Parenthood, particularly in some communities is like entering some kind of twilight zone.
In particular I’ve been shocked at how many fathers do almost nothing in terms of childcare. It’s a shame that there isn’t a more general expectation on fathers to look after their kids at least to some extent, and that not looking after your kids isn’t considered socially unacceptable.
I don’t believe this is just the fault of “men”, but I think it comes from a surprising lack on understanding in terms of how much work looking after kids is. It’s pretty much a 16 hour a day job for the first few years. If you don’t have someone to help it’s almost unbearable.
It's unfortunately understandable that this behavior would evolve, culturally if not biologically. Because of our reproductive systems, men are incentivized to play the numbers game and women to invest in created offspring.
That said, I agree it's a shame when it actually plays out that way and our society as a whole (and even fathers in modern society) lose out.
> It's unfortunately understandable that this behavior would evolve, culturally if not biologically. Because of our reproductive systems, men are incentivized to play the numbers game and women to invest in created offspring.
Fathers have multiple physical adaptations for fatherhood that are very important. The idea that fathers experience no hormonal or physical changes is not scientific.
Much like mothers, though, if they remove themselves from the proximity of their children these effects cease.
I'm not talking about physical adaptations. It's the numbers game. Fathers can spread their genes with little effort, so biologically and reproductively they are "incentivized" to generate multiple offspring and devote less time raising them. Mothers (at least for mammals) have a lot of skin in the game for each offspring (9 months worth for humans). Have you ever been pregnant? You don't want to go through that any more times than you have to.
In summary, men are more likely than women to be reproductively successful with a low effort child rearing strategy. Is it the best strategy overall in modern society? I don't think so, but you can see how we'd evolve that way.
This is such reddit-jargon laden prose I feel like my browser must lying to me. Am I on Reddit?
1. Neither the premise of spreading genes with "little effort" nor the bit about incentivization is actually true unless you have a very odd definition "less time". While lifelong monogamy may not be an obvious strategy, communal child rearing that involves fathers has been the norm for most of recorded history in all civilizations, with poor and absent fathering nearly always being villified unless needs of the community outweighed it.
2. Lots of women have multiple children, no problem. Many elect to go back through it again. This idea that pregnancy wracks every woman is just ridiculous.
It's not even clear we evolved that way. Looking at our near genetic relatives, they don't actually do things the way you're describing and communal living isn't "a group of females desperately trying to avoid pregnancy as males raid and ravage them."
Ugh, I feel like my nuanced point just got crushed by a steamroller piloted by a straw man. I'm not arguing a political agenda, if that's what your first line was getting at. Go back and read it again. Or don't. I guess I don't care anymore.
There’s an evolutionary underpinning driving a statistical difference in rearing behavior of males and females. You’d expect mothers to always commit more resources to their children because (1) eggs are expensive and spermm is cheap and the number or progeny is limited (2) high cuckolding rates also imply that men will hedge by spending less resources on their family. (3) Males may take a different strategy that contributes to the family which involve risk taking and high mortality rates (there’s no free lunch).
In particular I’ve been shocked at how many fathers do almost nothing in terms of childcare. It’s a shame that there isn’t a more general expectation on fathers to look after their kids at least to some extent, and that not looking after your kids isn’t considered socially unacceptable.
I don’t believe this is just the fault of “men”, but I think it comes from a surprising lack on understanding in terms of how much work looking after kids is. It’s pretty much a 16 hour a day job for the first few years. If you don’t have someone to help it’s almost unbearable.