that, to encourage men to take it, because ultimately that benefits everyone.
[00:58:35] Adam Fishman: Yeah. Awesome. in the conversation I had with Darby, we talked about the quote reskilling of dads in some countries where they had like a dad school to learn how to change diapers and like things like that. And they found like massive success both in your ability to do that, but also like in how you conducted yourself in society and things like that.
[00:58:56] Adam Fishman: It was amazing. So I
[00:58:57] Adam Fishman: think we need that combination. It’s like dads take the time off and also go to class, you know?
[00:59:01] Adam Fishman: Uh, yeah.
[00:59:03] Adam Fishman: so just a couple more things. So you testified in front of the House Ways and Means Committee. I don’t remember how long ago that
[00:59:10] Richard Petts: So I did not actually testify.
[00:59:12] Richard Petts: no.
[00:59:13] Richard Petts: And
[00:59:13] Richard Petts: no, my research was used in testimony. so the founder, and CEO maybe of Fatherly, which was sort of a, a… You know, I, I think it still exists. we had– I had lots and lots of conversations with Fatherly, over the years doing my research on leave.
[00:59:28] Richard Petts: And so they incorporated a lot of my work in a package,
[00:59:32] Adam Fishman: Cool.
[00:59:33] Richard Petts: in the House Committee.
[00:59:34] Adam Fishman: W- what was it like for that to happen, and did he get grilled on your research?
[00:59:40] Richard Petts: I think it was largely well-received. I don’t know that it was one of these intense, hearings that we see sometimes. I don’t know that there was any controversy
[00:59:49] Richard Petts: involved. you know, I will say, as someone who, you know, is in a university, sometimes you don’t know if your work is having an impact.
[00:59:58] Richard Petts: I think that was one of the first times that I realized that, hey, what I’m doing, people care about, and it matters. It, it, it can affect lives. Which is a, you know- affirming but very motivating tool that like, hey, like I need to do more because this is actually being heard and recognized.
[01:00:14] Adam Fishman: speaking of your research, what’s next for your research? What’s a question that you’re really excited to answer?
[01:00:20] Richard Petts: it is sort of extending the cognitive labor stuff. it’s a relatively new topic of research for everybody, right? Like Alison, just finished graduate school like a year or two ago. And then like, so it’s not that old, in terms of even thinking about this. So we have a lot to learn, particularly in regard with like the impacts and outcomes associated with it.
[01:00:37] Richard Petts: and so I’m interested in sort of understanding that a bit more and how men get involved doing it. I’m also interested in sort of workplace structures and father identities. so one of the questions I often get about my work on leave or my work on, you know, flexible work policies as w-well, isn’t this just fathers who would’ve been highly engaged otherwise choosing to take advantage of these policies?
[01:01:00] Richard Petts: And so that’s why we see these benefits. and I have an answer for it, right? Like I, I’m able to explain it, but I would really like to see, to do some work on sort of looking at it both ways. So what are father identities prior to like flexible work kind of thing, and then,sort of the flip situation, right?
[01:01:21] Richard Petts: To really be able to assess, right? Even if, you know, you had a good father and strong father identity beforehand, does staying home more heighten that even more, right?
[01:01:29] Adam Fishman: Yeah.
[01:01:30] Richard Petts: effects
[01:01:30] Adam Fishman: the old correlation versus causation debate. Yes, I’m very familiar, across many dimensions. okay, well, that sounds like awesome and exciting, research, and I’m glad you’re thinking about it. So maybe I’ll have you back after you get some more findings there. Um,
[01:01:44] Adam Fishman: Before we do lightning round, I hope you have a few more minutes. I wanted to end on, like, a bookend of a personal note, some things that I learned about you, in prepping for this interview. So you and I have, some similarities. you’re a planner. You said you book hotels months in advance for swim meets, which is a big thing that your kids are into.
[01:02:01] Adam Fishman: I am also a planner. I love a good long-term hotel booking, into the future. Has that ever come back to bite you, in any way?
[01:02:08] Richard Petts: Yeah, so my family makes fun of me. Uh, I talked about the hotels I booked for July like a month ago, and they laughed for days about that. but I, I have, I’ve learned my lesson, but I have booked non-refundable rooms to try to
[01:02:21] Richard Petts: save some money, and then the dates changed. so I’ve learned no more non-refundable rooms.
[01:02:27] Adam Fishman: That’s good. Lesson for all the dad planners out you’re also officiating your kids’ swim meets now, which is very cool. and you found it to be something you really enjoy. what’s, uh, really enjoyable about it for you?
[01:02:38] Richard Petts: I think ‘cause, you know, you get access to the deck, which most parents don’t get to have. And so my kids have gotten to the point where if I’m not officiating, they’re like, “Well, why not? Why aren’t you gonna be there?” And it’s really cool when they have achievements, right? Like, they run up to me, and are like, “I just got a personal best.
[01:02:57] Richard Petts: I just got a certain cut I’m working for.”
[01:02:59] Adam Fishman: Yeah.
[01:02:59] Richard Petts: be there in that moment and experience that, it’s been really cool.
[01:03:02] Adam Fishman: That’s so cool.
