Paternal Role Is Newly Explored

The Nurturing Father by Kyle D. Pruett MD (Warner Books: $18.95).

Kyle D. Pruett, a child psychiatrist at Yale University, has studied non-traditional parenting and believes that fathers do as well--if not better--than mothers in raising children. Using precise sociological methodology and informal anecdotal visits, Pruett follows 17 families, representing different socioeconomic levels, during a period of five years. He finds the main reasons for paternal primary care falls into three categories: economic (wives made more money); necessity (single or shared custody), or emotional (several fathers wanted to extend the initial thrill of “paternal identity,” which he deems “unbelievably important”).

The trouble is that Pruett’s thesis “wags” his intrinsically interesting book. Children raised by fathers were not demonstrably different, he concludes.

After reading through a mass of data and laboriously detailed reports on children at home and school, the reader senses that “The Nurturing Father” makes much ado about a tiny trend, albeit one that might increase in importance.

How significant is it that toddler Henry Blue was rated three months ahead of “normal” on a standard developmental scale, presumably because he was raised by his pater ?