Are Dads Wired for Care?

When it comes to parenting, human fathers have more in common with robins than with our rodent relatives. In fact, most mammalian fathers never know their children, and are completely absent from raising them.

“That’s not the case for birds, in which both parents are usually involved in rearing,” says Chris Kuzawa, anthropology and a faculty fellow at Northwestern’s Institute for Policy Research. “In most human societies, fathers know who their kids are and are involved to varying degrees in providing for and caring for them.”

A biological anthropologist with training in epidemiology, Kuzawa is broadly interested in understanding how the human life cycle has developed over time. One important piece of that story is how humans raise their children and the evolutionary forces that shape this parenting. In collaboration with postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, undergraduates, and scholars throughout the world, Kuzawa has focused part of his multifaceted research on the biological changes that men experience as they become dads.

His seminal work, published with a graduate student in PNAS in 2011, shows that in species in which males care for their young, testosterone is often high during mating periods but then declines to allow for caregiving. Kuzawa will discuss this research, as well as more recent discoveries, at February’s Science Café event in Evanston.

“Dads who attend will learn about the natural and expected hormonal changes that occur as they bond with their children and care for them,” says Kuzawa, a member of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences. “Moms will learn that their levels of testosterone – a hormone that we typically associate with males – also change when they are caring for young infants.”

Join Kuzawa for this engaging discussion from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on February 27 at Firehouse Grill, 750 Chicago Ave., in Evanston.

By Roger Anderson