I missed my calling as being a scientific researcher of the obvious.

According to a new review of previous studies, children who have an active father figure have less psychological and behavioural problems than those who don’t. This ties in with my recent theme of men needing to be responsible instead of letting women carry all the burdens.

And for you liberals, no, I am in no way saying that women are weak and/or need to be dominated. It means exactly what I said:  Husbands and fathers should not neglect their responsibilities and dump them on women.

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Feb. 15, 2008) — Active father figures have a key role to play in reducing behaviour problems in boys and psychological problems in young women, according to a review published in the February issue of Acta Paediatrica.

Children who lived with both a mother and father figure also had less behavioural problems than those who just lived with their mother.

The researchers are urging healthcare professionals to increase fathers’ involvement in their children’s healthcare and calling on policy makers to ensure that fathers have the chance to play an active role in their upbringing.

The review looked at 24 papers published between 1987 and 2007, covering 22,300 individual sets of data from 16 studies. 18 of the 24 papers also covered the social economic status of the families studied.

The smallest study focused on 17 infants and the largest covered 8,441 individuals ranging from premature babies to 33 year-olds. They included major ongoing research from the USA and UK, together with smaller studies from Sweden and Israel.

“Our detailed 20-year review shows that overall, children reap positive benefits if they have active and regular engagement with a father figure” says Dr Anna Sarkadi from the Department of Women’s and Children’s Health at Uppsala University, Sweden.

“For example, we found various studies that showed that children who had positively involved father figures were less likely to smoke and get into trouble with the police, achieved better levels of education and developed good friendships with children of both sexes.

“Long-term benefits included women who had better relationships with partners and a greater sense of mental and physical well-being at the age of 33 if they had a good relationship with their father at 16.”