Jun 15 2010

Men Bragging About Having More Kids

From the New York Times, here are some men bragging about having more kids:

“One of them said proudly, ‘I have three children,'” Dr. Fischer recalled. “The other one replied, ‘Well, I have four children.’
“Some men might talk about their Porsches,” she added. “These men were boasting about their number of children.”

These particular men are scientists. Apparently they behave very much like male Barbary macaques, primates who will bring a child to see another male when they need something, because babies have “the downy black fur and wrinkly pinkish face that adult male macaques find impossible to resist.” It doesn’t even matter if it’s their own baby.

Also of interest:

“Scientists have learned…that the male pipefish — which, like his seahorse relatives, famously becomes pregnant and gives birth to live young — is both more generous and more calculatedly harsh toward his offspring than previously believed, able to fine-tune the flow of nutrients to his gestating babies depending on how he feels about their mother.”

OK, pregnant guys? Yes. It is real. And feeding the kids based on how he feels about mom? I know a few guys like that.

Paternal Bonds, Special and Strange (New York Times)