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How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers

parenting.nytimes.com

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

#121

Post by stephencanon »

belorn wrote: post #117
stephencanon wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people hit hardest by this are women. Society places much, much higher expectations on the wrt motherhood than it does for fathers. I know a huge number of women who love their kids but deeply mourn their lost independence and career opportunity they might have had without them, to say nothing of the profound physical impact of carrying a pregnancy. Women understand these issues really well, they just don’t feel…

That is a very simplistic view of the issue. Just as society places much higher expectation that mothers will take care the child, society also places a much higher expectation that fathers will continue to go to work. Fathers with interrupted 5hrs of combined sleep are expected to do the exact same workload and work performance as they did had when they got uninterrupted 8 or 9hrs of sleep. Talking about who got "hi…

> There is no objective "worse" fate to be either forced to go to work when you want to take care of the kids, or forced to take care of the kids when you want to go to work.

Yes, but that’s not what grandparent was talking about. They were writing specifically about the expectation that parents unconditionally think their children are the best thing that ever happened to them. The burden of this specific expectation falls much more heavily on mothers.

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

#122

Post by learnstats2 »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #42

Looking into the T drop in fatherhood, the original study seems to account for self reports of 'sleep quality' but I wonder if sleep deprivation is not still a confounder in this finding. Annedoctally as a recent father of a 6 month old, I would likely self report a good sleep quality in a questionnaire. However, objectively I know I sleep about 5 hours 30min yesterday evening, which would be sufficient sleep 'depriv…

I'm not sure I would describe this as a confounder in this context - if fatherhood results in sleep deprivation which results in testosterone levels dropping,

then fatherhood generally results in testosterone levels dropping.

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

#123

Post by paultopia »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #42

Looking into the T drop in fatherhood, the original study seems to account for self reports of 'sleep quality' but I wonder if sleep deprivation is not still a confounder in this finding. Annedoctally as a recent father of a 6 month old, I would likely self report a good sleep quality in a questionnaire. However, objectively I know I sleep about 5 hours 30min yesterday evening, which would be sufficient sleep 'depriv…

I was wondering this too. Every new parent seems to report that they basically don't sleep for a year or two. That has got to account for a lot of the biological changes in parenthood. (Honestly, I'd really want to know about likelihood of dying in a car accident or other heavy machinery sleep-deprivation-induced-screwup.)

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

#124

Post by matwood »

reallydontask wrote: post #50
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #42

Looking into the T drop in fatherhood, the original study seems to account for self reports of 'sleep quality' but I wonder if sleep deprivation is not still a confounder in this finding. Annedoctally as a recent father of a 6 month old, I would likely self report a good sleep quality in a questionnaire. However, objectively I know I sleep about 5 hours 30min yesterday evening, which would be sufficient sleep 'depriv…

> Annedoctally as a recent father of a 6 month old, I would likely self report a good sleep quality in a questionnaire. However, objectively I know I sleep about 5 hours 30min yesterday evening, which would be sufficient sleep 'deprivation' to impact T production. When our 9 month old started to sleep through the night (at around 4-5 months), we'd get between 5-6 hours of sleep, which after the interrupted sleep of t…

Reminds me of this article I saw the other day.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2213655-having-kids-mak...

People with kids are happier than those without, only after their kids move out.

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

#126

Post by cjrp »

senectus1 wrote: post #54
Dwolb wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you able to elaborate?

Its hard to do so. It felt like a mental "click" but not like you get when you have been trying to solve a puzzle... it felt like a mental " gear change ". My thought processes changed order or priority, Things that I felt were important before were suddenly less important and I think I things from a different angle (not just life stuff but problem solving approaches.). its really hard to describe. What I can say is…

> Things that I felt were important before were suddenly less important

I definitely felt a change in perspective like this. Sitting in a 1hr long meeting, going over something which could be done in 10 mins, and the whole time thinking "none of this even matters, there's a human life at home which I helped create!".

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

#127

Post by dhimes »

matwood wrote: post #124
reallydontask wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Annedoctally as a recent father of a 6 month old, I would likely self report a good sleep quality in a questionnaire. However, objectively I know I sleep about 5 hours 30min yesterday evening, which would be sufficient sleep 'deprivation' to impact T production. When our 9 month old started to sleep through the night (at around 4-5 months), we'd get between 5-6 hours of sleep, which after the interrupted sleep of t…

Reminds me of this article I saw the other day. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2213655-having-kids-mak... People with kids are happier than those without, only after their kids move out.

My last child moves out (to college) next week. We'll see. It's been pretty cool raising them, and now that they are young men it's fun and hilarious to get them all together.

For a few years it was very stressful, and life always revolved around them (I was pretty active in their life). I expect that it'll be pretty different. Maybe I'll get some T back!

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

#128

Post by kareemm »

stephencanon wrote: post #121
belorn wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a very simplistic view of the issue. Just as society places much higher expectation that mothers will take care the child, society also places a much higher expectation that fathers will continue to go to work. Fathers with interrupted 5hrs of combined sleep are expected to do the exact same workload and work performance as they did had when they got uninterrupted 8 or 9hrs of sleep. Talking about who got "hi…

> There is no objective "worse" fate to be either forced to go to work when you want to take care of the kids, or forced to take care of the kids when you want to go to work. Yes, but that’s not what grandparent was talking about. They were writing specifically about the expectation that parents unconditionally think their children are the best thing that ever happened to them. The burden of this specific expectation…

You’re cherry picking and responding to the example. The broader point is this, and in my experience as a (male) parent it’s true:

> Talking about who got "hit hardest" is kind of pointless. Society expectation on fathers and mothers are formed from restricted gender roles. There are both women and men that feel extremely restricted from this.

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

#130

Post by dhimes »

sundvor wrote: post #89
jbverschoor wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank oh for being honest. There’s actually a topic on a different forum that is exactly about the taboo’ed negative things about parenting. People refuse to see/acknowledge this, esp. women.

Being a dad, whilst rewarding in its own rights, can also be hard AF. Throw in a diagnosis of ASD+ADHD with therapies etc that must be managed, and the pressures just sky rocketed. Managing his behaviour feels like an everlasting uphill battle. So much energy is drained, especially during meltdowns, causing frictions in the whole family. So in order to be able to look after him I also need to look after myself. Getti…

Some people grow. Others dump almost everything on their spouse and a deep resentment grows in the marriage. You envy the good times they have and the stories they have, but not their life as there is obviously a lot a pain at home. Kudos to you, it sounds like you are doing it right. Hang in there.
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