[01:03:04] Adam Fishman: all right, I like to ask everybody about AI and parenting ‘cause this is a thing. you said you haven’t used it very much for parenting, but you have two interesting exceptions. tell me about how you use AI as a pseudo marriage counselor.
[01:03:15] Richard Petts: Yeah. So this is really my wife’s, sort of initiative. so we have arguments like all, you know, married couples to do. and so my wife recently has done some interaction with AI, and she’ll send me the transcript, about sort of from her perspective and from, you know, much– her perceive my perspective and those kinds of things.
[01:03:34] Richard Petts: It helps, I guess. I sort of see things from a different angle, but there was a recent story out, this is maybe two weeks ago now, that AI is basically programmed to,a-approve the kinds of things that you’re talking about and thinking about. And so I told her, I’m like, “So every time that you go in and you’re like, here’s his perspective, here’s my perspective, analyze it for me,’ they’re like, ‘Of course, your perspective is valid.’”
[01:03:55] Richard Petts: Like, it’s programmed to do that. So there’s an inherent bias involved in that. I don’t know that that helped me any,
[01:04:01] Adam Fishman: probably not.
[01:04:02] Richard Petts: I found it interesting.
[01:04:03] Adam Fishman: Okay. Oh, I love that. the other thing is you use– This is similar to me too. You use AI for generating math practice problems for your kids. I built a whole thing to do this. It’s been awesome. Where have you found that this goes wrong from time to time?
[01:04:16] Richard Petts: you know, I did it a couple times for things I was familiar with and just didn’t have the time to sit down and create a bunch of problems. Worked great. And then topics that I’m not as knowledgeable on, right? Like, I’ve never been good at geometry. It’s just never been my strong suit. And so he had like some– my son had some proofs and things that he needed to do, and I’m like, “ It would take me hours to figure out how to construct my own.”
[01:04:39] Richard Petts: So I played around with AI a little bit, had what looked similar to what was in his homework, but then I came to realize, like, they weren’t real problems, and there weren’t real solutions. So my son would be doing it, he’s like, “There’s no answer.” he’s like, “This isn’t right.” And so he learned because he learned it wasn’t– like he couldn’t do it, but
[01:04:54] Adam Fishman: Yep.
[01:04:54] Richard Petts: didn’t sort of do what it was intended to
[01:04:56] Adam Fishman: Okay. Okay. So be wary of AI when you’re deviating from your core competencies. Yeah.
[01:05:02] Adam Fishman: okay, before we get to lightning round, a couple more things for you. I understand that you have a dog named Brain, and that you are his favorite, human in the house. Is That true?
[01:05:11] Richard Petts: is true. So he is a very needy dog, and even if something as simple as, I, I go to the bathroom He will run around the house looking for me
[01:05:20] Adam Fishman: how have you managed to, uh, get him to endear himself so much or vi- or
[01:05:24] Richard Petts: I, I was the one that found him. I don’t know if he sort of just knows this. we sort of kept him because the kids were in love with him, but we drove up… He was a rescue. We drove up a couple hours sort of at my behest. I don’t
[01:05:39] Adam Fishman: Yeah.
[01:05:39] Richard Petts: of it. I think the more likely scenario is I feed him every day,
[01:05:43] Adam Fishman: Ah.
[01:05:44] Richard Petts: the source of food.
[01:05:45] Adam Fishman: Yes. dogs have very simple needs and attachments, okay, the last thing is, I imagine that your research on fatherhood and families is something that’s, constantly on your mind when you’re at home even. have you found that studying those topics has made you a better dad? And then on the flip side, where does that get hard?
[01:06:04] Richard Petts: Yeah. So I think, I hope it does. if nothing else, it makes me more aware of things. And so when I’m not doing as much, you know, I’m aware of it and I try to, you know, do more. And every time I come up with a new finding or something, I’m like, “Oh, this is something I haven’t been doing a good job of.
[01:06:18] Richard Petts: Now I need to change it.” I think the downside to that is that, I, I can feel guilty. I don’t know to what extent men do. I, you know, I know they do to some extent. but because I’m so aware of sort of the load and the burden that when I know I’m not carrying my share of the load, like I, I feel bad about it.
[01:06:36] Richard Petts: and so sometimes ignorance is bliss. And so, being less ignorant about these things, I feel like I do struggle
[01:06:42] Adam Fishman: yeah. Okay. end, how can people follow along or be helpful to you?
[01:06:47] Richard Petts: Yeah. So you can follow my research my website, www.richardpetts.com. there’s also a way, you know, if you wanna reach out to me, you can do so through there. you can follow me on LinkedIn. It’s probably the social media site I’m most active on. I’m starting to dabble in Instagram.
[01:07:02] Richard Petts: I feel way too old to be on Instagram. I’ve
[01:07:05] Adam Fishman: same.
[01:07:06] Adam Fishman: part in my life, but I– it seems like that’s where everybody is, Okay, cool. We will link to all of these things in the show notes.
[01:07:12] Adam Fishman: all right, lightning round. We’ll keep this short and sweet. what is the most indispensable parenting product you’ve ever purchased?
[01:07:20] Richard Petts: Sound machine.
