still quaint, but annoying

[walkitout]

In Bumgarner's _Mothering Your Nursing Toddler_: "Mothers have physical changes and hormonal shifts to trigger nurturing behavior, but fathers do not." No footnote to go with it. There have been numerous attempts to prove part (a) and success has been mixed to none. Unless you count mice mothers, but I'm pretty sure Bumgarner is sticking to humans here. To the extent there has been success at demonstrating (a), it has also been found in (b). Irritating.

Not precisely the same, but related: couvade has been found in other primates, and the weight gain is not all fat -- some of it is muscle.

Comments

NOT quaint

[walkitout]

Okay, Bumgarner has offended me. Further down on the same page (195): "--almost too far out to mention -- is Dana Raphael's reference to 'reports of lactation induced by sucking stimulation in adult men'." That is footnoted to a 1976 book; I have many more recent books with stories of same, and to a limited degree, I advocate the practice. Does Bumgarner? No. In fact: "I have absolutely no desire to promote" the practice. And why? Because she believes: "I am sure most fathers would agree that children are best cared for by two different parents" -- and she doesn't mean two different individuals, no, she subscribes to "what Dr. Sears calls 'the milk mother and the hair mother'".

Grrrrrrrrrr.

The ... hair mother?

[byrdie.livejournal.com]

What the hell is a "hair mother" and what does it have to do with breastfeeding?

Re: The ... hair mother?

[walkitout]

Typo. "the hairy mother", aka, dad, who nurtures (therefore is a mother -- did I mention the evil gender ideology), but is hairy, as opposed to hair-less.

Oh, wait, that makes them all racist, too, since it's basically really only white men who have a lot of body hair.

Racist, and evil gender ideology. And heterocentric. Okay, NOT quaint.