Researcher Spotlights are Q&As that shine a light on School of Human Ecology faculty members’ unique scholarship and research interests.
Geoffrey Brown is the Mary Sue and Mike Shannon Chair for Thriving Children and Families and a professor of Human Development & Family Studies (HDFS). His work focuses on how family relationships can support healthy social and emotional development in infancy and early childhood.
Brown is particularly interested in fatherhood, and his research has explored the development of early father-child relationships and fathers’ contributions to early child development. He aims to contribute to a greater understanding of parenting and early healthy development, and to inform strengths-based programs that can meet the needs of fathers, mothers and young children, especially those facing challenging circumstances.
How did you become interested in your area of study?
I have always loved babies and toddlers, ever since I was a kid myself. As an undergraduate I stumbled into some research projects with children and their parents. I became increasingly fascinated by the parent-child interactions I observed, the ways even very young children used their parents to help regulate themselves and the strategies parents used to help their children feel safe and secure. I began to realize what we knew about early parent-child relationships was based almost exclusively on research with mothers, and that fathers weren’t fully represented as an important source of influence. I’ve been fortunate to research fathers’ contributions in the earliest years and the factors that affect how they engage with their families.
What’s your motivation for doing this type of work, and how does it impact human well-being?
I think the data we collect and analyze is a way to describe the lived experiences of parents and their young children, and to discover the best ways to help them. There are lots of programs and practices designed to support infants and their parents — almost all of them are very well-intentioned, but not all of them are evidence-based. If we’re going to try to help people, I want to make sure we’re doing things that work for the long term.
In my opinion, the stakes are really high. We know that helping a child form stable relationships even before they can walk and talk is one of the best things we can do to promote both short-term and long-term mental and physical health, and it’s one of the best investments we can make in children, families and communities.
What’s something you wish was more widely known by the average person?
One thing I like to convey to both parents and students is that you can’t spoil a baby. Warmth, sensitivity and responsiveness are what kids need at that age, and it’s probably best if they get as much as possible from as many people as possible.
Where do you see an opportunity to shift a conversation?
I would like to shift how people think about fathers who aren’t able to be consistently involved in their children’s lives. Most people assume these men are making a conscious choice to disinvest from their children, but things are usually much more complicated. Of the many fathers I’ve worked with over the years, almost none of them want to be uninvolved in their children’s lives, and almost all of them know and believe that being a good father is important.
What has surprised you about working in your field?
As a researcher, I’m constantly surprised at how many people are doing interesting and important things. The pace of progress in our field can feel pretty dizzying, and truly innovative interdisciplinary work is happening every day. Yet, I’m still surprised at how many unanswered questions remain. One challenging thing that is also surprising to me is skepticism and distrust about the research process we sometimes see from study participants and the public at large. I see research as a way to tell people’s stories and to gather data to improve lives, but many people don’t see it that way. I’ve come to see explaining and advocating for the importance of research as a key aspect of my job.
Are there any common misconceptions about your work?
When we say fathers are important, that doesn’t mean children without a consistent father presence are necessarily at risk for poor developmental outcomes — we simply mean that among families that do have a father, we know those men can be doing things that are more or less beneficial for their children’s development. Sometimes those positive behaviors are the same things mothers are doing, and sometimes they might be father-specific.
Another key clarification is that, just because we focus on the first several years of life, it doesn’t mean that children with difficult early experiences are doomed. There are opportunities to intervene throughout people’s lives and plenty of things we can do to support children and families at later stages by fostering positive experiences, healthy relationships and supportive systems.
What do you see as the most critical question currently facing your field?
At this point we have a sense of what works for most parent-child interactions, and what types of parenting are going to be most beneficial for most kids in a perfect world, but people’s lives are usually far from perfect. Individuals and families have psychosocial challenges, risky contexts, messy relationships and challenging circumstances that can make parenting hard. As a field we need to continue to better understand how we can support families facing contextual stress and think about how we can best build resilience in both parents and children when they’re struggling.
How do you think about “paying it forward” as you gain experience in your field?
At this stage of my career, mentorship is perhaps the most important thing I do. I’ve benefited from so many positive mentoring experiences, and I aspire to do the same for my students and early career faculty. I believe one of the most rewarding and helpful things I can do is train the next generation of developmental scientists and human ecologists to do even better and bolder work.
What else should the Human Ecology community know about you?
I’m in my first year at UW–Madison, so I’m still settling in after 12 years at the University of Georgia. Mid-career transitions can be complicated, but I came here because I fully believe in the School of Human Ecology’s mission and the vision for who we can become. I’d like everyone — faculty, students, staff — to know how eager I am to build connections, start new collaborations and get to know everyone better.
I’m also really inspired by the work of my new HDFS colleagues. One appeal of this program for me is that there are so many faculty that have done or are doing research with fathers specifically, which is really unique. I’ve read and followed the work of people like Julie Poehlmann, David Pate and Janean Dilworth-Bart for years, and others like Alvin Thomas, Margaret Kerr and Quentin Riser are currently doing really innovative research and outreach with fathers. It’s an exciting place to be and an exciting time to be here.