Becoming a dad changes men's brains

mmomentmaker about 3 hours ago 59 commentsRead Article on scientificamerican.com

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fcatalan•about 1 hour ago

Exaggerating a bit, I felt like my old self was dead and I just happened to somehow have inherited his memories.

But a more concrete thing: While before I might have been saddened about bad things happening to kids, like any normal person would, after having kids myself I experience an stronger reaction:

I get almost physically ill when I hear about kids getting harmed.

bombcar•about 1 hour ago

I was surprised how sudden the change was - I didn't become a dad to my kid, I became a dad to all kids within sight or sound. Sure, most of the time I don't have to do anything, but I certainly notice much more now.

whateverboat•about 1 hour ago

I already feel like this and I don't have kids or want kids.

bogrollben•about 1 hour ago

This. Also, the feelings have become stronger as I age.

throwaw12•about 1 hour ago

> I get almost physically ill when I hear about kids getting harmed.

This is how Israel's war radicalized me, I stopped watching videos, but they made me depressed, burned out, angry, because everytime I watched videos, my brain started asking "what would I do if this happened to my kids, would I join Hamas? probably yes"

I got burned out from these thoughts

throw37842358•44 minutes ago

Kids dying makes you so sad that you would join Hamas so that you can… kill other kids?

throwaw12•41 minutes ago

I know what you are trying to do here with a new account (probably part of IDF unit for spam). Also checked your other comments, its solely about defending Israel and attacking Palestinians

trizoza•about 1 hour ago

Same here, I can't even read articles on BBC about child abusers, it makes me nauseous just to skim over a title.

walthamstow•about 1 hour ago

I was saddened by just the headline and photo of the one last week.

The BBC and UK news readers in general absolutely love stories about child abusers, so they get prominent placing (and even a live blog on the sentencing last week)

pixel_popping•about 1 hour ago

Since I have a daughter, those "thoughts" are straight violence to the next level in my head when I hear or even see children being mistreated, I'm normally not favorable for any form of violence but strangely, some crimes suddenly gets a pass and progressive decapitation becomes reasonable.

korse•about 1 hour ago

>Exaggerating a bit, I felt like my old self was dead and I just happened to somehow have inherited his memories.

I had a small mental breakdown anticipating that this was going to happen while my wife was pregnant with our first. It didn't. I ended up replacing the part of my life that was video escapism with kids and kept everything else the same. Three kids in, things are going great.

>I get almost physically ill when I hear about kids getting harmed.

Replace ill with enraged and I have had the same experience. The strong emotions were a bit of a surprise.

bestouff•22 minutes ago

That's how privacy-harming policies are so successful: "but think of the children !"

tayo42•about 1 hour ago

I don't think it's exagaration.unless you had kids young, before you had established yourself and some kind of identity, it does all go away. Who you were and your hopes and dreams all die after your newborn arrives. Your just a parent now trying to fit a life into 1 or 2 hours of free time.

mcbishop•about 1 hour ago

As a dad, I have a strong compulsion to tell (bad) dad jokes. Ideally puns. All the time. I didn't used to be this way.

fcatalan•about 1 hour ago

Are your kids teenagers already? Telling them in front of their friends is 10x better.

mghackerlady•about 1 hour ago

As a daughter, I approve. Hell, I'm the one telling them to my dad most of the time

danesparza•about 1 hour ago

Literally laughing out loud to this.

I can relate.

disgruntledphd2•about 1 hour ago

I have always had this desire, and now I have social validation that it's part of my role ;)

patates•about 2 hours ago

Becoming a dad made me a sensitive snowflake crybaby :)

There were a lot of days on which I cried more than the baby. Diagnosed with anxiety disorder, but then they said it comes with ADHD and probably has little to do with the baby.

> As many as one in 10 men will experience paternal postnatal depression or anxiety. The symptoms often look different in dads—anger or sudden outbursts

Oh well.

greenflag•about 2 hours ago

Becoming a dad simultaneously made me more empathetic (seeing a little person from the beginning for all they are) but also more impatient (fewer hours in the day), but beyond that not much. Given the notoriety about some of the techniques referenced in this article [0] curious if others notice anything more consistent.

0: https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/140/8/e53/4032512

doubled112•about 2 hours ago

Empathy, I’m not sure, but I can confirm the lack of patience.

I had less time, less energy, and my tolerance for BS plummeted accordingly.

mrweasel•about 2 hours ago

The lack of tolerance towards BS and people being difficult in general has gone out the window for sure. In the morning, sure, you get a lot of slack, but when the kindergarten closes at 16:30 and it's now 15:30, I don't have time for people being difficult. We solve the problem, we have 30 minutes, if you're being difficult I'll ignore you. You can complain tomorrow.

JoeBOFH•about 2 hours ago

I can add to the personal experience piece. I am way more emphatic, to the point I apparently now tear up on certain movies/shows. Also yeah way more impatient and honestly more selfish now due to lack of personal time.

hoyd•about 1 hour ago

Songs too.

hoyd•about 1 hour ago

With four kids, I think I have grown more patient with people in general. Also one who got more sentimental.

andrew_lettuce•about 1 hour ago

The youngest of my three is now 14. When it's come to managing developers raising kids is a superpower

pavel_lishin•about 1 hour ago

After my child was born, I could no longer even look at newspaper headlines where something bad happened to a child.

