What Happens to Your Brain When You Become a Parent (Including Dads) w/ Dr. Darby Saxbe

Raising Good Humans

Voicing Change Media

Education, Kids & Family, Parenting

4.7 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 19 December 2025

⏱️ 69 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this week’s episode I am joined by Dr. Darby Saxby, a clinical psychologist and professor at the University of Southern California as we delve into the transition to parenthood, particularly focusing on fathers and the concept of the 'dad brain.' We discuss how fathers experience physiological and psychological changes despite not giving birth, the vulnerability and opportunities for growth these changes bring, and how societal structures often fail to support new parents adequately. Dr. Saxby shares insights from her research, including how caregiving impacts brain structure in both mothers and fathers and the importance of fathers being involved at various stages of a child's development. I WROTE MY FIRST BOOK! Order your copy of The Five Principles of Parenting: Your Essential Guide to Raising Good Humans Here: https://bit.ly/3rMLMsL Subscribe to my free newsletter for parenting tips delivered straight to your inbox: https://dralizapressman.substack.com/ Follow me on Instagram for more: @raisinggoodhumanspodcast Sponsors: Avocado Green Mattress: With code humans, you’ll save an extra $25 on Crib and Kids Mattresses on top of their holiday sale! That’s an extra $25 off their current sale at AvocadoGreenMattress.com with the code humans Osea: Get 10% off your first order sitewide with code HUMANS at OSEAMalibu.com Wayfair: Head to Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home Suvie: Go to Suvie.com/Humans to get $150 off plus 16 free meals when you order during their sale Laundry Sauce: Make laundry day the best day of the week! Get 20% off your entire order @LaundrySauce with code HUMANS at https://laundrysauce.com/HUMANS #laundrysaucepod Tia: Go to bit.ly/asktia-humans Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode. Produced by Dear Media. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The following podcast is a Dear Media production.
0:10.0	Welcome to Raising Good Humans.
0:12.4	I'm Dr. Elisa Pressman, and today's episode is with Dr. Darby-Saxby.
0:18.1	She's a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of
0:21.8	Southern California. Her research on the transition to parenthood and her research on the
0:26.5	dad brain and parent brain is wildly interesting. Today we're talking about this transition to
0:32.0	parenthood and both the vulnerability of the brain and the incredible opportunities for growth of that very same new parent brain.
0:42.5	And today we're talking about the transition to parenthood for fathers and the dad brain.
0:48.1	These are physiological changes happening to the brain of a human who didn't give birth,
0:57.1	even though it has nothing to do with our conversation, which is just when you get psychologists together and we just maybe tell one
1:04.7	parenting fail so that people feel like even when you have all the content, knowledge,
1:10.4	in the world, it still really brings you to your
1:13.9	knees as a human parent. Do you have any of those that you want to share? I have so many of those.
1:21.6	I mean, I could say for years my kids slept in their clothes because I just could not deal with the morning routine.
1:29.2	Is that a parenting?
1:30.2	I actually think it's a parenting win.
1:32.5	Yeah, I do too.
1:33.2	But, you know, it's something that other parents can get a little judgy about.
1:37.0	But I actually, like, you know, sometimes I think that it's good to yell at kids because it's important for them to see that you're human. I know
1:46.3	you do a lot of writing about rupture and repair and like we're not always perfect and we hit
1:52.7	our limits. Sometimes kids are just being jerks and like there's accountability that they get when
1:59.4	they see you be mad.
	...

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