From Dad to "Mom"?

[Kuya]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21018217/wid/11915773/

This was a pretty interesting read, it reminded me of when we had this argument about female genital mutilation (don't ask), and we somehow ended up arguing about the roles and rights of mother and father inside a family unit. I believe most people agreed that women do deserve more rights when it comes to childcare, and that the woman is always the default, best choice as a caregiver. But this however leads to question, and i'm over simplefying here, are the roles in society set the way they are, now a days, because we still want it this way? Is it because it's what's natural to do? Or is it simply more beneficial for the mother to be the primary caregiver as opposed to the father? And as for the very few females here, would you agree with the sentiments of the woman in this article?

[Demosthenes11]

Great question!

I think the woman is the default because of their obvious biological connection to the child. Psychologically and physically, the woman is the sole reason the child is "alive" before it is born. Once the child is born, those original feels and instincts don't just completely disappear. For the most part, I think it is completely natural the woman would want to continue the dependence the child has made for her. Also, I feel like women feel like they can teach a child more emotionally (compared to a man, and I wouldnt disagree). I'd say we want it this way, but want to stay away from it being completely normal. I think it's good that way, because it still allows women to obtain high positions in society while others are still the primary caregiver.

[Kuya]

Great question!

I think the woman is the default because of their obvious biological connection to the child. Psychologically and physically, the woman is the sole reason the child is "alive" before it is born. Once the child is born, those original feels and instincts don't just completely disappear. For the most part, I think it is completely natural the woman would want to continue the dependence the child has made for her. Also, I feel like women feel like they can teach a child more emotionally (compared to a man, and I wouldnt disagree). I'd say we want it this way, but want to stay away from it being completely normal. I think it's good that way, because it still allows women to obtain high positions in society while others are still the primary caregiver.

There ins't much i can disagree with you, however, i belive, at first, the one forming the psychological bonds is the mother towards the child. A child that early on still has no recognition of the existence of anything besides itself, while on the other hand, the mother sees a living being coming out of her, and naturaly feelings are going to form. So it isn't farfetched to believe the child could easily swing either way. I disagree that the original feelings don't disapear in the sense that, the infant, does not know who causes or from who the feelings originate from, so a infant has no way to discriminate between either mother or father. Only aspect where a woman could gain a upperhand is in the case of breastfeeding, which disapointingly, does not happen as often as it should, in my opinion.

As for women being more emotional, i also disagree. It's hard to tell if women are actually naturaly emotional due to soo much conditioning. And in the aspect of science, it has never proven that women are more emotional, in fact, that has always just been a justification for keeping women out of decision making aspects of society. It has been proven that women do produce chemicals which enhance emotional bonding, but this only seems to happen after sexual intercourse(sp?). Raised a certain way, male or female, could both be equally emotional. Unless of course you mean motherly instincts, which not all women have, and apperently, the woman in this article seems to demostrate them, but it doesn't seem to make her the primary caregiver regardless.

And as for women gaining higher positions in society (which on the other hand, my interests is to see them gain just as much intelligence and notoriety as men), according to the article, it would seem letting female children form stronger bonds with their fathers than with their mothers would actually make this goal a much closer reality. If it is in fact true. Anyone know where a study on this might be?

[EternityEnd]

But is it right to give an unfit mother custody over a better fit father, like is the case in so many custody battles due to sexism? Ridiculous.

[Alleya]

omg that article was so sweet! ;;

The mother-as-caregiver role is a tradition of a couple thousand years. Times have changed. But, fathers taking up the care giving role is a very new phenomena, maybe 30 years, probably less. 30 vs a few thousand... Hmm.

It's amplified by the the gender imbalance in salaries. Even in this article--the father was the primary income. Daycare and such things are very expensive, it's often more economical for a woman to quit her job and stay at home than pay for daycare. That's just statistics, I don't think there's really anything inherently sexist or wrong with the idea of the mother as the caregiver (though there's a ton of sexism involved with the father as care giver). Really, either parent has as much of a chance as being a good one as the other.

Short answer: Times are changing, men are changing, and the role of men is changing. It's best not to get into an argument about it this soon. There's still a lot of kinks to work out. Maybe some day in the future when women are equal in the workplace and in life this debate will be worth having.

[Priran]

My daughter — for whom I gave up margaritas and caffeine and even pain relievers for nine months, the child I labored 13 hours to bring into the world, the daughter I sang to and continued to nurse even after her first teeth came in — runs right past me and straight into the arms of her daddy.

hey, maybe your kid doesn't like you because you're a fucking jackass.

