Hacker News Reader

Comment by lukas099 | Hacker News Reader

A lot of the article was about how human behavior varies based on culture, including the role of the father. It also talks about studies where children without fathers had the same survival rates as those with fathers, and speculates that the father role might be fillable by other members of society. So that conclusion was not totally out of the blue.

View on HN

Diversity between and within soceties is fine. But societies need to pass some judgement to get a healthy diversity of roles rather than unhealthy negligence.

It seems kind of dumb, of course the role can be replaced. Its not like a father today is doing anything super specific to child survival. Just feed, change and play with the kid, obviously anyone of any sex can do these things.

If this is what society considers the roles of a father to be, then to goes a long way to explain so many of the challenges people face today.

I certainly don't see my role with my children as just a babysitter. The partnership with my wife to raise our family is a complex and rich engagement between our strengths and weaknesses to aid in our kids development, not only physically, but also mentally and emotionally among other aspects.

Survival is sort of not the point though? We want people to thrive not just live. People with male role models do better in school, less likely to commit crime, take risks, live longer and are happier.

And raise similarly successful offspring.

> Its not like a father today is doing anything super specific to child survival.

Actually, different people have different strengths.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com