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What did cavemen do?

by Duncan on September 20, 2010

Taken from an article I wrote for Families Thames Valley East magazine, September 2010 (p.31)

Hunting for meat could never bring in enough calories to survive on – foraging was always essential. Everyone helped get the food. Mothers have always worked.

Mothers have shared the care of children with others within their families. For most of human history, we have lived in extended families. Raising children takes a lot of effort and a long time – by sharing this around, human beings have thrived.

Mothers have mostly shared the care with other women in their families, but again and again in history these women have been in short supply and men have been pulled in. Sometimes men are deeply involved, sometimes not at all – it depends on what is needed of them. Men’s hormones are triggered by being close to pregnant women and babies, and the more their hormones are triggered, the more they react – they become sensitized. This is nature’s way of pulling men into the caring role when they are needed.

Children have adapted to this method of care. They thrive on being cared for by different people. They have the ability to make adults fall in love with them (very different from some of the closest species to humans where the instinct it to kill the children of others). Babies are extremely sensitive to which adult can give them the best care – anthropologists believe this is how humans developed the ability to read each others’ minds.

A mother staying at home in a a small family unit by herself to look after children is very unusual compared to the way we’ve been operating for over 200,000 years. If the time-line for the whole human race were 24 hours, the “mum at home/dad at work” model started about 30 seconds ago.

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We talk about “working mothers” but not “working fathers”. Since fathers do more paid work than mothers on average, it would seem logical to talk about working fathers.

Is it because we think that somehow a “working mother” is unusual or different from some norm? But we are mistaken. Working mothers are as normal as working fathers. Mothers have worked for the whole of human history and to do so, they have needed to share the care of children with others. This is one of the foundations of the success of the human race – mothers have been able to help collect food, and so human families could have more babies and more of them survived. It is only very recently in history that families have become so wealthy that some mothers have been able not to work.

The modern problem is, perhaps, that working mothers and fathers often have to work away from home and away from their children. In human historical terms this is, of course, a pretty unusual arrangement. It means that work tears at the emotional bonds between us and our children. I remember having to drop our little ones off at a nursery once a week – leaving them there was like walking through treacle.

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“Motherhood remains the barrier to gender equality”

July 2, 2010

Katrin Bennhold, correspondent for the International Herald Tribune in Paris, has written a fantastic piece, Women’s liberation lies in liberating men. It links the issue of gender equality with what happens between women and men at home. Motherhood still remains the barrier to gender equality…..The only thing that can level the playing field at work [...]

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Father nearly dies because of doing too much – at work and in the home

June 29, 2010

I spoke with two groups of expectant/new fathers at Accenture last week. There was a woman there who reported that her partner had continued working full-time after their first baby was born, while at the same time doing all the baby duties at home, including during the night. One day he fell asleep at the [...]

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To work or not to work: just a choice for mothers?

June 26, 2010

I keep coming across articles on-line that say things like: “Motherhood introduces many choices, one of which is to work outside the home or to be a stay-at-home mom.” But that’s not true – the only mothers who have this choice either have great inherited wealth, or have a high earning partner who is happy [...]

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Barack Obama speaks about fatherhood

June 22, 2010

“It is time for a new conversation around fatherhood in this country.” I feel I am watching history in the making – the most powerful man in the world talking about his own struggles as a father, speaking for all fathers. And he recognises our “days of worry and struggle” and our “scrimping and saving [...]

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Four things Government could do to promote shared parenting

June 21, 2010

Nick Clegg has confirmed that the Government intends to “encourage shared parenting from the earliest stage of pregnancy”. Here are four things the Government can do: change leave entitlements, challenge employers to be family friendly, change Government information channels to families, mainstream relationship support. 1. Create a level playing field for leave entitlements between mothers [...]

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New research from Scandinavia on dad’s influence on breastfeeding

June 2, 2010

A new study by Renee Flacking has found that babies are more likely to breastfeed when their dads take more paternity leave. This backs up other studies showing that more involvement by fathers is good for baby’s health.

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Dads who do more in the house less likely to get divorced

May 14, 2010

“Dads who don a pinny and muck in with the housework are less likely to get divorced than those who leave it to the missus.” That’s the story in the Mirror today, also in Times, Telegraph, Independent. This research at the London School of Economics confirms the same findings in USA and Scandinavia. The issue [...]

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The need for mothers and fathers to support each other

May 8, 2010

Tim Lott, author of The Scent of Dried Roses, has just written a brilliant article on depression in men in The Daily Mail, Men are suffering a depression epidemic too. Following a spate of articles about depression in women, he intelligently examines the varying pressures on men as fathers, partners and earners. The key point [...]

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