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Comment by andy99 | Hacker News Reader

Saw this earlier today, I think it’s very flawed and ideological, unfortunately other posts mentioning this got flagged.

First there’s the idea that “nurturing” is somehow what kids need and better for them automatically, that whatever a stereotypical man does with kids is bad for them, and we need to be rewired by pheromones or whatever to be more sensitive. And as a corollary the idea that a high-T man somehow is a worse caregiver, and that it needs to be reigned in by some adaptation. The whole thing is definitely framed for a certain world view, it’s definitely not the only interpretation.

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There's some interesting research on the effect of T in mice which has been challenging traditional assumptions of its role in males: https://news.emory.edu/stories/2022/08/esc_testosterone_anim...

It's worth noting though that the actions of the "stereotypical man" are strongly culturally informed, and not neccessarily indicative of whatever evolutionary pressures would've wired males brains whatever way they're wired for fatherhood. I don't think we have much direct evidence of ancient female and male parent roles (apart from being able to infer the obvious, like that females would've breastfed).

A lot of ancient cultures were collectivist if small. In some cases, matriarchal, in some cases, sex was "free" because the village owned the kids, and so establishing paternity was not as important because the burden was shared.

How do youvarrive at matruarchal while most male mammals display hormonal harem bloat? If nature blows you up into body building brute once you have a family, does that not indicate a clear pyramid of force and a violence monopoly?

PS: prediction power and testable.. could be science where it not for utopist airsuperiority

Males looking like body builders is not something observed in any non western nom modern culture.

Tribes tend to have thin men. They dont have big bulky muscles. Agricultural subsistence cultures tend to have thin men.

They can be violent all the same. Just that bulky look is modern male aesthetic.

accidental post

It seems pretty uncontroversial to say that kids need nurturing? What are we doing with them if we're not nurturing them?

The point of the article is that nurturing babies is one of those things that stereotypical men already do. Probably not as much as women, but it is a research result we could have guessed. Turns out that men care about the success of their children too, who knew.

> And as a corollary the idea that a high-T man somehow is a worse caregiver, and that it needs to be reigned in by some adaptation.

You're reading things that the article did not write. The article did make some political calls around more parental leave and a call for fathers to be more involved with their children, but that isn't any sort of knock against all the other hormones that humans have.

Sure people might believe that; lots of people believe a lot of wildly stupid things. But it isn't in the article. There isn't anything judgemental in observing that people's lifestyles can cause hormonal shifts.

What exactly are you proposing that kids need other than nurturing?

I didn't read the article but I'll stand in for the person you replied to and make my best guess at what he meant:

I think he's saying that a manly man might not be soft and cuddly with a small child like a traditional mother would. But that is not necessarily detrimental. For instance, a guy might not want to coo and caw, or change the pitch of his voice, or giggle, things that some men find weak. But (perhaps - I don't know anything about children) the child may still respond positively to a male who used his normal voice and interacted with them however he naturally felt.

Structure

In a newborn? Infant? I think not. Nurturing is vital in the early stages of life.

Structure in this context is probably ‘routine’, though how that plays into a male vs female role is anyone’s guess.

In what alternative world stereotypically traditional men provide routine to kids.

Moms provide structure in "stereotypical" families. Not dads. Moms force bed time, vegetables, homework, cleaning the room.

But also not to infants.

Ok, moms provide structure. Not sure why you need to highlight that. Important thing is that kids receive structure early in their lives.

The dilemma was nurturing by a hormonally-adapted male v. a “stereotypical” male, not nurturing v. non-nurturing.

Four things are needed. Stereotypically they're divided Dad: Protect and provide Mom: Nurture and nourish

You could do it differently, but that only works if you swap one, not share half half.

Both have been eroded. Kids are raised by strangers, our food is crap, you can't warn each other about dangers cause that's somehow an insult and a single income doesn't pay the bills.

The goal seems to be to set men and women against each other.

> Four things are needed. Stereotypically they're divided Dad: Protect and provide Mom: Nurture and nourish

> You could do it differently, but that only works if you swap one, not share half half.

I disagree. But I started nurturing early by planning and orchestrating all our births (home, birth center, birth center, twins/hospital) and her prenatal care.

Much later, my wife developed psych issues and in the end I was performing all roles to our 5 sons. But well before then I was deeply into nurturing our sons as infants, toddlers, PreK and grade schoolers. I changed most of the diapers (cloth! for sons 1 & 2.). I packed lunches, did cub scout leadership, cleaned up the wounds and encouraged them to go get more.

Compared to competent moms and dads, I wasn't substandard, insufficient or compromised in any way.

If I may attempt to clarify my stance. Stereotypically, on average, interpolate for your marriage and all that, if a man does a task/role, he has the ball. He doesn't share the ball. Doing X is my job? Aight, my job. No touchy. Mine. I've got this.

Wife starts doing X. Boom, clarity lost.

I know, I know, shades of grey and all that. But on average, divide it clearly and you know who is responsible for what.

You did all of it, while your wife was sick. Kudos man, tough job done well.

My point wasn't about the heaviness of the task, or about how well each could do it, but about clarity and role division.

> if a man does a task/role, he has the ball. He doesn't share the ball. Doing X is my job? Aight, my job. No touchy. Mine. I've got this.

> Wife starts doing X. Boom, clarity lost.

These seems to reflect a strong division of labor. And it has me wondering if that work might be ever divided on ideological grounds. Either of those would be the opposite of what works for me.

They're also the opposite of what I want. Which is a more seamless integration, one where we are fairly interchangeable - where either of us can do what reasonably needs doing.

Reality is the final judge. If you get the seamless integration to work well and it's what you want, go for it. If it doesn't, revert to the default setting. Vanilla grows on you, it really does

Who is the disciplinarian in the house? I get it, there does tend to be a "role" there (not clear which sex gets that one–it seems to be dependent on a lot of factors—perhaps who is the less patient being the top one).

It just seems odd that anyone would see "nurturing" as assigned to one or the other parent.

"The goal seems to be to set men and women against each other."

Is that not easy to disregard? I certainly feel like my wife and I disregarded it raising our kids.

If you've never bought into it, that the other sex is to blame, then I'm sure you teamed up quite smoothly.

But I've seen numerous examples, and in my own marriage we also had to figure this stuff out because as kids we had bought into a lot of (never quite spoken out loud but loudly hinted at) unhealthy messages...

I mean, how you clearly point out the immovable constraint and blow past it as if the whole thing is just a cultural fad is somewhat shocking.

Single income doesn’t pay the bills. Period. Everything else is downstream.

One could argue that your talking about the dangers of these downstream effects is insulting and classist. Who is gonna pay these bills? Do you think we prefer that strangers raise our kids?

If we had a trust fund, we would raise our kids ourselves, and backhand brag on forums about how it is the right way. Sadly, we don’t.

Where did I say anything about a cultural fad? Where did I mention "dangers of downstream effects"? Where did I claim that I think "we prefer strangers raise our kids"?

You're pulling your reply straight from the offended-rack

Thank You. This is exactly why I read comments on HN before clicking on news. I am not looking for confirmation bias, I just trust people here more than the BBC.

"I am not looking for confirmation bias…"

Then you'll enjoy all the contrarian opinions on both sides. Also here in HN comments.

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