[Shade]

I think the core idea of it is a rather lovely image... the father being a caregiver part.

If he's the one that's around more often, it makes sense that the child would bond with him more strongly. When she's older, she'll probably start to appreciate her mother more, too. All very logical. The problem is whether or not the mother is capable of "letting go" and accepting a lesser role, psychologically. Everybody wants to be in the spotlight, wants to be loved the most, especially if you were expecting it before you found out otherwise. It's hard.


The explanation I was given, in an Anthropology class, for why women were probably the "natural" caregivers, in early human societies, is as follows:
Males and females do differ biologically. They're not huge differences, and there are people on both sides who fall around the same spot in the middle, but they're there. Men tend (on average), to be larger, stronger, and require more food. Women tend (on average), to be slightly smaller and weaker, but have longer endurance and require less food. So in a hunter-gatherer society, it makes more sense to send those (ahem, expendable) stronger group members that use up more resources to do the hunting etc. It also doesn't make sense to take a crying/fussy baby -with- you when you do so. There are other tasks at the village that need to be doing also, and so (on average), the women would take care of the children while doing those tasks. Add in the fact that the woman is the one carrying the child for 9 months (limited movement, endurance, and risking 2 lives instead of 1 if you go out foraging like that), and the one providing food for it for the first year or so of it's life, and it makes sense.

Most of these factors though, don't come in to play in today's society. So I don't think it really matters which parent is the more "domestic" one. I dont think our society is quite all the way to accepting that though. We're still carrying a lot of baggage about both male and female roles, and what we are "supposed" to do, based on our gender.

[Faris]

Short answer: Times are changing, men are changing, and the role of men is changing. It's best not to get into an argument about it this soon. There's still a lot of kinks to work out. Maybe some day in the future when women are equal in the workplace and in life this debate will be worth having.

I dont like it. I'm sticking with old school traditions and trends when it comes to raising a child. Both parents must be fully involved, but ofcourse the mother should always give more intimacy from her side. That woman in the article isn't blaming herself, I think she should look closer on how she's treating her child, and change it to make her relationship closer to her daughter.

[Sigi]

I dont like it. I'm sticking with old school traditions and trends when it comes to raising a child. Both parents must be fully involved, but ofcourse the mother should always give more intimacy from her side. That woman in the article isn't blaming herself, I think she should look closer on how she's treating her child, and change it to make her relationship closer to her daughter.

The woman was a twit. She felt she should be entitled to the love of her child just because. I agree that both parents should be involved with a child... however a child is a person, not a puppy. If anything the daughter showed she cared for her mom by allowing the mom to soothe her at the doctors, and coming to her for reading. Who knows, you might end up being wrapped around the little finger of your daughter or son one day.

[zoobernut]

When I saw the title of this I first thought it was about a Dad getting a sex change and becoming a "Mom" ... weird.

On to the real topic. I agree that originally there is an actual evolutionary and physical reason why women were the primary caregivers. However I do think that times can change and so can people and as we evolve and change how our societies work we can also change these basic structures. Initially a mom has a more physical close relationship with a baby not only because they give birth to it but because they breast feed it.
After the breast feeding is done however there is no reason that a father cannot take care of a baby just as effectively as the mother.

[Vigilia]

I didn't think that that article is necessarily about the changing roles of men and women in family, it was just about a kid that is a daddy's girl.

Most children in my experience pick a favourite, sometimes it's not even neither mum or dad but for example a grandma. From as far back as I remember when being very young I would always run to my Grandma first, Dad second and Mum third. And it wasn't just me, my little sister and brother that followed within a year and a half of each other did the same. It wasn't because she was being a horrible mum, far from it, she was awesome. But when you're too young to understand why she does the things she did (she was always the one to say "no", dad and grandma always caved in and gave us what we wanted and absolutely doted on us).

It wasn't til much later on I realised just how much we hurt her without realising it and that she was really depressed for like the first 10 years or so thinking she's a useless mum when in fact she did the most of the job of actually raising us and teaching us right from wrong. Dad was the one who played games with us, built Lego castles with us, had a comic book collection and was just generally cooler. Grandma was just full of win from a child's perspective, she used to make the greatest pancakes ever known to man. Children are really simple creatures, we all forget it when we grow up but raising a child is not much different from house training a dog in principle. Just watch Supernanny. Punish when they're bad and reward when they're good. Problem is if only one parent is associated with the treats and the other with punishment the child will obviously favour the more fun parent.

