Psychology Today Research To Child Custody Divorce Courts, Father's Rights Groups: Dads Are Equal

Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 2007-06-05 11:13

The Psychological Today story: The Making of a Modern Dad, by Douglas Carlton Abrams illustrates in vivid, scientific detail how fathers are no different in their biological programming than mothers when raising children. That divorced dads who "feel" a need to be with their children, is not only an emotional reaction but a biological one as well. Article here. Excerpt:

'This evidence hits hard at social workers, family court judges and elected legislators who abide by archaic research and outdated laws which state that it is in the best interest of the child to be with the divorced mother - not the divorced father.

"Here is the first hard evidence that men are biologically prepared for fatherhood," says Psychology Today. "In fact, this is the first evidence that to nurture is part of man's nature."'

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I always figured Psychology Today was a vacuous rag whose writers consisted of psychologists who couldn't find regular jobs, and assumed their opinions and research towed the line of the "feminist therapists" and other helping professionals (including manginas), who by nature take a female perspective on things (e.g. "get in touch with your feelings").

Maybe I was wrong.

-ax

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Submitted by axolotl on Wed, 2007-06-06 04:54

"Here is the first hard evidence that men are biologically prepared for fatherhood," says Psychology Today.

Really? The past 200,000 years of men fathering their children and helping to create the dominant species on the planet hasn't been a dead f*cking give-away?

Despite the positive effect this story will have, it sounds like they're just as misandric as always, ax. You just have to know which lines to read between. Still, it's nice that they chose to do something different (i.e. from the usual dump such folks generally take on men's heads every time they get near a microphone, witness stand or keyboard).

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Submitted by RandomMan on Wed, 2007-06-06 06:00

Nothing in the 'study' supports the underlying presumption in hormonal determinism. Perhaps these measurable changes are functional in that they help the father nurture/protect the mother, rather than the baby directly. It's not like a shot of prolactin is going to enable a guy to start nursing an infant.

And I'm somewhat skeptical that there's some bonding mechanism, as it's been pretty well established that human mothers are different from all other animal mothers, and primate mothers in particular, in that mothering behavior is not automatic, but is rather highly contingent on circumstances. For men this means similar behaviors should be dependent on paternity certainty, which wasn't mentioned in the article.

* MB

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Submitted by Martian Bachelor on Thu, 2007-06-07 16:25