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> Whose belly do doctors put fresh-born babies on, their fathers? I wasn't the one who downvoted you, but I think it's unfortunate that you're citing a social

by mklim 11y ago

> Whose belly do doctors put fresh-born babies on, their fathers? I wasn't the one who downvoted you, but I think it's unfortunate that you're citing a social practice to try and establish biological fact and claiming to understand what I "know." Nothing about a distinctly female presence is necessary for a child's proper development, much less the specific woman that birthed the baby originally. All the major psychological associations that I know of support gay adoption as healthy for children. The biologically necessary thing is a loving parental presence, gender non specific. Formula exists and can be given to children, midwives existed to feed babies before that.

jazzyk 11y ago
There is one more thing I did not mention. The 9-month-long mother-child bonding time, unavailable to the father, the midwife and whoever else. For older children , any loving adult care is fine. But the original post was about the priority the mother has, indicating post-birth.
- mklim 11y ago
  My impression that the first post I replied to was speaking of things in general, not locked to any kind of specific post-birth time frame. Even if it was though, I disagree with the mother's presence specifically being "ESSENTIAL" for the baby's health. Do babies' whose mothers die during childbirth suffer severe developmental disorders or other problems? What about babies that are immediately given to their adoptive parents instead of their biological mother after being born? My understanding is that as long as they receive love, support, and nutrition from an adult of either gender they grow up fine, with single parents being generally less effective than pairs.
  - jazzyk 11y ago
    Just a few quick points, this is going off-topic: 1. Let's replace "essential" with "optimal". The original point still stands. 2. You conveniently omitted the 9-month bonding time. 3. Formula is good enough, but breast milk is optimal. Never heard of midwives breastfeeding other women's babies in 21st century. 4. Researchers have long known that newborns recognize – and prefer – their mom's voice. http://www.babycenter.com/404_is-it-true-that-babies-can-recognize-their-mothers-voice-at_10323727.bc http://www.babycenter.com/404_is-it-true-that-babies-can-rec...
    - mklim 11y ago
      1. No it doesn't still stand. If a mother's presence is biologically necessary for her child's development in the same way her uterus is necessary for fetal development, then the OP is right and childbirth does innately biologically necessitate that women spend more time with their children than their male partners in the same way that it's a biological fact that fathers do not carry fetuses to term and give birth to them. If their presence is, instead of "ESSENTIAL", "optimal" then my question becomes: "optimal" for what compared to what and for whom? It becomes a case of people and the groups they form making decisions to optimize for certain goals by behaving in a particular way, not raw biology empirically operating. 2. Yes, I did. It didn't seem relevant to the point I was arguing, see #1. 3. For optimal, see 1, and for midwives—yes, and that's a societal trend rather than a biological fact. 4. True but still irrelevant, see #1. I'm not arguing that biological mothers aren't generally inclined to want to spend more time with their children than their male partners, or that newly born infants aren't going to instinctively want to spend time with their mothers. It's just OP's original claim didn't logically follow from the evidence he presented—nothing about childbirth necessitates women having "the first choice to spend time with those children, and [...] bargaining power in relationships."
      - jazzyk 11y ago
        Ad 2. No, you omitted mother-child bonding during pregnancy, because it gives the mother an advantage. Also, breast-feeding is how nature intends it, milk formula (invented relatively recently) is a crutch. So it does give women an advantage over men. As for midwives - they are women, not men. Following your reasoning, we could say "there is nothing that necessitates sex between a man and a woman" - because we have in-vitro conception?
- jazzyk 11y ago
  Seriously? Downvotes for stating a fact (not opinion)?
  - douche 11y ago
    You're as likely to get a positive experience out of sticking your dick in a meat-grinder as posting anything suggesting women and men are not the same on the internet.

by mklim 11y ago

jazzyk 11y ago

There is one more thing I did not mention. The 9-month-long mother-child bonding time, unavailable to the father, the midwife and whoever else. For older children , any loving adult care is fine. But the original post was about the priority the mother has, indicating post-birth.

mklim 11y ago
My impression that the first post I replied to was speaking of things in general, not locked to any kind of specific post-birth time frame. Even if it was though, I disagree with the mother's presence specifically being "ESSENTIAL" for the baby's health. Do babies' whose mothers die during childbirth suffer severe developmental disorders or other problems? What about babies that are immediately given to their adoptive parents instead of their biological mother after being born? My understanding is that as long as they receive love, support, and nutrition from an adult of either gender they grow up fine, with single parents being generally less effective than pairs.
- jazzyk 11y ago
  Just a few quick points, this is going off-topic: 1. Let's replace "essential" with "optimal". The original point still stands. 2. You conveniently omitted the 9-month bonding time. 3. Formula is good enough, but breast milk is optimal. Never heard of midwives breastfeeding other women's babies in 21st century. 4. Researchers have long known that newborns recognize – and prefer – their mom's voice. http://www.babycenter.com/404_is-it-true-that-babies-can-recognize-their-mothers-voice-at_10323727.bc http://www.babycenter.com/404_is-it-true-that-babies-can-rec...
  - mklim 11y ago
    1. No it doesn't still stand. If a mother's presence is biologically necessary for her child's development in the same way her uterus is necessary for fetal development, then the OP is right and childbirth does innately biologically necessitate that women spend more time with their children than their male partners in the same way that it's a biological fact that fathers do not carry fetuses to term and give birth to them. If their presence is, instead of "ESSENTIAL", "optimal" then my question becomes: "optimal" for what compared to what and for whom? It becomes a case of people and the groups they form making decisions to optimize for certain goals by behaving in a particular way, not raw biology empirically operating. 2. Yes, I did. It didn't seem relevant to the point I was arguing, see #1. 3. For optimal, see 1, and for midwives—yes, and that's a societal trend rather than a biological fact. 4. True but still irrelevant, see #1. I'm not arguing that biological mothers aren't generally inclined to want to spend more time with their children than their male partners, or that newly born infants aren't going to instinctively want to spend time with their mothers. It's just OP's original claim didn't logically follow from the evidence he presented—nothing about childbirth necessitates women having "the first choice to spend time with those children, and [...] bargaining power in relationships."
    - jazzyk 11y ago
      Ad 2. No, you omitted mother-child bonding during pregnancy, because it gives the mother an advantage. Also, breast-feeding is how nature intends it, milk formula (invented relatively recently) is a crutch. So it does give women an advantage over men. As for midwives - they are women, not men. Following your reasoning, we could say "there is nothing that necessitates sex between a man and a woman" - because we have in-vitro conception?
jazzyk 11y ago
Seriously? Downvotes for stating a fact (not opinion)?
- douche 11y ago
  You're as likely to get a positive experience out of sticking your dick in a meat-grinder as posting anything suggesting women and men are not the same on the internet.