How Men’s Bodies Change When They Become Fathers • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by stephencanon » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 10:38 AM UTC

jbverschoor wrote: post #58

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…

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.

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 comfortable talking about them with many men.

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

#112

Post by keymon-o » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 10:41 AM UTC

drclau wrote: post #100

keymon-o wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd guess the idea of this study is not that having a child of your own somehow directly alters your brain biologicaly, but the experience itself is just that intense. I find it much more interesting, the fact that most of the changes mother experiences might not be the "nature's wonder", but lasting, painful, traumatic and exciting experience itself that affects one's brain. Edit: And that itself has much deeper rel…

> And that itself has much deeper relation to a biological child than to adopting one. Not that adopting isn't significant or emotional, it's simply not that varying level of experience. How do you know your child is actually biologically yours? Human fathers have no biological/natural means of identifying a child as theirs. So your hypothesis that having your own child va adopting is different does not stand. The fa…

I explicitly stated that experience of biologically delivering a child is affecting both of parents, NOT on a biological basis but strictly on the level of THE experience itself. I could have been clearer by stating "biologically delivered child by mother", instead of the "biological child", but I have not, in any sense, reffered to a biological child-father connection being relevant to anything.

What may have confused you is that I stated that the idea of being biologically related to someone, has a mental effect that creates some emotional attachment - yes, due to the biological relation as a social construct. That was an additional idea to compare it to adopted cat/dog/child analogy.

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

#113

Post by sokoloff » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 10:45 AM UTC

test1235 wrote: post #72

muzani wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This reminds me so much of the Simpsons episode with Homer's long lost brother, Herb (he invents a machine to translate baby talk). I think, from my own experience, babies learn to communicate in a two way fashion - they try noises and responses with their caregivers, and when the caregivers respond in an agreeable fashion, the baby stores that bit of communication away to try again later (and possibly reinforce). So…

agree. We did some infant sign language (using what seemed to us like very exaggerated motions for “milk” “more” “diaper” and a few others I can’t recall now). I was amazed (and slightly relieved) when each child could express themself a bit.

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

#114

Post by belorn » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 10:48 AM UTC

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 always view articles skeptically when they talk about testosterone as effecting behavior. Most modern studies tend to conclude that testosterone levels changes after changed behavior rather than before, and artificially lowering or increasing testosterone within human levels does not usually have any measurable effect on behavior.

For example, the article stated that there is a correlation between lower testosterone and more caregiving and baby-related household tasks. What would surprise me however is if the finding would stand if they made a second study which gave a supraphysiological dose of testosterone to even out the difference in testosterone. My prediction is that the same variation of caregiving and baby-related household tasks would remain.

A prime example of that there is a correlation between testosterone and voting for the winning team in politics and sports. Measure testosterone after an election and men who has higher testosterone will have a higher rate of having voted for the winning party. Obviously, before the election there is no such correlation, so we can fairly rational make the conclusion that having more testosterone does not make a person a better judge of who is going to win.

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

#115

Post by peteridah » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 10:53 AM UTC

This has been a very useful thread.I have struggled with weight for many years. I have sufficient motivation to exercise and I am normally able to keep a disciplined schedule. But with our 2yr old daughter, sleeplessness has kind of messed me up and I struggle to keep any form of discipline now. It's hard. I am just glad to know that I am far from the only one :)

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

#116

Post by DrAwdeOccarim » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 11:05 AM UTC

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…

I haven't noticed the "anything about a newborn/small child must be 100% positive" in my group of friends, especially my work colleagues. I've been pretty straight forward about how hard the whole thing has been, especially adding a second child to the mix before the first one was 2 yo. I wouldn't recommend having a second child to anyone unless they really, really wanted it. It's hard af. Logarithmically harder than one.

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

#117

Post by belorn » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 11:06 AM UTC

stephencanon wrote: post #111

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.

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 "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. 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.

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

#118

Post by seventhtiger » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 11:09 AM UTC

skohan wrote: post #104

hello_newman wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was kinda in the same boat. Just getting a bit “chunkier”. Was 220lbs (some was also water weight from creatine) and now I’m 180lbs (I’m 6’1 if that helps). I tried intermittent fasting and it definitely worked for me. Related to your questions 1. For me, I never really experienced brain fog while IF. If anything, I seem to get more fog after eating regular/larger meals. When I was really hungry, drinking water and…

> I seem to get more fog after eating regular/larger meals. ... After a while you get used to hunger, and I seem to work better when I’m hungry vs when I’ve eaten a typical meal. Yeah I seem to find that a bit of mild hunger (not starvation or malnutrition) is good for the mind. I have at some points in my life found myself in a bit of a dampened state, where I am constantly either a bit lethargic from the last meal,…

I've had the same thought. My pet theory is that digestion is actually a much more exhausting process then we give it credit for, and all the chemical changes happening while you absorb nutrients have a toll on mental energy. Food availability and modern 3 big meals a day culture means we never really have any time when we are not digesting.

After trying fasting, when I see a snake with a full belly sleeping in the grass like it's dead it makes total sense to me. That's what digestion feels like.

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

#119

Post by keymon-o » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 11:11 AM UTC

NateEag wrote: post #108

drclau wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And that itself has much deeper relation to a biological child than to adopting one. Not that adopting isn't significant or emotional, it's simply not that varying level of experience. How do you know your child is actually biologically yours? Human fathers have no biological/natural means of identifying a child as theirs. So your hypothesis that having your own child va adopting is different does not stand. The fa…

When conceiving children biologically, if you do not have reason to believe your partner has had sex with other men, the natural assumption is that the child is yours. Also, family resemblances do exist. Their absence doesn't disprove parentage, but their presence is evidence for it. When adopting, if you were not sexually active prior to adoption and have not donated sperm, you can be certain the child is not biolog…

Exactly. Stating that an adoption is same as having a child of your own, is going against all empirical evidence that a person has great emotional changes upon finding out about your own biological relation to someone. Maybe it is entirely psychological, but idea of a biological relation affects a person a great deal.

I think most of the confusion here is coming from the idea that psychology can't be related to biology. However, I firmly believe that biology is the base of the psychology and you cannot alter psychology without altering the biology itself.

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

#120

Post by jdance » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 11:19 AM UTC

pricees wrote: 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.

Hey, me too. Was certain it would be about getting fat. Thing for me is, I was not exercising before, same weight for 10 years and I’m not sleep deprived at all with our 3 months old. But I do eat out more, and have a tendency to not really care what I eat - food has become fuel. I’m kind of suprised by the whole thing. Not sure what to do because I wasnt doing anything before :)