A new study has found that “couples who showed a good marital relationship before the birth [of their child] seemed to do better when dealing with a fussy and uncooperative baby when compared to those couples whose relationship was not as good.”
This seems pretty obvious to me, but according to the lead researcher, there has been little work done on the “coparenting relationship”—how “mothers and fathers” work together as parents. Even if one parent is good with the child, the child could have later behavior problems if the parents are not supportive of each other. The parents’ relationship may also suffer.
The study only looked at opposite-sex parents, which makes me think there’s a doctoral dissertation or two waiting in similar studies of same-sex parents (with “marriage” defined as any committed relationship, legal or otherwise). I can’t imagine the above findings would differ greatly for same-sex couples, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some variations in coparenting approaches between same- and opposite-sex parents. Any takers? Any such research already in progress?