Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dad brains: How fatherhood rewires the male mind

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 218 posts

Re: Dad brains: How fatherhood rewires the male mind

#171

Post by et-al »

marcuschong wrote: post #126
dividefuel wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah I wish I could agree. I've found having kids to be a major challenge. Maybe I just need to wait for them to get a little older.

Me too. I'm an active father, love my daughter and don't regret our choice. But damn I would never opt to go through this again and can't wait until she's a little older. I see parents having orderly lunches in restaurants with their older children and it just seems like the most beautiful and civilized thing in the world. The whole experience is too much noise and not enough signal to me.

Yeah, this is highly dependent on the child and parent. Some kids just require attention, are more stubborn, or are just terrible sleepers and that's definitely gonna take a greater toil on the parents.

Sure there's Bringing up Bébé, sleep training, etc. but sometimes you just get difficult kids at no fault of the parents. And some people are just okay with the chaos of children.

Re: Dad brains: How fatherhood rewires the male mind

#172

Post by jvanderbot »

dividefuel wrote: post #67
jvanderbot wrote: post #50

Not to the direct thesis of the article, but I want to share one absolute 180 I had after having kids. Before kiddos I took the apriori belief that it would kinda suck. The belief was unassailable because I thought, evolutionarily, if it was fun to have kids it wouldn't be fun to make them - otherwise we'd endure unfun "making" because we know the having would be fun. I know now how stupid that was on many levels. Ju…

Ah I wish I could agree. I've found having kids to be a major challenge. Maybe I just need to wait for them to get a little older.

I've found the challenges, personally, are related to my lackadaisical prior life. Casual workouts after my job. Working whatever hours I wanted so I could take it easy at the job knowing I could just stay late. Completely open evenings and weekends so no need to plan ahead. Plenty of leisure time to tidy up while doing anything or nothing. Seeing friends several times a week so no need to make effort to reach out or block time.

I never learned to be busy. I thought working 60-70h and studying weekends was busy, but that was just laziness-compensation.

Now I know how and the pure joy of having kids can be appreciated. Getting used to that was hard.

So we sorted out that challenge. There are many more ahead.

Re: Dad brains: How fatherhood rewires the male mind

#173

Post by Henchman21 »

syntaxing wrote: post #21

> And the men that had spent longer looking after babies showed the largest drops in testosterone. Those that shared a bed with their infants also had lower levels. Dad here. Maybe…it’s the lack of sleep? Involved fathers tend to have less sleep.

Or, just gonna put this out there... you have successfully fathered a child. A drop-off in T seems normal -- you've done your job and now you care for that child and lose the drive to father a significant number more. You accomplished your biological purpose and slowly slide on into death over the next number of decades. So it is. We are not immortals and the phases of life should not be avoided out of selfish vanity. Easy to say online, eh? :)

Re: Dad brains: How fatherhood rewires the male mind

#174

Post by c22 »

strix_varius wrote: post #69
jvanderbot wrote: post #50

Not to the direct thesis of the article, but I want to share one absolute 180 I had after having kids. Before kiddos I took the apriori belief that it would kinda suck. The belief was unassailable because I thought, evolutionarily, if it was fun to have kids it wouldn't be fun to make them - otherwise we'd endure unfun "making" because we know the having would be fun. I know now how stupid that was on many levels. Ju…

I also have been surprised by how fun fatherhood is. When kids are days, weeks, months old, they're constantly experiencing new things. That's the first tree she ever saw! It's amazing to experience the world through them. When they're a couple years old, you see them learning and connecting and developing a unique personality. I love it when my two year old picks up on things that I missed, or teaches me something.…

There's all sorts of fun and exciting milestones ahead, but in my experience around 18mos - 4yrs is sort of a sweet spot. Enjoy it while it lasts!

