Lee Gettler is a professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame. He is also the director of Notre Dame’s Hormones, Health, and Human Behavior Laboratory, and his research focuses on male hormonal changes during major life transitions like marriage and fatherhood.
To understand how men’s bodies adjust to parenthood, Gettler studies fathers around the world — from South Bend to the Philippines. He hopes his findings can strengthen families by supporting men’s ability to support their children and partners.
Video transcription:
Lee Gettler: I’m Lee Gettler. I’m a professor in the Department of Anthropology.
My research largely focuses on the biology of fatherhood, particularly men’s hormones. So I look at how men’s hormones change across major life transitions, like becoming a new father or getting married. And then I look at how that relates to men’s roles within families and their own health.
There were lots of scientists looking at those types of questions in other species where dads help take care of young, especially in birds. I was able to take that toolkit from anthropology, turn the lens onto humans, and ask questions about how human biology might change in ways that are actually very similar to what you see in other vertebrate species where biparental care or care by both mom and dad has evolved.
Using a long-running study in the Philippines, we were able to look at how men’s hormones changed as they went from being single nonfathers to newly partnered, new dads. We’ve also done research here locally in the community in South Bend, partnering with Beacon Memorial Hospital, in which we looked at dads on the birthing unit, right in the moments when their babies were born. We were looking at how responsive their hormones like testosterone and oxytocin were to the first time they ever interacted with their new babies after they were born.
I also work with two different cultural groups who live really remotely in the rainforest in the Republic of the Congo in Africa. They have very different models of family life in terms of what fathers do, what fathers’ roles are, how fathers support their partners and their kids.
And I think there are really important questions to be asked about how this takes shape in diverse forms around the world. This work is ultimately about trying to understand the way that men’s bodies can adjust and acclimate to the demands of parenthood and how that relates to the roles they play in caring for their children and supporting their partners.
So if we can develop a really good understanding of what types of experiences actually help bring these biological changes online in men, then we can develop better interventions to help support men’s ability to be high-quality caregivers and to be supportive partners.
Ultimately, that’s really critical for strengthening families and helping to facilitate healthy father-child relationships, which we know have really profound positive impacts on children’s long-term development and health.
I think Notre Dame is an ideal place to study these questions about family life and fatherhood. I had support from the college to have a year of sabbatical when I got an external fellowship that really laid the groundwork for some of the significant publications that I’ve been able to put out in the last few years. It’s really the community here but also the tremendous support that we get from the college that facilitates research excellence.
