Do Feminists Have It Wrong on Child Care?

(CBS) Maybe Beaver Cleaver's folks had things right after all.

Feminists might not like it (well lots of women might not like it), but a new study lends support for the old-fashioned notion that mothers should be chiefly responsible for taking care of their children. It showed that marital conflict is more likely when couples share child-care duties than when mom is the primary care-giver.

"I don't think this means that for every family, a father being involved in care-giving is a bad thing," study co-author Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, associate professor of human development and family science at Ohio State University, said in a written statement. "But it is not the recipe for all couples."

The study, published in the Jan. 2011 issue of  "Developmental Psychology," tracked the interactions of 122 Midwestern couples with a 4-year-old child. It showed that the more dads pitched in with child-care, the greater the conflict with moms.

On the other hand, there was less conflict when dads played more with their kids.

The findings in the study held true even when the researchers compared dual and single-income families, according to the statement, and when they took into account demographic factors, such as the fathers' education and work hours, family income, family size, and how long the couple had been together.

What explains the finding? Chalk it up to parents' mixed feelings about their roles.

"There might be some ambivalence on the part of mothers in allowing fathers to participate in day-to-day child care," said Schoppe-Sullivan. "But fathers might be ambivalent too, and may not be happy about shouldering more of the care-giving."

The bottom line? Couples have to decide for themselves which way works best when it comes to taking care of the kids. In other words, even-steven might not be best, even if it makes feminists' blood boil.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Did we have it right in the 50s with moms shouldering all the child-rearing burdens? Or do dads need to step up for the kids and work it out with their wives?