When my son was born three and a half years ago, he looked like he had just gone 15 rounds with Joe Frazier. He was beat up. He had red welts on his face. But I couldn’t see it. Every time I took a picture of him, I was amazed at how the picture had all these imperfections that I hadn’t seen when looking through the lens. I hated the pictures but it made me realize that my perception was being powerfully altered by some kind of hormones that had been released when he arrived. I could look at him in real life and literally not see what the digital record had just recorded. It was weird.
So, this research doesn’t surprise me at all. Fathers become more attached to their offspring the more they are around them. Only five percent of mammalian fathers have any role in the upbringing of their children. In most cases, hormones are insufficient to make us care. But not so for humans. Human dads are wired to love and take care of their offspring.
On Father’s Day, thank god for that.
Wait until he’s 14, hideously sarcastic and tells you “I hate you!”. You’ll see his imperfections a bit more clearly. š
Yeah, I have that, too. But I haven’t eaten them yet.
Sarcastically?
We focus a lot on this blog (and on the progressive left in general) on all the ways this country has gone backwards in the last 40 years. But there are a number of areas – none of them legislated, though legislation has haltingly followed society’s lead, sometimes – in which we’ve made tremendous progress. It’s gradual, so not obvious from day to day, but no less worth celebrating. There are a surprising number of examples.
Women’s opportunities in the workplace is one. Acceptance of gays and lesbians (and sexual minorities in general). And the willingness of so many more fathers to be actively involved as caregivers for their kids is one, too.
None of these is by any means universal, but we’re light years ahead of where we were when I was growing up in the ’70s. And for that I’m enormously appreciative, thankful, and happy.
Michael Pollan’s Some Of My Best Friends Are Germs might explain why it was good that your son looked beat up.
Happy Father’s Day to all the Daddys holding it down
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Reading one fine comment to your linked article, it mentions cheating. This reminded me of some high level falsehoods in academic papers in The Netherlands in recent years where data were manipulated to reach a predetermined result.
Some major failures:
Excuse for the long rant, but stretching the effect of fatherhood on hormones in human kind triggered an opposite effect in my brain. What happened to human traits like loyalty and responsibility, all forgotten? Damn, I’m way too serious this morning, what day is it today?
PS I did find the evidence “fatherhood makes the male California deer mouse smarter“ very laudable. š
Don’t know if you have kids, Oui, but I encountered the same effect as Booman. Don’t know if it’s hormones or what, but there is an instinct, and it’s very powerful. When I was in High School, the conventional thought was that men didn’t care about kids and just supported their families for sex. Conventional thought was wrong.
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I have a daughter and a son, both adults now. Have more than average care for my grandson the last six years.
I must admit to some hormone reaction to my life’s partner … š
But maybe you are right, love consists of one’s hormones reacting or being wired.
Watch those partner hormones!
I wish Booman and all the dads out there a great Father’s Day.
My father just passed away on New Year’s Eve, so this is my first Father’s Day without him. It’s tough, because he was an all-around great dad, and I find myself thinking quite often how “Dad would have liked this” or “I’ll have to show this to Dad”. It’s a little rocky around here today.
But my husband is also a great Dad, and my three sons and I have been so lucky. He was a natural; changing diapers, feeding them, playing with them being part of their daily lives. When my oldest son was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of three, my husband and I teamed up to be the best care-givers we could be, and we took turns doing some ugly tasks to make my son well. Some families split over difficult events in their lives, but we got stronger.
My sons are in their twenties now and we’re a close family. Being a good father is a high honor and I was lucky to have had one, and lucky to be married to one.
So hat’s off to you Dads out there! You are loved and appreciated.
I have to say that golden age for being a Dad seems to be around 4-5 to puberty. They are more fun to do stuff with, there’s the inevitable coaching of youth teams, doing chores together.
I sometimes regret becoming a teacher, because of the money. But never when I think about being a Dad.
Kids do go nuts at puberty. We Granddads don’t like to admit, but when we were teenagers, we were nuts too.
Happy Fathers Day!
Enjoy my fav commercial for fathers: Cheerleading Dad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTIzjVxvV2U&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Darn can never get links right on my new phone
https://t.co/FPqwSsbM7f