For most of us a father or a dad is someone with a kind face and strong, open arms. So much of our history has seen fatherhood as the symbol of a wise benevolent provider and protector that we do not even realize how unusual it is for a male to play such a big role in raising a family.
Studies show that humans are among the only five percent of mammalian species in which males invest in the well-being of their offspring.
Brendon Billings, the Bone Detective at Maropeng – the official visitor site for the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage site, agrees that although we do see males playing a significant role in child rearing in certain animals, it is a rare phenomenon when it comes to mammals.
In his book “Family Relationships”, David C Leary points out that human fathers are in fact a scientific riddle.
“Men’s parenting is highly unusual when we consider that males in at least 95% of other mammalian species, including the two species most closely related to humans, that is, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and bonobos (Pan paniscus) do not participate in parenting.”
Further literature adds more surprises to the riddles around human fatherhood.
Anthropologists Kermyt Anderson and Peter Gray’s, book “Fatherhood: Evolution and Human Paternal Behavior” discussed the fact that human fatherhood actually alters a man’s biochemistry, rewires his brain and changes him emotionally and socially.
“There’s a slender but growing body of evidence about the ways in which fatherhood changes men biologically,” says Anderson.
“In the short term, the lack of sleep and exposure to every new germ on the playground worsens men’s health, but in the long term, fathers seem to live longer, healthier lives than non-fathers.
Also, while the hormonal and physical changes following childbirth are nowhere near as profound or extensive in men as in women, fatherhood does appear to alter men’s brains and change their hormonal profiles,” says Anderson.
“As a species, humans are paternally-oriented,” he adds. “When we look at our closest primate relatives, chimps and bonobos, we see that males do not interact with their kids at all.
“They don’t even know who their kids are! And yet every human culture is characterized by male involvement with their children.
“At some point in human evolution, men started to provision and actively provide care for their children. Some scholars say that’s the stage at which we stopped being apes and became human.”
Billings comments that this is a rather strong statement and that many scholars would disagree. However, it does beg the question as to just how and when the step was taken towards parenting in human males?
“In order to answer this question we first have to identify the need for males or fathers in the animal kingdom,” says Billings.
“Many theories have been postulated but I prefer to agree with Stephen Jay Gould, in that males are around to provide variation, genetically, phenotypically and behaviourally.
“These variations allow a species to survive the complex diversity that the environment forces upon it and males therefore have a significant contribution to ensure the survival of the species.”
Billings stresses that we also need to understand the evolution of parental caregiving.
“Protection is seen as the fundamental behaviour of paternal caregiving but I believe it’s more complex than this,” he says and highlights a theory on the evolution of parental caregiving from the level of reptile to mammal which was developed by David Bell.
Bell starts by defining stranger rejection behaviour; this is an animal’s ability to detect a stranger using olfaction (smell) which activates certain areas in the brain to respond by either killing or fleeing.
As we move higher up the phylogenetic tree towards mammals things start to change in the neurochemistry of the brain.
We therefore still have the stranger-rejection behaviour (primitive feature developed for protection), but we are also wired for the opposite behaviour, i.e. the bonding effect caused by the hormone oxytocin. This bond induces emotions and feelings of attachment and parental care.
“This change in the neurochemistry from mere stranger rejection to include bonding is what I believe to be responsible for both males and females being responsible caregivers according to human standards,” says Billings, careful to add that this is only one avenue of thought, specifically focused on neurochemistry.
“There are other factors affecting caregiving such as culture and also the development of vivaparity (live births), to mention a few.
“Humans are considered to require a lot more nurturing because of the slow development of our very large brains, hence the requirements in terms of parental care is of greater importance.
“I believe human males therefore have a greater interest and investment in caregiving in order to ensure the survival of their prodigy.”
Scientific riddle or not, fathers we can see, be they provider dads, stay-at-home dads, divorced dads, stepdads, have all contributed to our survival, our protection and our care.
