Increasingly, Singaporeans are being asked to believe that the sex of a parent does not really matter. We are told that love, household stability and parenting quality matter, but whether those things are provided by a mother and father, two mothers, or two fathers supposedly makes little difference.

That assumption is gaining ground. In Ipsos’ 2024 Singapore survey, 72% of Gen Z respondents and 69% of Millennials agreed that same-sex couples could raise children successfully, compared with 44% of Gen X respondents and 40% of Baby Boomers.

That proposition assumes the very thing that needs to be proved: that mothers and fathers are interchangeable.

But when parental sex is actually examined rather than assumed to be irrelevant, measurable differences emerge.

Parental sex matters. Mothers and fathers overlap enormously in their capacities, but research shows recurring differences in how they communicate, play, challenge, regulate and relate to their children. Those differences produce distinct developmental benefits.

These are statistically observable tendencies between the sexes, not rules governing every individual parent. A mother can roughhouse with her children. A father can be deeply soothing and emotionally responsive. But overlap does not mean interchangeability.

Indeed, Singapore’s own family institutions already recognise that fathers contribute something distinctive. Families for Life describes fathers as playing a “unique role” in their children’s lives, while other local guidance notes that father-child interaction often tends to be more physical and spontaneous. Earlier Singapore research also found overwhelming public recognition of the importance of fathers, with 97% of respondents affirming their value in children’s lives.

A father’s contribution is not distinctive because no mother can ever perform the same individual task. It is distinctive because only a father can provide the relationship of fatherhood: the love, protection, challenge and guidance of a male parent.

Building on our earlier discussion of why both parents matter, we now turn from the principle of complementarity to the evidence for how it works in practice.

Why Fathers Parent Differently

Parenthood extends far beyond shared domestic chores, tuition schedules and school drop-offs. Mothers and fathers bring distinct, complementary strengths to family life.

Mothers and fathers share the same fundamental desire to love and protect their children. Yet they often express that love differently. Mothers tend, on average, to provide greater sensitivity, emotional reassurance and responsive care, while fathers tend, on average, to encourage exploration, challenge and independence.

These differences are not simply social expectations. Researchers studying paternal behaviour have identified psychological, biological and evolutionary explanations for why fathers often engage children differently from mothers. Father-child rough-and-tumble play, for example, is observed across many mammalian species and has been studied as a possible mechanism for developing social competence, emotional regulation and confidence in navigating the wider world. Wikipedia

These are not rigid categories. Mothers can challenge their children and fathers can provide comfort. The point is not that one parent owns a particular behaviour, but that mothers and fathers often contribute different strengths to the same developmental goals.

Cognitive and Language Development

A systematic review found a positive and statistically significant relationship between father involvement and children’s cognitive development during early childhood, above and beyond maternal parenting. Several studies found the relationship persisted across ethnicity and socioeconomic status.

Fathers also tend to communicate differently. Research has found average differences in maternal and paternal speech, with mothers tending towards more supportive speech and fathers towards somewhat more directive and informational styles.

Father-child communication at age three was a unique predictor of advanced language development even when maternal communication was considered.

Play, Risk-Taking, and Social Competence

One of the most distinctive ways fathers contribute to child development is through play. Fathers are often children’s primary play partners, particularly through physical and rough-and-tumble play.

A systematic review of 78 studies found that fathers spend a substantial proportion of their interactions with young children in play, especially forms of physical play that involve excitement, unpredictability and stimulation. These interactions were associated with positive social, emotional and cognitive outcomes.

Recent evidence strengthens this distinction. A 2026 meta-analysis examining 40 studies involving more than 7,000 parents found that fathers engaged in more “activation parenting” than mothers on average, with the difference particularly pronounced in rough-and-tumble play.

Activation parenting is not simply about making children excited. It involves encouraging children to explore, take manageable risks, face challenges and regulate themselves under stimulation. Through this process, children learn that excitement does not have to become chaos, that challenge does not have to become fear, and that confidence is built through experience.

Research on paternal activation has linked higher-quality father-child interactions with stronger self-regulation and behavioural outcomes. Longitudinal research has also associated father-child play with fewer later internalising and externalising behaviour problems.

Nor is this pattern easily explained as merely a modern social expectation. Rough-and-tumble play is found across many mammalian species, and researchers have examined its possible evolutionary and developmental functions. Human paternal play may serve an adaptive role by helping children become more confident, socially competent and prepared to engage with the wider world.

