What Young Men Know about Babies, and Why It Matters

Background / Purpose: Little is known about the level of knowledge men possess about typical child development and factors that influence level of knowledge. In one study of low-income women, mothers correctly answered 65% of criterion-referenced knowledge questions and low knowledge was associated with parenting risk factors (Reich, 2005). To our knowledge, no similar studies have examined men’s knowledge of child development.

In this study, (1) we describe overall knowledge of typical child development among the men in our nationally representative sample; (2) we examine demographic factors (e.g., race and ethnicity, age, and education), psychosocial factors (e.g., depression), and experience with children (e.g., differences between fathers and non-fathers) associated with men’s knowledge; and (3) we examine whether men’s knowledge of child development is associated with a measure of risk for child maltreatment (Berlin, Dodge, & Reznick, 2012).

Methods:

Data and sample: The Men’s Health, Fatherhood, and Relationships Study is a cross-sectional study (N = 1,346) of young men ages 18 – 35 conducted by the authors, and represents a new source of data about men’s health. We select this age range because it is the time when the majority of men become parents. The survey was conducted with a nationally representative survey panel established through probability sampling of the U.S. population.

Key Measures:

Men’s Knowledge – The Opinions about Babies Scale (Reich, 2005) is a 32 item criterion-referenced scale measuring knowledge of typical infant development across domains from the Bright Futures Guidelines for Health Supervision (Green & Palfrey, 2002) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Guidelines for Health Supervision II (American Academy of Pediatrics, 1997).

Hostile Attributions (Berlin, Dodge, & Reznick, 2013) were assessed using 13 items measuring perceptions of positive and negative intentions of infants (e.g., “Do babies seek praise when they do something clever?”; “Do babies try to punish people or get even?”). Maternal hostile attributions are a known risk factor for child abuse and neglect among mothers.

Results: (1) Overall men correctly answered 53%, or slightly more than half, of the criterion-referenced knowledge questions. (2) Fathers knew significantly more than non-fathers. Depression was a strong predictor of lower levels of knowledge, even after controlling for education level, race and ethnicity. (3) Results suggested that low levels of knowledge were associated with hostile attributions toward infants.

Conclusions and Implications: This is the first study to examine men’s knowledge of typical child development and correlates with demographic factors, psychosocial factors, and risk for child maltreatment. There are clear implications for social work practice, including the need for providing anticipatory guidance to mothers and fathers about developmentally appropriate expectations for infants.