7 ms·

Paternal instinct, and women who like sex, exist too.

grondilu 9y ago
Well, no rule is written in stone. What you talk about could be a consequence of the fact that men and women are more or less built the same way after all. Kind of like why men have nipples, even if they are useless to them. My point remains anyway : even if there was a perfect symmetry in gender roles, parenting instinct would be what makes parents desire to have at least one offspring and keep it alive at all cost, but what would drive them to have more than two would be sexual impulse.
- sgt101 9y ago
  There exists a desire to have children in a household amongst some people both male and female just because it can be fulfilling and nice.
  - walterstucco 9y ago
    But it's not genetic It's culture and education
    - blacksmith_tb 9y ago
      Citation needed - obviously culture and education have an enormous impact on how humans live, but given that other animals are driven to reproduce, it shouldn't be a surprise that we are also.
      - walterstucco 9y ago
        When child survival increases, kids per family decrease at an enormous rate down to one kid per family https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_...
    - toasterlovin 9y ago
      Complex behavior can be and often is genetic. A great example of this is the vastly different behavior of the zebra and lion when in close company with zebras. The zebra will engage in herd behavior, whereas the lion will try to eat one of the zebras. No amount of socialization can alter these behavioral patterns. I can tell you that my wife and I both knew long before we were anywhere near adults that we wanted families. You know how some people know that they want to be a fire fighter or a police officer when they grow up? I knew I wanted to have a bunch of kids. The story is more or less the same for her. And my wife and I both grew up on the left, where the attitude toward having children varies from something you do after you have your career sorted to outright anti-natalism.
      - walterstucco 9y ago
        > . A great example of this is the vastly different behavior of the zebra and lion We're not zebra and lions > knew long before we were anywhere near adults that we wanted families peer pressure is strong in our society family is a motivation to stay alive for many > I knew I wanted to have a bunch of kids. Yeah I though I knew as well, much like I thought I was going to be an astronaut Now I'm a grown up man, in charge of his life, and I know I don't care about a family And it's not the gene's telling me, I still think about having a legacy, a mini me persisting my DNA but I know that it's just a legacy from the past where a man without a family to support wasn't a real man. That's it, education and culture If reproducing was such a strong genetic trait, men on heart would have been billions centuries ago The truth is kids are family support, the more societies get rich, the less people make children It's scientifically proven, poor need kids not for reproduction but for elderly support Poor also make a lot of children because in poor societies kids die more easily
        toasterlovin 9y ago
        For all of human evolution except the last 50 years, so 6,997 out of the last 7,000 generations, the drive to have sex was synonymous with the drive to have children. Then we invented birth control. Now evolution will select for people who have a desire to have children, separate from their desire to have sex. The idea that complex behavior can be caused by genes in animals, but somehow not in humans is incorrect. People point to culture as if it is some magical force that makes people do things, but the human ability to create and interact with culture is itself the result of genes. After all, zebras and lions don’t have culture. And you missed my point: I grew up in a culture that did not value having children. Having children was considered an after thought, something to be done after you had attended to your career. Growing up, I only knew one family with 4 children. They were considered the weird religious family. Yet I have known since I was 12 or 13 that I wanted to have a large family, even though I grew up in a culture that would look down their noses at a family of 4 or more children. And the argument that poor people have lots of children for financial reasons doesn’t hold up any more. It did when most people were farmers, but the poor in the developed world are no longer farmers and I don’t think there’s any way to argue that children are a net financial benefit to them.
  - grondilu 9y ago
    Yes, but as I wrote this desire doesn't seem to be enough to renew generations.
    - sgt101 9y ago
      I don't understand : we are in the middle of the biggest population explosion in the history of the world and at the back end of a century of government programs aimed at reducing childbearing...
      - grondilu 9y ago
        Most of the population explosion is behind us. Many developed countries have sub-replacement fertility, and it seems to be a trend followed by developing countries. "As of 2010, about 48% (3.3 billion people) of the world population lives in nations with sub-replacement fertility."[1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility

