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How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

parenting.nytimes.com

21–30 of 285 posts

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#21
Has there been any studies on adopting a baby? Does it yield the same results on men? If yes, then it might as well be a matter of social construct, where a new vulnerable addition to the group needs protection for example.

Another curious question, it would be interesting to see the impact of adopting a cat or a dog on men’s testosterone levels.

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#22
post #20

I was hoping this would explain my weight gain but I suppose I have to accept that replacing daily workouts with 3 bowls of ice cream and magic shell may be the culprit.

Cut out sugar, bread, and liquids with empty calories. Eat meat, fruits, and veggies -- even frozen ones. You'll drop weight very fast switching to high meat and veg, and dump the carbs/sugars.

For those of you who are skinny and want to bulk up and don't mind eating somewhat bad food: Eat lots of sugary candy and junkfood like potatoe chips. I find it's the easiest way to get fat.

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#23
post #19
post #2

"Certain areas within parts of the brain linked to attachment, nurturing, empathy and the ability to interpret and react appropriately to a baby’s behavior had more gray and white matter between 12 and 16 weeks than they did between two and four weeks." For you father-programmers out there: did you notice any changes in your programming/work abilities around the 12-16 week mark?

I always took off 3 months from work per baby. There's no point coding when you're always sleep deprived. Last year the company agreed to about half the salary, so I'd work from home on some things, or come in half the week or half a day as needed. Then again I did notice I was very good at understanding baby talk. Taking from some old notes of my 5 month old baby: "eh eh eh", but no crying at 6 AM = "I need a diaper…

For me when my Daughter was born we did formula. And I took care of her for 4 weeks at night time.

Screaming at night = “my parents are bad they aren’t feeding me they should be locked up”

Kicking feet = “oh god I’m wet please change me it’s so gross”

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#24
0. Earplugs

1. Division-of-labor, specialization of trade... although it might not fit every feminists' "equality of outcome, share everything" political-correctness, it doesn't make combined net income much sense (or cents) to risk a $300k income with sleeplessness/low-productivity vs. an $80k one if one spouse (assuming spouse isn't a lawyer, doctor or engineer) can be at home full-time, or both as full-time parents with parental leave policies/laws or take a sabbatical. Dumping/delegating mundane tasks onto a high income earner doesn't jive with common sense. Also, automate and delegate as much minutia as possible outside to contractors and domestic workers (cooking, cleaning, construction, yard-work etc.) of one's wheelhouse to have more family, couple & work time. If you make $80-$600/hour USD, don't waste your time doing low value tasks that others could do more cheaply for you.

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#25
post #2

"Certain areas within parts of the brain linked to attachment, nurturing, empathy and the ability to interpret and react appropriately to a baby’s behavior had more gray and white matter between 12 and 16 weeks than they did between two and four weeks." For you father-programmers out there: did you notice any changes in your programming/work abilities around the 12-16 week mark?

I'll echo others on this thread and say at 12-16 weeks your work abilities are dominated by lack of sleep/just recovering from lack of sleep.

However, I think the implication is that these changes stick around. After we finally hit our "parenting rhythm" around 6 months to a year, I did find that many of the soft skills were coming easier to me than they had before I was a parent. I found was getting better at doing presentations, reading emotions/intention, doing mentoring, and organizing others to accomplish goals, Now correlation is not causation, it could also be I was just transitioning into a more senior role anyway, and I've got a sample size of 1, but I'd like to propose a mechanism: constantly practicing my public speaking by reading "The Napping House" to a miniature tyrant who communicates only through facial expressions and screaming, is your responsibility to teach everything to including successfully eating food, and requires a logistics train on par with an Army brigade just to leave the house changed my brain and resultded in transferable skills.

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#26
I am sure the author means well. However, this makes little sense from an evolutionary standpoint. Although humans have evolved far more than most animals on this planet, the basic idea of evolutionary biology remains the same. In the wild, males have to hunt (provide food), protect the new born(s) and their mate(s) from threats. Therefore having the same level or higher levels of Testosterone is a biological imperative. Testosterone makes the male stronger and more aggressive. Both are very useful traits from an evolutionary standpoint. I cannot imagine human males diverging too much from this basic framework.

Coming to today's workplace, after childbirth there is a drop in productivity of male employees as they adjust to their new reality. However, I have observed men become more diligent and aggressive at their jobs. I only imagine thats because they have a stronger sense of responsibility to provide for their partner & offspring. Whether or not Testosterone levels change is a different matter.

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#27

0. Earplugs 1. Division-of-labor, specialization of trade... although it might not fit every feminists' "equality of outcome, share everything" political-correctness, it doesn't make combined net income much sense (or cents) to risk a $300k income with sleeplessness/low-productivity vs. an $80k one if one spouse (assuming spouse isn't a lawyer, doctor or engineer) can be at home full-time, or both as full-time parent…

Re: 1 - would you stand to the same words if the 300k income would be the woman‘s?

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#28
post #2

"Certain areas within parts of the brain linked to attachment, nurturing, empathy and the ability to interpret and react appropriately to a baby’s behavior had more gray and white matter between 12 and 16 weeks than they did between two and four weeks." For you father-programmers out there: did you notice any changes in your programming/work abilities around the 12-16 week mark?

I was basically useless as a programmer at 12-16 weeks. I was also basically useless at 2-4 weeks, but that was largely because of the sleep deprivation and constant need to run around doing chores. (What they don't tell new parents: newborns spend 6-7 hours/day attached to the boob and do so in shifts of about 15 minutes on + 45 minutes off, so mommy basically has a full-time job breastfeeding and daddy has a full-t…

> ...but the newborn phase is basically a complete write-off.

Good for you. The FANG (you can guess) company I worked for stack-ranked me at the bottom of the tar pit in my write-off year with zero increase in comp, followed by another quarter of intense improvement program after which they decided I still wasn't good enough. Disagreements ensued for three more quarters and then that was that. The result... unemployment.

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#29
Random Q: I have to lose 40 lbs getting dad-bod sans dadness right now (medication side-effects).

0. Has anyone seriously looked into variations of intermittent fasting &| extended fasting?

1. Did you have brain fog after hunger went away after a few days, or less fog?

2. What about maintenance vitamins, electrolytes and preventing gallstones?

3. How long did you continue for, until hunger returned?

Re: How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

#30

I am sure the author means well. However, this makes little sense from an evolutionary standpoint. Although humans have evolved far more than most animals on this planet, the basic idea of evolutionary biology remains the same. In the wild, males have to hunt (provide food), protect the new born(s) and their mate(s) from threats. Therefore having the same level or higher levels of Testosterone is a biological imperat…

I don‘t doubt the results, but I also wouldn‘t exclude a causation/correlation 101 fail.

Just thinking back at my own first years with kids, the workload was so tough I neglected most testosterone producing activities (sports, action, male bonding).

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