4 ms·

I have wondered if drive for mothering is powered by built-in gene programming. If that was the case, I'd say there was possibly a mutation in this case.

toasterlovin 8y ago
There are probably multiple reproductive strategies out there in the population at large. Heck, we each probably have multiple strategies encoded in our genes that get activated depending on what kind of opportunities and obstacles we find in our environments. Interestingly, this particular lady supposedly had another 3 children after selling her first 5. If her behavior was a result of genetics, those genes were pretty successful.
- wahern 8y ago
  Successful enough to maintain some base rate in the population, but not more successful than more typical, nurturing strategies.
  - toasterlovin 8y ago
    To be pedantic, the success of this strategy is probably frequency dependent (which is common, see the classic hawks vs. doves game theory literature). That is, it is more successful the rarer it is, but less successful the more common it becomes (because the people buying your children are more likely to be callous and treat them as slaves, rather than as adopted children), eventually settling on some stable ratio in the population.
mruts 8y ago
Mothering is about propogation of 50% of your genes. Your interests aren’t fully aligned. In many situations, it makes sense to kill or get rid of children, in order to improve the chances of future offspring. Moreover, if the child is a girl, their reproductive skew is very low: it’s highly unlikely she will produce more than 15 offspring in her entire life. So it might make sense to sell your girls, and keep your boys. Why, you might ask? Because in an ideal world, each boy could potentially have thousands of children. This, of course, is unlikely but we can look at history to just see how reproductively successful a man can be. Genghis Khan in all likelyhood had thousands of children.
- sytelus 8y ago
  You are missing the point here, may be. Man could not be reproductively successful without women. If a boy has thousands of children, there needs to be corresponding women who can carry them.
  - ddalex 8y ago
    You assume a uniform distribution of children per dad.
  - mruts 8y ago
    Of course you need one mother per dad. But I’m talking about the skew of the probability density function of the distribution. If I’m a sucessful man I can get more than my “fair share” of reproductive access.
- kaybe 8y ago
  I can't find the numbers right now, but if the child is a girl the probability of her having children at all are substantially higher than for a boy. (Of course, the boy can have more, but historically many didn't have any.)
  - mruts 8y ago
    Which is why it makes sense to spend more resources on boys than girls. Girls are less sensitive to resources in regards to reproduction. For every extra calorie given to a boy vs a girl, the amount that it will increase the number of offspring he/she will have is more for the boy. Of course, like you were saying, many more men than women will not be able to reproduce at all. This why we have 50/50 sex ratios. The girls mitigate or hedge the risk from boys.
lelima 8y ago
There are several birds and monkeys that try to give their children/eggs away.The bird places their eggs in another nest and then are feed by the host of that nest. I think that is an evolutionary advantage, the genes survive and the fathers have more time to feed themselves and have more eggs. As humans we kind of do a similar thing, kindergartens, schools(other people that we don't know) rise our children and spend more time with them than us as parents. As many times and many people in HN, I'll recommend this book: The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

toasterlovin 8y ago

There are probably multiple reproductive strategies out there in the population at large. Heck, we each probably have multiple strategies encoded in our genes that get activated depending on what kind of opportunities and obstacles we find in our environments. Interestingly, this particular lady supposedly had another 3 children after selling her first 5. If her behavior was a result of genetics, those genes were pretty successful.

wahern 8y ago
Successful enough to maintain some base rate in the population, but not more successful than more typical, nurturing strategies.
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  To be pedantic, the success of this strategy is probably frequency dependent (which is common, see the classic hawks vs. doves game theory literature). That is, it is more successful the rarer it is, but less successful the more common it becomes (because the people buying your children are more likely to be callous and treat them as slaves, rather than as adopted children), eventually settling on some stable ratio in the population.

mruts 8y ago

Mothering is about propogation of 50% of your genes. Your interests aren’t fully aligned. In many situations, it makes sense to kill or get rid of children, in order to improve the chances of future offspring. Moreover, if the child is a girl, their reproductive skew is very low: it’s highly unlikely she will produce more than 15 offspring in her entire life. So it might make sense to sell your girls, and keep your boys. Why, you might ask? Because in an ideal world, each boy could potentially have thousands of children. This, of course, is unlikely but we can look at history to just see how reproductively successful a man can be. Genghis Khan in all likelyhood had thousands of children.

sytelus 8y ago
You are missing the point here, may be. Man could not be reproductively successful without women. If a boy has thousands of children, there needs to be corresponding women who can carry them.
- ddalex 8y ago
  You assume a uniform distribution of children per dad.
- mruts 8y ago
  Of course you need one mother per dad. But I’m talking about the skew of the probability density function of the distribution. If I’m a sucessful man I can get more than my “fair share” of reproductive access.
kaybe 8y ago
I can't find the numbers right now, but if the child is a girl the probability of her having children at all are substantially higher than for a boy. (Of course, the boy can have more, but historically many didn't have any.)
- mruts 8y ago
  Which is why it makes sense to spend more resources on boys than girls. Girls are less sensitive to resources in regards to reproduction. For every extra calorie given to a boy vs a girl, the amount that it will increase the number of offspring he/she will have is more for the boy. Of course, like you were saying, many more men than women will not be able to reproduce at all. This why we have 50/50 sex ratios. The girls mitigate or hedge the risk from boys.

lelima 8y ago

There are several birds and monkeys that try to give their children/eggs away.The bird places their eggs in another nest and then are feed by the host of that nest. I think that is an evolutionary advantage, the genes survive and the fathers have more time to feed themselves and have more eggs. As humans we kind of do a similar thing, kindergartens, schools(other people that we don't know) rise our children and spend more time with them than us as parents. As many times and many people in HN, I'll recommend this book: The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins