The importance of the father's role in the first years of a child's life 2026

Olivia Szinetar, psychologist and psychotherapist at Sens Psychological Care Center, talks to us about the role of the father during the first years of a child's life.

1. The father accompanies and gives security to his partner since pregnancy

During pregnancy, the mother is more vulnerable, she asks multiple questions, she may have moments of anguish and uncertainty. During this time, the father occupies a primary place, taking care of and protecting the nest, giving words that make her feel calm and often relativizing the mother's fears by showing her a more realistic point of view. He is not experiencing all the changes that the mother experiences in her body. is not pregnant, allows him, from the outside, to provide a more objective vision, this way of being of the father gives security to the mother, and she in turn can transmit it to the baby.

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2. The father actively participates in caring for the baby

From the moment of birth, the mother has the need to give herself to the baby to ensure its survival, a symbiotic relationship of extreme dependence is created between them, vital for the adequate development of the child. Faced with this reality, the father may feel excluded and see the need to withdraw to facilitate the mother's encounter with the baby. However, this withdrawal, although positive, should be small; the presence of the father during the first months of the baby's life is essential. Why? You will be able to start getting to know him and start a bond with him. You have the opportunity to bring out your most maternal side by working as a team, together with the mother, in the activities that involve caring for, protecting and loving the baby. Additionally, having the father be there with the mother and the baby helps her feel that responsibility for the child is shared between the two. - and thus feels less burdened.

3. The father enters the relationship between mother and baby to open up a world full of possibilities for the child.

Unlike the natural way in which the mother relates to the child, for the father to build the relationship with the baby requires more effort. Given the symbiotic and dependent relationship that exists between mother and baby, the father has to fight harder to build the bond with his child and to obtain his partner's attention again. Little by little everyone begins to be prepared for a change, the baby is growing, begins to acquire some independence, walks, runs, begins to talk, the mother has more time and space and the father begins to demand the mother from the place of couple. At this moment it is vital and very healthy for the psychological development of the child that the father supports the child in this search for independence and manages to make a place for himself between the mother and him, it is necessary that he be able to put a limit between them, make a cut to achieve the psychic separation between the two.

Why is it so important for the father to do this?

The entry of his father tells the child that there is an external world beyond his mother that is full of possibilities. That there are other things that he can teach him, among them the pleasure of being autonomous, socializing, having his own desires, being interested in other things, in short, he teaches him to dare to know the world, its culture and its norms. Something that I would like to make clear is that these functions, paternal and maternal, are exercised by the mother and father at the same time. Sometimes it will be the mother who exercises the paternal function or the other way around. The important thing for the child is that they occur, regardless of whether it is the mother or the father who does them.

Production: Pablo Cantudo / Jesús Nicolás