Previously in society the father was always perceived as being the source of discipline in the family whereas the mum would be there for hugs and to let you have your way. I suppose for the most part this is still so, but there are families where it's the other way around and of course there's the "perfect" situation where both parents stick to same rules and it's harder for the child to pick an obvious favourite.
Whatever this woman in this article is doing she imo needs to sit down with her husband and make sure they're on the same page with the way they treat their child.

[Zanz L. Barre The 3rd]

Evolution has forged females to be the mother. They are more in-tune with understanding the human, which seems to be a dynamkc indicator to why they suite the role of a mother so well.

[Faris]

This is the problem with women nowadays.....they wanna mix up roles and fuck up the whole cycle of life.
and they call it equality, PISH POSH!

Women always look at it from a view: how come i get to carry a baby for 9 months.
how come guys keep staring at my ass. (STOP FUCKING SHOWING IT THEN!)
they cant just accept the way of life, get with the program, you're a woman, make the best of it.


and now they want us to take their role to become mothers?! fuck that.

[isladar]

The mother will (most often) have the highest effect in shaping and influencing the child's internal, introverted self. The child's emotional states, perception of self, interpretation of how external stimuli effects them, etc. Dad becomes the benchmark for how the child interacts (rather than perceives) with the external. Hence examples above of "Dad always took us out to DO things, build Lego castles, and so on". Mum teaches who, Dad teaches how.

I think the idea of "Daddy's girl", as it pertains to the article, is that in order to individualize themselves, girls have to separate from their mothers. It is, in fact, what their mothers are teaching them to do by enphasizing their internal experience. In that separatation and process of developing self, they naturally gravitate to the more extroverted extension of their experience, being their father.

Speaking as an aforementioned Daddy's girl.. the relationship with the mother may SEEM to be superceeded, since interaction with Daddy is staged in such a evident, demostrative way.. ("We went to the Cubs' game/museum/toy store! or He showed me how to--") whereas the Mother-child relationship is so much harder to quantify -- though obviously, we all try.

[Jujubie]

I just scanned through the article and the above posts. My Brother is a stay at home Dad, and does the raising part of his girls much better than their Mother. He has more patience with them than their Mother. I think either sex can be good in either the role of caregiver or breadwinner, it depends on the person's personality and how they can handle situations.

That being said, if I remember from my psychology class long ago, every child goes through phases where they gravitate toward mother or father which is probably why the little girl at her age gravitates toward her Father. Freud and the Oedipus Complex. http://changingminds.org/disciplines...us_complex.htm

[EternityEnd]

This is the problem with women nowadays.....they wanna mix up roles and fuck up the whole cycle of life.
and they call it equality, PISH POSH!

Women always look at it from a view: how come i get to carry a baby for 9 months.
how come guys keep staring at my ass. (STOP FUCKING SHOWING IT THEN!)
they cant just accept the way of life, get with the program, you're a woman, make the best of it.


and now they want us to take their role to become mothers?! fuck that.

Oh my, the ignorance... I hope you're being really sarcastic. >_>

[Kuya]

This is the problem with women nowadays.....they wanna mix up roles and fuck up the whole cycle of life.
and they call it equality, PISH POSH!

Women always look at it from a view: how come i get to carry a baby for 9 months.
how come guys keep staring at my ass. (STOP FUCKING SHOWING IT THEN!)
they cant just accept the way of life, get with the program, you're a woman, make the best of it.


and now they want us to take their role to become mothers?! fuck that.

I hope you understand that your opinion is pretty one sided. Also, what do you mean cycle of life?

The woman was a twit. She felt she should be entitled to the love of her child just because.

She realizes that at the end though, it's at the end of the article.

[Heian]

This is the problem with women nowadays.....they wanna mix up roles and fuck up the whole cycle of life.
and they call it equality, PISH POSH!

Women always look at it from a view: how come i get to carry a baby for 9 months.
how come guys keep staring at my ass. (STOP FUCKING SHOWING IT THEN!)
they cant just accept the way of life, get with the program, you're a woman, make the best of it.


and now they want us to take their role to become mothers?! fuck that.

Marriage must be awkward in your country, I mean shit with all those veils and robes you don't even know if they look good.

[Faris]

/sarkazim