ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to redress the balance and focus on the particular role of a father. It is not about being an additional or spare parent but about being able to offer a particular relationship to the baby and to the mother-and-baby-couple, offering a third position. Men nowadays are often more actively involved with their babies than their own fathers were with them. Men and women become fathers and mothers when their offspring is conceived, creating both biological and psychological systems. It is also no accident that fathers of young babies are said to work longer hours than men of the same age who either have no children or equally significantly, have older children. This may be about escape from the pressures of family life or a wish to have some intimacy for himself if he feels excluded by the mother and baby's intimacy. Fathers are also vulnerable to post-natal depression and it is more common.