This does not mean mothers cannot challenge, stimulate or play physically with their children. They can and do. The point is about average tendencies: fathers are more likely to draw children into forms of interaction that involve exploration, challenge and controlled risk.

In this way, fathers contribute something distinct. They do not merely provide affection and care. They help children discover that the world outside the home can be explored, tested and mastered.

Why Do Fathers Parent Differently?

The recurring differences between fathers and mothers are not adequately explained by a single cause. Male and female psychology differs on average, fatherhood itself brings biological adaptations, and paternal activation has plausible developmental and evolutionary functions.

For example, longitudinal research has found that men’s testosterone levels decline when they become fathers, especially among men heavily involved in childcare. At the same time, researchers describe a paternal “activation relationship” that opens the child to the wider world through challenge, exploration and controlled risk while maintaining protective boundaries.

Culture shapes how these tendencies are expressed, but it does not follow that the tendencies are culturally invented or developmentally irrelevant. Biology, psychology and social experience work together in the father-child relationship.

Emotional and Behavioural Outcomes

Fathers also contribute significantly to children’s emotional and behavioural development. Greater paternal involvement during infancy has been associated with fewer later mental health symptoms, while positive father involvement can help buffer children from some of the developmental risks associated with maternal depression by compensating for reduced socio-emotional responsiveness.

Fathers also contribute through modelling. Children learn not only from what parents teach them directly, but from observing how adults handle responsibility, conflict, relationships and emotional challenges. A father’s relationship with his child, his spouse and the wider world provides an important model for how children understand trust, commitment and social responsibility.

The role of fathers, therefore, is not simply to provide another source of affection. Like mothers, fathers provide security and love. But fathers also contribute through their own characteristic patterns of interaction: encouraging independence, modelling responsibility and helping children navigate the demands of the wider world.

Fathers and Sexual and Gender Development

Fathers shape children’s sexual and gender development. A meta-analysis of 172 studies found that fathers tended to differentiate more than mothers between boys and girls, particularly in encouraging sex-typed activities. Earlier research likewise found evidence of a stronger paternal role in gender socialisation.

Fathers and Sons

A meta-analysis of 67 studies found father absence associated with less conventionally masculine preferences among younger boys. Naturally, outcomes differed by age and by the measure of masculinity used.

A boy’s father is his first intimate model of adult maleness. Through him, a son encounters masculinity not as an abstraction or stereotype, but embodied in a man who loves, disciplines, protects, apologises, works and relates to women.

Fathers and Daughters

The relationship with daughters is especially striking. In longitudinal studies in the United States and New Zealand, girls who experienced earlier father absence had substantially higher rates of early sexual activity and teenage pregnancy. Even after adjustment for childhood behaviour and numerous family and social disadvantages, early father-absent girls were about five times more likely in the US sample and three times more likely in the New Zealand sample to experience adolescent pregnancy than father-present girls. A broader review of paternal influence likewise found that fathers play an important role in adolescent sexual decision-making.

A daughter also encounters in her father an enduring relationship with a man whose love is neither sexual nor contingent upon romantic attraction. A father therefore offers more than generic adult care: sons and daughters receive forms of relational experience that a mother cannot replicate simply by being equally loving or competent.

What This Means for Singapore’s Next Generation

The evidence points to a clear conclusion: fathers do not simply duplicate mothers. Through their characteristic patterns of communication, play, challenge, guidance and relationship, fathers contribute distinct developmental benefits to their children.

This is not merely an abstract academic debate. Singapore has long recognised that fathers matter. Initiatives such as Dads for Life exist because father involvement is understood as an essential part of raising healthy children.

The question Singapore must therefore ask is whether our family policies remain consistent with that principle.

There is an important difference between supporting children who experience the loss of a father through death, divorce, abandonment or other circumstances, and designing family structures on the assumption that a father’s role is unnecessary from the beginning.

Children can and do show remarkable resilience. Many grow up well despite difficult circumstances. But resilience in the face of loss does not mean nothing was lost.

Fathers are not merely additional caregivers, financial providers or interchangeable adults. They give children something distinctive: the experience of being loved, guided and known by their father.

Mothers and fathers overlap enormously in what they can do. But overlap is not interchangeability.

Children need both.