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talking about his book, Do Fathers Matter? What Science is Telling Us About
men’s attitude toward the unborn baby can affect the baby’s
personality throughout his life (mechanism unknown),
And, just as in the mother, the expectant’s father oxytocin and prolactin—who
knew males even had it—rises and stays up during the newborn’s infancy.
One fascinating bit of data he shared during the interview shines some light on
our social attitudes, including us scientists. In his search of the science database,
PubMed, for the term “motherhood”, Raeburn found over 200,000 citations,
but for fatherhood, about 20,000. That’s a ratio of 10:1. Does that mean the
themselves as great dads. Yet, isn’t it curious that all the blurbs singing the
book’s praises on the full-page ad in the magazine, Scientific American Mind
(July/August, 2014), were written by women?
Israeli scientists examined the brains of fathers (not to worry, they used imaging
techniques). What they found is quite fascinating. But before we delve into their
findings, let’s deal with a methodological issue: How do you control for the
find occurring in the father’s brain, it would be open to the criticism that
“obviously, the mother’s influence is not accounted for.” Well, the ingenious
neural network, by and large, consistent across parents. This “caregiving neural
network” integrated the functioning of two systems. The first being the
These networks work in concert to imbue infant care with emotional salience,
attune with the infant state, and plan adequate parenting. Primary caregiving
associated with oxytocin and parenting. Primary caregiving fathers (these are
the homosexual fathers) exhibited high amygdala activation similar to primary
What functions does the STS serve? It is involved in the perception of where
others are gazing (joint attention) and is, thus, important in determining where
In individuals without autism, the superior temporal sulcus also activates when
hearing human voices. Among all fathers, time spent in direct childcare was
The take home lesson is that fathers’ brains are malleable, and the same
are slow to develop—their offspring are mostly single births and the inter-birth
intervals are long. To maintain a stable population, parents must live long
replace themselves while allowing for the death of offspring before they can
reproduce.
A study published in PNAS looked into this issue. The results confirm what we
knew all along: In species where the mother is the primary caregiver, she lives
longer than the male. In species in which the males participate at least equally
in offspring-rearing, they live as long as the female. What about us?
Human data from the Swedish population from three historical periods indicate
a female survival advantage going back to 1780, which are the earliest records
available. The female advantage is evident throughout more than two centuries
recorded in the earliest data from England and France in the 19th century, and
the female advantage has been present in most countries throughout the world
in the 20th century. A female survival advantage has also been found among
These data strongly suggest that the survival advantage in human females has
deep biological roots. Although human fathers have a significant role, human
mothers generally bear the greater burden in caring for their offspring.
Before you grab the baby from mom’s arms in the vain hope of increasing your
lifespan, consider these studies. One study showed that fathers reporting 3 or
with fathers not involved in care. I know, I know, it makes perfect evolutionary
sense.
You don’t (or rather the mother doesn’t) want a horny father to beget (this is a
biblical euphemism) a new baby while the present one needs so much care. Still,
your baby. Is the prospect of longer longevity (however remote) worth the cost
of low T and shrunken testicles?
Well, don’t worry my fellow fathers, it’s not quite as bad as it sounds. The jewels
regain their previous volume once the child-rearing period is over. And you are
back to the races.