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Comment by choeger | Hacker News Reader

I sometimes use the term for children in a joking manner.

If you're a large male, especially if you sport a beard, you will probably experience that smaller children react to you with shyness or fear quite often. I have seen children crying when a young men entered their car. The small kid hiding behind their mother's legs is a stereotype born from real-life experiences.

But the behavior often completely changes when that male person is accompanied by another child that isn't shy around them (e.g., their daughter). Apparently, there's a deep-rooted instinct in children that tells them "this one is a father and thus cannot be a bad person".

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> Apparently, there's a deep-rooted instinct in children that tells them "this one is a father and thus cannot be a bad person".

Not just in children, I'm pretty sure that everybody's "threat detector" perceives "male" and "male with a child" completely differently.

I think you're partially correct about the "bad person wouldn't have a child" stereotype, but it's also about the context. Some bad people will have children, but in their presence are likely to be risk-averse and prioritize peace and safety of their offspring. A father away from their child can OTOH get aggressive.

Male with dog walking in the park, not very far from what you're describing here I guess. Extra points if the dog is fluffy.

How about a Starbucks cup? ;)

Depends on the dog, and the male, or both.

Indeed, specifically breed plays a large role, since it reflects what values are important for the owner. A fighting dog is a clear red flag, even a common German Shepherd will make a person look somewhat more threatening.

A Golden Retriever will on the other hand project friendliness. There are small dog breeds like Yorkshire which are rather aggressive, but in my perception they wouldn't increase the threat perception.

These are of course stereotypes, they won't be true every time, but are IMHO useful as a rule of thumb.

I see your male walking with fluffy dog, and raise you a male with a fluffy dog picking up the poop after the dog. I’m tall, dress in black, and have a black beard (so potentially scary), and after such a maneuver it seems I become the first choice to ask for help.

There is a quote from LOTR that has always stuck with me:

“I thought Fangorn was dangerous.

'Dangerous!' cried Gandalf. 'And so am I, very dangerous: more dangerous than anything you will ever meet, unless you are brought alive before the seat of the Dark Lord. And Aragorn is dangerous, and Legolas is dangerous. You are beset with dangers, Gimli son of Glóin; for you are dangerous yourself, in your own fashion. Certainly the forest of Fangorn is perilous — not least to those that are too ready with their axes; and Fangorn himself, he is perilous too; yet he is wise and kindly nonetheless.”

The children correctly assess you as "dangerous". They then assess whether you are wise and kindly, and find you so, making a good ally or friend. Merely wise and kindly people do not make as good of an ally or friend.

And there are 2 wolf dog hybrids in our building who have the opposite effect on mostly women and children.

Dog breed matters loads there too. “Man with pit bull” is perceived very differently from “man with Labrador”

Testosterone is lower in fathers, so it makes a lot of sense to presume that fathers are less aggressive.

https://www.science.org/content/article/fatherhood-decreases...

How does this translate to health benefits and downsides? Is there a lower incidence of prostate cancer in fathers compared to childless men?

I'm asking since there's an extreme difference in prostate cancer prevalence tied to race (in the US at least) and some attribute this to testosterone level differences. The differences are however smaller than in your study.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3455741/

Dunno. But there is a lot of research on that.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3066425/

https://medicaljournalssweden.se/SJU/article/view/11787

Male with female also seems to have a similar effect.

I'm constantly telling my single male friends that they need one good photo of themselves with unrelated wome(a)n on any dating app/profile. It's subconscious.

Make sure to ask the women for permission when using them this way.

True, although my intuition tells me the effect is somewhat smaller.

Not just being a father, but simply spending a lot of time around children causes men's testosterone levels to drop precipitously, so men with children probably are objectively less aggressive in that sense as well.

The widespread belief that testosterone has a causal link to aggression has been debunked.

Some sources:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091208132241.h...

https://www.nature.com/articles/news.2009.1131

The persons child can be seen as an interface to them. The same thing happens when people meet a person with their dog - they often interact with the dog first, as it is the easier interface than telling directly to an unknown human being.

It's not just kids. When I'm out on the street (in my slightly dodgy neighborhood) with my kids, people are always nice. Shopkeepers will chat, women will make eye contact and smile.

When it's just me people aren't as open, women will clutch their handbags, get nervous when I suddenly cross the street toward them etc.

Crazy.

My first ever memory, at least in very subjective way, is of my late uncle leaning over the stroller. He didn't eve sport full beard, just proper black mustache, this was early 80s. I recall existential fear from that combination and of course I went bananas full power.

Now as a father I know that kids don't form permanent memories until cca 2.5 years but this one is so vivid and detailed, and the whole setup must have been stroller otherwise whole memory doesn't make sense. I keep telling myself its not some invented memory or dream, but I'lll never know 100% truth.

Yeah small kids don't like that stuff on strangers, maybe it moves the threat assessment into more wild territory.

People very occasionally retain earlier memories, especially of really strong experiences. Childhood amnesia isn't 100% consistent.

It's also possible you were in a stroller despite being a bit older; this is something I see a lot. A kid in a stroller can be transported faster and more consistently than one walking.

Also very useful for long walking/bus trips (endurance isn't there yet) or bad weather or still when the kid naps a bit... our twin stroller was good for 30kg for each kid.

That 2.5 year thing sounds like the 5 second memory thing for goldfish. That is to say, it isn't true.

The human brain is the most complex structure we know about, there is no way we can know for certain when the first memories form. There are many references to unborn babys knowing certain types of music their mother listened to while pregnant, positive associations with food that their mother ate while pregnant, crying with a particular accent etc.

I remember being mortally afraid of Santa Claus when I was a little kid, entirely due to his beard. My dad and my grandpa were the only bearded men I trusted. I don't know how old I was, though.

I do, however, know for certain that I have memories from the age of 1-2 years old, which I've been able to date by relaying these memories to older family members who also remember them and having them confirm when they happened. (For example, I remember passing a Christmas gift to my great grandmother, when I would have been 1.5 years old; she died not long after. And I remember the layout of the first apartment I ever lived in, which we left shortly before my 1st birthday.)

But I went through a severely traumatic experience at 3-4 years old that I believe caused me to retain older memories. I remember going through a conscious effort to retain as many memories as I could from before the event by repeatedly recalling them as frequently as I could, and although this probably caused them to become less accurate over time, I still remember them well enough that other people can recognize them and confirm them (the ones that involved other people, anyway).

> "this one is a father and thus cannot be a bad person".

If only the moms at the playground had the same instinct when I pull up in a minivan with my children. Yet for some reason I’m still “stranger danger” to them.

Weird world.

My 2 yo son and I walked into a playground in SF once and I remember these two moms (or nannies) giving me the nastiest look. I started to wonder if they could even see my son (I had recently re-watched The Sixth Sense).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_cognition

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