In my recent article, “The evolution of male age and the emergence of compassionate warriors”, I introduced you to the work of Dr. Sarah Hrdy, an anthropologist and primary and one of the world’s leading experts on the evolutionary basis of female behavior in both non -human and human beings. Dr. Hrdy has recently turned her attention to men. In “Father Time: How Dad is called upon to change the world forever”, we go deeper into exploring the ways dads today cultivate young children.
Here we will explore what Dr. Hrdy describes as “a new kind of father”, practical dads that drive the way for a better future for their own children and change the evolutionary future of mankind.
By presenting her colleague, Dr. Ruth Feldman, says Dr. Hrdy,
“Born in a prominent rabbi, Ruth Feldman was a premature child who begins to speak eighteen months. What a shame, a colleague of his father, once noticed that his unusually bright daughter was not the son. Spiritual development in their unusual close relationship.
Like Dr. Hrdy, Ruth Feldman began her prominent career, exploring the importance of mothers in her children’s lives. But then he began to be interested in the specific ways that fathers contribute to the well -being of children and society. Together with Eyal Abraham and others, the Feldman team decided to study the changes occurring with men who became practical parents who participated in their spouses in providing care for children who start at birth. They included a subset of men who were even combined with other men to start a family as a couple of the same sex. Some adopted babies, others were assigned to substitutes and then cultivated babies from birth without being involved.
As Dr. Hrdy reminds us,
“For over 200 million years there have been mammals, exclusively male baby care from birth and then never happened before.
As reported by CBS News in 2024,
“When it comes to handling a couple of young children, Pete Buttigieg, the indifferent secretary of transport, may be a bit with a jet Pete and his wife, Chasten Buttigieg, Daddy, Daddy.
Pete buttigieg and his wife Chasten may be a well -known couple who raises their children from birth only with male parents, but they are certainly not the only ones. What we learn about the brain of the male father is illuminated for all of us.
Hrdy said the Feldman team hired 89 pairs in stable relationships that were first parents with babies between 12 and 18 months. 48 of the couples were the same sexual intercourse of two men, while 41 were heterosexual parents who lived in “traditional” families where the mother acted as a primary responsible (and in most cases, breastfeeding), with the father simply helping her.
Later, as the parents were in a magnetic resonance engine watching videos from themselves interacting with their babies, Feldman and their associates scanned their minds. In the secondary care of men from “traditional” family contexts, the nerve circuits in the area of their brain bark significantly for social discrimination and decision making are truly illuminated. These were the areas that helped me, as a new dad, to understand what they needed and to think of my son and thinking about different choices – he was hungry, cold, wet, excited, tired, etc. – and acts appropriately.
The biggest surprise, however, was what happened to the brains of unusual, first men who acted as a primary responsible for a baby without being involved. (This happened to my brain when my wife had left me in full care of our son when she took a two -week break to go with her girlfriend when Jemal was a year.)
“In their The brains, “Feldman’s findings said,” the emotions of the almond and the hypothalamus are also stimulated. These “ancient” networks dating from the first mammals, and even more so, to the precursors of their vertebrates. They come from the same highly preserved neural networks that have helped for more than 200 million years to keep their babies safely keep their babies. “
“Now, these same areas of the Limbic system were activated in men’s brains-but only when the baby’s safety and well-being had become the primary concern of men day by day.”
When my wife was away and I was alone with our son, I knew every sound that could indicate a risk or that our son needed something. Once these circuits are activated, they remain active forever.
When we adopted our daughter, Angela, I was often in service at night, when my wife was sleeping. It was me who often heard her vocals and immediately woke up with the first sign of something bad.
In increasingly more and more families today we have men and women who work hand in hand to raise children. As Dr. Hrdy and Feldman point out, males and females often parental children-men tend to be more active and taking danger with young children, throw them in the air and catch them (too much for the horror of mothers who are worried). But children love it and good fathers, like good mothers, never throw their babies.
Through evolutionary stories mothers have learned to keep their babies safe and vibrant. What Hrdy, Feldman and others have shown is that men have the same capacity integrated into our minds. We can keep our babies safe, but men can also introduce babies into new experiences and this is also important. Good parents, regardless of their sexual orientation, learn to be partners in collaboration.
Dr. Feldman says she likes to think about good parental care as a 12 bar blues where your left hand plays that 12 bar blues again and again is predictable and safe. The right hand can improvise, find exciting new riffs. Mothers provide security and fathers provide the risk variety. Both are needed.
In this short videoDr. Feldman describes what her studies have taught us about the male brain and how it works to provide the vital functions that children need from the beginning of life. He also stresses that fathers and mothers do not always realize how vital the father’s involvement with their babies is from the beginning of life. Men often need encouragement and support to inform them that they can trust their own parental instincts, as mothers learn to do.
I was lucky enough to have a husband who was a mom from the beginning, but she also knew she needed time for herself after the baby was born and trusted me to enter. I was terrified at the beginning, but once I was alone, I realized that I wasn’t really alone. Although my wife left for two weeks, I learned that my son, Jemal, was there with me. He knew what he needed and taught me to trust my instincts. We made a great team that continues to serve us well. Jemal is now 53 years old. He and his wife have a child of their own and tells me that I was a great role for him for how to be a good dad.
Our daughter, Angela, is 51 years old and has four children. It also credits me by being involved, daddy by hand and her experiences with me have offered a model for what a good parent needs to do to give our children and future generations the best change for a good life.
I hope all people can find out how vital we are in the well -being of our children and that women can learn to trust that fathers can be as good parents in children as mothers can. Our children, grandchildren and future generations now need more than ever.
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