No one feels compelled to make the case, even when Mother’s Day rolls around, that mothers matter. To ask the question is to answer it. They physically bear and nurture children, they listen and worry, and they are the first ones small kids run to when they’re hurt or scared. Even pirates and prisoners proudly sport “Mom” tattoos. Moms matter. Duh.

But the importance of fathers was long overlooked by social science research, until somewhat recently. For the last several decades now, study after study has revealed ways that dads are uniquely significant and integral to their children’s growth and wellbeing. Even more, the research has shown how important the difference between dads and moms truly is, specifically how kids need a fathers’ maleness.

Years ago, I interviewed with one of the early voices to make this case to a secular audience. The late Paul Raeburn normally covered research and discoveries from the hard sciences, in areas like chemistry, physics, and biology. He wrote for popular publications such as The New York Times, Science, Psychology Today, and others. But in 2014, Raeburn took a detour into the social sciences to explore the topic of fatherhood because, as he told me, “I’ve got five kids, and I wanted to know if I mattered.”

His conclusion, detailed in his book Do Fathers Matter?, was a resounding “yes.” Fathers, he found, contribute far more than genes and, hopefully, a paycheck. Drawing on the work of neuroscientists, animal behaviorists, geneticists, and developmental psychologists, Raeburn showed that fathers make a difference at every stage of a child’s development, from conception through adulthood. Dads are for children a source of physiological, psychological, and social stability that they carry with them their whole lives.

The latest social science only continues to bolster Raeburn’s conclusions. For instance, a brand-new study from researchers at the University of Virginia and Hampton University found that disparities in academic performance between students of different races and ethnicities essentially disappeared when they had fathers in intact homes. The presence of a dad also eliminated the racial gap in behavior issues in school, meaning father absence is almost certainly the main driver of such problems.

Involved fathers made an especially big difference for girls’ mental health, with 10 times the number of female students being diagnosed with depression and risk of self-harm when they had disengaged or absent fathers. This aligns well with abundant prior research demonstrating that girls with uninvolved dads show far higher rates of promiscuity and risky sexual behavior, including teen pregnancy. In other words, if we want to address these problems, much like behavioral and academic issues among boys, there is no better investment than encouraging fathers to be involved.

Some of the mechanisms behind this amazing difference that dads make are only beginning to emerge, and begin well before high school, to playtime in early childhood. Writing recently at the Institute for Family Studies, Jay Fagan and Glen Palm explored how fathers build attachment with their infants through different mechanisms than mothers, typically relying on “rough-and-tumble” play to establish emotional security and a foundation for future learning.

We’ve all seen a dad throw a cackling baby in the air until mom gets nervous or chase a toddler around on all fours until both collapse in fits of laughter. Emerging research suggests that these behaviors are anything but silly. They are involved in children’s emotional regulation and create a unique kind of attachment, described as “secure exploration.” This attachment type allows children to venture into the world with less anxiety, knowing from experience that they have a secure refuge they can return to, a man who can help them make sense of what they learn. This in turn may jump-start their mastery of hard or frustrating tasks and help them understand the dynamics and boundaries of healthy relationships.

As Fagan and Palm wrote:

The term “activation relationship” describes the emotional bond between fathers and children that enables the child to feel safe to take both physical and social risks and explore their environment ....When fathers interact with sensitivity and warmth, they provide a secure base for exploration and encourage children to go out into the world and then come back to share with [their] fathers.

All of this is exactly what we’d expect if, as Scripture teaches, God is a loving Father who designed the human family around the distinct-but-essential contributions of both male and female. Children thrive with involved fathers as well as mothers because the two are not the same, and that’s the way they were designed. Kids need both.

But in our time, it is the “overlooked parent,” as Raeburn put it, whose role science is truly beginning to understand, whose absence has left especially deep wounds, and whose involvement the Church can lead the way in helping to re-establish.

This Father’s Day, the research is in. We have decades of evidence showing that dads matter. What we do with that evidence will shape children’s futures in ways more profound than we ever thought.

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