[01:07:21] Adam Fishman: Ooh.
[01:07:22] Richard Petts: reason, then my kids are not hooked on it and so can’t sleep without it.
[01:07:25] Adam Fishman: Ah. Most useless parenting product you’ve ever purchased?
[01:07:29] Richard Petts: I can’t remember. but I will say useless is relative because things that were indispensable for my son were useless for my daughter and vice versa
[01:07:38] Adam Fishman: Good life lesson there. true or false: there is only one correct way to load the dishwasher.
[01:07:44] Richard Petts: That is true, and anyone who disagrees is, completely mistaken, and I have this conversation every day at my house.
[01:07:50] Adam Fishman: Same, same. what is the crazier block of time in your house, 6:00 AM to 8:00 AM or 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM?
[01:07:58] Richard Petts: Oh, the morning is so quiet and peaceful. the evening is I’m chauffeuring– we’re chauffeuring people around everywhere. It’s nuts.
[01:08:05] Adam Fishman: Yeah. what’s your go-to dad wardrobe?
[01:08:08] Richard Petts: Increasingly, it’s work clothes. I mean, when I’m not working, you know, it’s jeans and a sweatshirt.
[01:08:13] Adam Fishman: Yeah. How many dad jokes do you tell on average each day?
[01:08:17] Richard Petts: Not a big dad joke guy. I’m more sort of the sarcastic poke fun kind of guy.
[01:08:23] Adam Fishman: I definitely– I talked to a dad who was like, “You know, I’m the prankster in the house, so I don’t tell jokes, but I, like, constantly tease my kids.” what is… Since you have one teenager, one almost teenager, what is the most embarrassing thing that you’ve ever done in front of your kids according to them?
[01:08:39] Richard Petts: for both of them at different times, have screamed at them when they’ve won e-events at swimming when it’s gotten quiet at the pool. out their name, and so they’re mortified.
[01:08:48] Adam Fishman: What is the most difficult kids TV show that you’ve ever had to sit through?
[01:08:53] Richard Petts: Caillou Oh, whines the yes.
[01:08:58] Adam Fishman: Ca- Caillou was absolutely banned in our household after the first few episodes.
[01:09:04] Richard Petts: the
[01:09:05] Richard Petts:
[01:09:05] Adam Fishman: what was the first nostalgic movie that you forced your kids to watch with you?
[01:09:10] Richard Petts: I can’t remember the first one. I know some of the early ones were Indiana Jones was a very early one. Back to the Future was a very early one. Those are the two that
[01:09:19] Adam Fishman: Those are really fun when you start getting into that
[01:09:21] Richard Petts: come to mind. Mm-hmm.
[01:09:22] Adam Fishman: two more. What is the worst experience you ever had assembling a kid’s toy or a piece of furniture?
[01:09:28] Richard Petts: There were many bad ones. I remember a Lego set that had gears
[01:09:32] Richard Petts: that it took me hours because the gears wouldn’t line up. I also had a recent experience which I took a morning off of work to put a gaming table together. so spent three hours putting this gaming table together.
[01:09:45] Richard Petts: We had to move it from downstairs to upstairs, and we clipped the leg against the stairs as we went up, and it, completely broke the leg
[01:09:52] Adam Fishman: Oh, no.
[01:09:55] Richard Petts: putting it together.
[01:09:55] Adam Fishman: Oh, no.
[01:09:57] Richard Petts: Yeah.
[01:09:58] Adam Fishman: the world is conspiring against you. all right, last question. What is your take on minivans?
[01:10:04] Richard Petts: Hey, we were a minivan, van– minivan family for a while. We’re not anymore. What I always think of when I talk about minivans is I don’t understand how there’s so much more space in a minivan The exterior dimensions of a minivan and SUV are like identical. But there’s like triple the space in a minivan.
[01:10:21] Richard Petts: And so we could– that– we couldn’t justify when our kids were really young switching to an SUV because it was like, “Where are we gonna put everything?”
[01:10:28] Adam Fishman: Yep. Yep. Okay, so you were on team minivan. Doesn’t sound like you’re anti-minivan, you’ve just maybe moved on to something else,
[01:10:34] Richard Petts: We were never like, “Yay, minivan,” but it was like, it’s so functional. Like, how could you not have a minivan?
[01:10:40] Adam Fishman: Yeah.
[01:10:41] Richard Petts: don’t need as much space, we’re not carrying around, you know, gobs of stuff
[01:10:45] Adam Fishman: Yeah.
[01:10:45] Richard Petts: We prefer not having a minivan.
[01:10:47] Adam Fishman: Okay. All right. Well, Richard, thank you so much for joining me today. this was a really fun conversation. I learned a ton. and best of, luck to you, Amy, and your kids. I’m sure swim, swim team’s gonna be very busy this summer,good luck to everyone for the whole rest of this year. Thank you.
[01:11:03] Richard Petts: thank you. Thanks for having me on. It’s been great.
[01:11:05] Adam Fishman: Thank you for listening to today’s conversation with Richard Petts. You can subscribe and watch the show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Visit www.startupdadpod.com to learn more and browse past episodes. Thanks for listening and see you next week.