Re: Dad brains: How fatherhood rewires the male mind

#175

Post by jvanderbot »

pseudohadamard wrote: post #159
jvanderbot wrote: post #50

Not to the direct thesis of the article, but I want to share one absolute 180 I had after having kids. Before kiddos I took the apriori belief that it would kinda suck. The belief was unassailable because I thought, evolutionarily, if it was fun to have kids it wouldn't be fun to make them - otherwise we'd endure unfun "making" because we know the having would be fun. I know now how stupid that was on many levels. Ju…

Before kiddos I took the apriori belief that it would kinda suck. The belief was unassailable because I thought, evolutionarily, if it was fun to have kids it wouldn't be fun to make them - otherwise we'd endure unfun "making" because we know the having would be fun. And you were right. Subjectively , having and raising kids is fun. Objectively , it's not fun at all, but your mind convinces you that it is otherwise n…

So, what is "objective" fun. (Vs enjoying your subjective experience). Having kids is not "objectively fun" even though its "subjectively fun" because "my brain convinced me I'm having fun?"

Pull at that thread and you'll land on the central mistake I made with my prior beliefs, and also a ton of things like, you know, stoic philosophy, cognitive behavioral therapy, and mindfulness. etc etc. The subjective is all you have.

What you just told me contradicts the studies. Return to baseline happiness with some temporary dips does not match "you're not having fun stop believing you are".

It means "all the enormous and sudden life changes and things you give up to have kids are a momentary blip in the radar, made up for by the pleasure of having kids".

Re: Dad brains: How fatherhood rewires the male mind

#176

Post by mh- »

tasuki wrote: post #142
dlenski wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also have been surprised by how fun fatherhood is. Same here. My son is approaching two, and he's a blast. He can be tiring, he can be a big ol’ mess, but he's never boring . He's healthy and he eats well and he's a good sleeper, so he doesn't give us much to worry about. He charms everyone he meets, he explores everything, and every day is just a fireworks show of new delights and discoveries. I go on a business…

[flagged]

I recommend talking that projection over with a therapist, rather than pseudonymous HN commenters.

Re: Dad brains: How fatherhood rewires the male mind

#177

Post by rubslopes »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #143
roody15 wrote: post #3

As a father of 3 daughters now approaching 50 with my oldest now 24 … I will say that I believe some of this is true. Perhaps it is just the life altering effect of raising children or maybe is biological as well. You can definitely pickup on whether another male is a father or not.

"As a father of 3 daughters now approaching 50 with my oldest now 24…" You and I are akin (I waited a decade longer to start a family though.) I definitely see my life as divided between before and after having had kids. I mean that's pretty obvious—and you can find any other big event in life and make that claim. But for me there has been nothing more dramatic to have redirected my own life. To the point that (and t…

My first child is still 16 months old, and I already feel like this.

Re: Dad brains: How fatherhood rewires the male mind

#178

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

verteu wrote: post #31
syntaxing wrote: post #21

> And the men that had spent longer looking after babies showed the largest drops in testosterone. Those that shared a bed with their infants also had lower levels. Dad here. Maybe…it’s the lack of sleep? Involved fathers tend to have less sleep.

Several of the studies described changes in hormones before the child was born.

> Several of the studies described changes in hormones before the child was born.

For me, sleep dropped off right after I got the "I'm pregnant" phone call. I'd only known this girl for [time it takes a baby to be detected] days.

Re: Dad brains: How fatherhood rewires the male mind

#179

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

theturtlemoves wrote: post #100
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wa…

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 a…

> 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.

Re: Dad brains: How fatherhood rewires the male mind

#180

Post by anthk »

the_gipsy wrote: post #122
gosub100 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing coincidence how the two genders have biological features that together support life. You should check it out sometime.

As the biological features of slavers and slaves put together towards sustaining a plantation.

You have no idea what you are talking about and it shows. Pop science, you say, from Jorge Laborda?

https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Jorge-...

American Social Pseudosciences should shut up their Sokal-like mouth and learn the basics for once and all.

They did tests and trials on how human males and females do orient themselves on distinct environments. Females used points and clues from the environment creating some kind of a graph and men used geometry with distances as vectors and rotations.

That on average, of course, because there wil always be overlapping edges. Women using 'male' bound orientation schemes and vice-versa. And they also showed how females could find Waldo-finding like tasks much faster on average than males, while the males were better of focusing for long a single point against slighly moving surronding events without distracting themselves.

This is not pseudoscience nor male chauvinistic bullshit. It's the pure reality. Hormones drive us, either you like it or not.

Discrete math vs linear algebra. Distinct tools to solve the same problem. Which is better? It depends on the case.

Post reply on HN