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We especially shouldn't be surprised if mothers make different decisions with fathers when society judges them, parenting books fearmonger, and parental leave i

We especially shouldn't be surprised if mothers make different decisions with fathers when society judges them, parenting books fearmonger, and parental leave is extremely disparate. Why don't we set aside the biological differences (all of which we have the means to offset) and tackle the most obvious problems first.

sandworm101 10y ago
>> Why don't we set aside the biological differences. Because short of growing our young in labs, biology is the one thing that cannot be removed from the equation.
- nostrebored 10y ago
  That's completely ludicrous. There are breast pumps, there is formula, there is no compelling reason that a mother has to stay at home. The question becomes is this a biological imperative or a social imperative, and until we remove the social portion it's too confounded to tell. Why do we also assume that men have no "overwhelming paternal instinct?" The answer is that we have an ideology strongly rooted in the past and justified by the ridiculousness that is modern evo-psych.
  - sandworm101 10y ago
    Not the biology I meant. I meant the fact that someone just hauled around a baby inside themselves for nine months, with all that entails. Breast pumps cannot change the fact that women and men may have different views.
    - nostrebored 10y ago
      I don't understand. Do you think that gestating makes you have a stronger attachment to your baby, even after months of having your child around? You're right that men and women may have different views. The overwhelming majority of women in my parenting group who could afford to were very excited to go back to work. The majority of fathers had a romanticized view of staying at home. Maybe my experience is an outlier, but I think that after a few months both parents have developed connections with the baby -- it's just that half of them are told by society that if they haven't it's wrong. There's a reason that many women develop postpartum depression, and I don't think that it's entirely chemical. Being a stay at home parent is extremely isolating.
      - imtringued 10y ago
        Pregnant women are much more likely to take parental leave than men because they have to.

sandworm101 10y ago

>> Why don't we set aside the biological differences. Because short of growing our young in labs, biology is the one thing that cannot be removed from the equation.

nostrebored 10y ago
That's completely ludicrous. There are breast pumps, there is formula, there is no compelling reason that a mother has to stay at home. The question becomes is this a biological imperative or a social imperative, and until we remove the social portion it's too confounded to tell. Why do we also assume that men have no "overwhelming paternal instinct?" The answer is that we have an ideology strongly rooted in the past and justified by the ridiculousness that is modern evo-psych.
- sandworm101 10y ago
  Not the biology I meant. I meant the fact that someone just hauled around a baby inside themselves for nine months, with all that entails. Breast pumps cannot change the fact that women and men may have different views.
  - nostrebored 10y ago
    I don't understand. Do you think that gestating makes you have a stronger attachment to your baby, even after months of having your child around? You're right that men and women may have different views. The overwhelming majority of women in my parenting group who could afford to were very excited to go back to work. The majority of fathers had a romanticized view of staying at home. Maybe my experience is an outlier, but I think that after a few months both parents have developed connections with the baby -- it's just that half of them are told by society that if they haven't it's wrong. There's a reason that many women develop postpartum depression, and I don't think that it's entirely chemical. Being a stay at home parent is extremely isolating.
    - imtringued 10y ago
      Pregnant women are much more likely to take parental leave than men because they have to.