posted October 08, 2013 12:35 PM            

Pronatalism should be a relic of a bygone era. Some people are meant to be parents and others aren't. Those who attempt to coerce or pressure people into childbearing and rearing are behaving in potentially harmful and fundamentally unethical ways.

posted October 08, 2013 12:54 PM            

Well, I think it's just rude to tell someone you don't know what your opinion is on whether or not they are having kids. To just assume a woman "ought" to have kids and love kids is backwards.

It works the other way too, though: just because a person was physically abused as a child doesn't mean they will hit their kids. In fact, the man I know who was most abused in his childhood is an absolutely wonderful father. And my dad was basically ignored by his parents but was perfectly affectionate with us (which could also be astrological factors at work.)

But if you know a person well, you can go on and say, "I know you don't want kids but for the record I think you'd love it if you tried..." (harmless comment)

or...

"Considering your temper, you ought to think long and hard before deciding to have kids. Don't kid yourself, you are going to subject them to that...it takes a lot of work. Come visit my toddlers for a few days and see if you seriously think you can handle this."

posted October 08, 2013 01:03 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Faith:
Hmmm

Well, I think it's just rude to tell someone you don't know what your opinion is on whether or not they are having kids. To just assume a woman "ought" to have kids and love kids is backwards.

It works the other way too, though: just because a person was physically abused as a child doesn't mean they will hit their kids. In fact, the man I know who was most abused in his childhood is an absolutely wonderful father. And my dad was basically ignored by his parents but was perfectly affectionate with us (which could also be astrological factors at work.)

But if you know a person well, you can go on and say, "I know you don't want kids but for the record I think you'd love it if you tried..." (harmless comment)

or...

"Considering your temper, you ought to think long and hard before deciding to have kids. Don't kid yourself, you are going to subject them to that...it takes a lot of work. Come visit my toddlers for a few days and see if you seriously think you can handle this."

Problem is that young children are overly sequestered in our society, so people can become parents without much previous contact with them.

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posted October 09, 2013 03:21 PM            

quote:

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Paternal caregiving dependent on testes size
The findings showed that testosterone levels and the size of testes correlated with the amount of "direct paternal caregiving" that was reported by the parents in the study.

Fathers who had smaller testes showed increased nurturing-related brain activity in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) - an area of the brain linked to reward and parental motivation - when viewing photos of their own children.

The study authors explain:

"In response to viewing pictures of one's own child, activity in the ventral tegmental area - a key component of the mesolimbic dopamine reward and motivation system - predicted paternal caregiving and was negatively related to testes volume.

Our results suggest that the biology of human males reflects a trade-off between mating effort and parenting effort, as indexed by testicular size and nurturing-related brain function, respectively."

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:/

By that standard, one billion chinese men globally should be fathers and all Nordic/Scandinavian/Dutch/German fathers are useless and horrible.

:\

How much more ridiculous can that get??

Might as well say all women with small breasts cannot hold high volumes of breast milk and therefore are lesser mothers??

posted October 09, 2013 03:31 PM            

quote:

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Studies of child maltreatment have consistently found that parents who physically abuse their children tend to parent in more hostile, critical and controlling ways. Skowron's team appears to have found evidence of a physiological basis for patterns of aversive parenting -- the use of hostile actions such as grabbing an arm or hand or using negative verbal cues in guiding a child's behavior -- in a sample of families involved with Child Protective Services.

For the experiment, mothers and children were monitored to record changes in heart rate while playing together in the lab. Parenting behavior was scored to capture positive parenting and strict, hostile control using a standard coding system.

What emerged, Skowron said, were clear distinctions between abusive, neglectful and non-maltreating mothers in their physiological responses during parenting. When abusive mothers were more warm and nurturing, they began to experience more difficulty regulating their heart rate and staying calm. This physiological-based stress response then led the abusive mothers to become more hostile and controlling toward their child a short time later in the interaction.

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"Hostile, critical and controlling" seems to be the standard among Tiger moms. And therefore all the Tiger moms in this world who want their kids to get top grades, play many instruments and be successful must be unable to regulate their heart rates and be real unhealthy.