Well, no rule is written in stone. What you talk about could be a consequence of the fact that men and women are more or less built the same way after all. Kind of like why men have nipples, even if they are useless to them. My point remains anyway : even if there was a perfect symmetry in gender roles, parenting instinct would be what makes parents desire to have at least one offspring and keep it alive at all cost, but what would drive them to have more than two would be sexual impulse.

sgt101 9y ago
There exists a desire to have children in a household amongst some people both male and female just because it can be fulfilling and nice.
- walterstucco 9y ago
  But it's not genetic It's culture and education
  - blacksmith_tb 9y ago
    Citation needed - obviously culture and education have an enormous impact on how humans live, but given that other animals are driven to reproduce, it shouldn't be a surprise that we are also.
    - walterstucco 9y ago
      When child survival increases, kids per family decrease at an enormous rate down to one kid per family https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_growth https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_on_global_population_...
  - toasterlovin 9y ago
    Complex behavior can be and often is genetic. A great example of this is the vastly different behavior of the zebra and lion when in close company with zebras. The zebra will engage in herd behavior, whereas the lion will try to eat one of the zebras. No amount of socialization can alter these behavioral patterns. I can tell you that my wife and I both knew long before we were anywhere near adults that we wanted families. You know how some people know that they want to be a fire fighter or a police officer when they grow up? I knew I wanted to have a bunch of kids. The story is more or less the same for her. And my wife and I both grew up on the left, where the attitude toward having children varies from something you do after you have your career sorted to outright anti-natalism.
    - walterstucco 9y ago
      > . A great example of this is the vastly different behavior of the zebra and lion We're not zebra and lions > knew long before we were anywhere near adults that we wanted families peer pressure is strong in our society family is a motivation to stay alive for many > I knew I wanted to have a bunch of kids. Yeah I though I knew as well, much like I thought I was going to be an astronaut Now I'm a grown up man, in charge of his life, and I know I don't care about a family And it's not the gene's telling me, I still think about having a legacy, a mini me persisting my DNA but I know that it's just a legacy from the past where a man without a family to support wasn't a real man. That's it, education and culture If reproducing was such a strong genetic trait, men on heart would have been billions centuries ago The truth is kids are family support, the more societies get rich, the less people make children It's scientifically proven, poor need kids not for reproduction but for elderly support Poor also make a lot of children because in poor societies kids die more easily
      - toasterlovin 9y ago
        For all of human evolution except the last 50 years, so 6,997 out of the last 7,000 generations, the drive to have sex was synonymous with the drive to have children. Then we invented birth control. Now evolution will select for people who have a desire to have children, separate from their desire to have sex. The idea that complex behavior can be caused by genes in animals, but somehow not in humans is incorrect. People point to culture as if it is some magical force that makes people do things, but the human ability to create and interact with culture is itself the result of genes. After all, zebras and lions don’t have culture. And you missed my point: I grew up in a culture that did not value having children. Having children was considered an after thought, something to be done after you had attended to your career. Growing up, I only knew one family with 4 children. They were considered the weird religious family. Yet I have known since I was 12 or 13 that I wanted to have a large family, even though I grew up in a culture that would look down their noses at a family of 4 or more children. And the argument that poor people have lots of children for financial reasons doesn’t hold up any more. It did when most people were farmers, but the poor in the developed world are no longer farmers and I don’t think there’s any way to argue that children are a net financial benefit to them.
- grondilu 9y ago
  Yes, but as I wrote this desire doesn't seem to be enough to renew generations.
  - sgt101 9y ago
    I don't understand : we are in the middle of the biggest population explosion in the history of the world and at the back end of a century of government programs aimed at reducing childbearing...
    - grondilu 9y ago
      Most of the population explosion is behind us. Many developed countries have sub-replacement fertility, and it seems to be a trend followed by developing countries. "As of 2010, about 48% (3.3 billion people) of the world population lives in nations with sub-replacement fertility."[1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sub-replacement_fertility