Now, I can read the headlines, but I still can't read the articles.

derwiki•about 2 hours ago

Do any of these studies account for new parent sleep deprivation?

spiderfarmer•about 2 hours ago

I slept way less and more fragmented when I was a student.

typeofhuman•11 minutes ago

That is almost too hard to believe. Sleep less? Ok. More fragmented? Doubtful, unless your baby slept more than 4hrs straight in their infancy.

b3lvedere•about 2 hours ago

The first born defenitely changed me somehow. As if some evolution gene was suddenly ordering me "You will protect this with everything in your power!" The second born, not so much. Perhaps the brain was already settled in the right configuration :)

MomsAVoxell•about 1 hour ago

For me, my first born taught me that love is infinite, no matter how much I loved my wife, that little creature was getting all my love as well, somehow as if there were some parallel source of infinite love for the two of them.

Our second born, taught me that exact same lesson, again - that no matter what, there will always be three human beings in my life for which my love is infinite, and that I would step in front of a bullet for any one of them.

Whereas before it all went down, I was pretty much all alone, now I know for sure there are 3 other human beings I will want to say goodbye to, properly, some day.

fullstop•about 1 hour ago

With the first kid you sterilize everything. After that I guess you learn how much dirt they put in their mouths and don't bother.

andrew_lettuce•about 1 hour ago

I have 3 kids. When they started on solids: #1 got fancy home made baby food, like cheesy chicken broccoli frozen into ice cube chunks. #2 got steamed yams and crackers. #3 got whatever we were eating, ripped into baby-sized chunks. All are fine.

pixel_popping•about 1 hour ago

Kuddos on the big family, such an accomplishment. I must note, the first strategy is better for their brain tho, actually, I dislike reasoning around the education (I count feeding in it as it's extremely important to develop the brain) about what's fine and not what's best, because it's a slippery slope where you feel that small actions don't have such an importance, but after all it's the compounding of small (and better) actions that matter the most to improve intelligence and other aspects of a future adult. It's like sending your kids to a public school, sure, it's "fine", but let's not say it's optimal and it does have an impact in the end.

I have a 2-year old daughter so I can relate in part, she just joined a pre-school now (breaks my heart to drop her) and same as your #1 - top notch nutrition, supps, probitiocs and so-on (deeply studied & argued) and chef level taste, never had once something in her mouth that isn't vouched :p

Chose breastfeeding entirely for the first 6 months (better for their brain as per my knowledge), then introduced solids progressively, I'm super grateful to be in the AI era at the same moment I've had my daughter because it allows me to study extensively everything regarding children.

readthenotes1•about 1 hour ago

It's likely that your number 3 child is both the smartest and best looking. Not sure what that has to do with diet but it can't be a coincidence

fullstop•about 1 hour ago

I have two, both adults now. The first one, if she woke up early and I was still asleep, would politely come over and say that she was hungry.

The second one, though, she was a scavenger. I woke up to her crunching on something. She was eating pistachios -- shell and all!

WarmWash•about 1 hour ago

Fascinating how things that are most relevant to continuing your species are the things with the hardest coded behaviors.

coderatlarge•about 1 hour ago

and yet: paternal filial cannibalism

jurgenburgen•42 minutes ago

Don’t do that

ndr•about 1 hour ago

https://archive.ph/UwObv

bogrollben•about 1 hour ago

I have 3 teenagers and this claim seems plainly obvious to me.

morkalork•about 1 hour ago

Becoming a new parent I knew I'd sleep less and be tired all the time but what I didn't know was simultaneously how much energy I'd have to keep going. It's almost like low grade, months long adrenalin rush. Very strange.

naikrovek•about 1 hour ago

the only thing that I noticed that changed in me was my sudden understanding of what "fear" really is.

I had not experienced fear prior to becoming a father. The thought of one of my children being ... i'm not even going to say anything more. Use your imagination. That kind of thing scares me so much more than it did before I was a father.

pavel_lishin•about 1 hour ago

One of our tech leads at work tried to do a team building exercise where we'd go around the table and name our greatest fear.

I was very glad to have been late to that particular meeting. It would have been pretty awkward for everyone if I'd started crying at the table.

ChrisArchitect•44 minutes ago

Previously related:

Dad brains: How fatherhood rewires the male mind

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47820046

Aperocky•about 1 hour ago

Read the whole article expecting it to explain how it would have changed, was disappointed to not read that.

close04•about 2 hours ago

A previous discussion on this topic which doesn't require a subscription to read: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47820046

JumpinJack_Cash•about 1 hour ago

Women and babies are the first culprits of the collapse of guys packs , meaning groups of 4-5 guys that used to hangout together , attack the world together and seemed inseparable .

Men need that type of environment if they want to stay sharp phisically and mentally.

Once a pack ends, it is important to form a new one as soon as possible, hopefully with guys who regularly use prostitutes and escorts so they are not likely to fall next.

otikik•about 1 hour ago

I had nightmares about bad things happening to me before. Like, getting ran over by a car, or falling off a cliff.

When my wife got pregnant, it stopped. I started having nightmares about bad things happening to my son instead.

Fun.

michaelsbradley•about 1 hour ago

About 2-3 months after the birth of my first child, I started “seeing” the baby’s face vividly whenever I would close my eyes, when I was falling asleep but other times during the day as well. It was not a conscious-voluntary imagination, more like an artifact of my brain rewiring priority numero uno. Our second child is now 3 months old and I have not experienced similar, perhaps because the brain changes already settled down before his birth.

parpfish•about 1 hour ago

learning or doing anything "changes your brain". that's how learning works.

i hate this phrase and how it's generally used for scare-mongering headlines.

danesparza•about 1 hour ago

First, this is true - learning or doing anything does change your brain. This article isn't talking about just that.

I personally don't think it's meant to scare-monger, either - although I'm sure opinions may differ on the subject.

What is unique about being a dad is having a living breathing creature depend on you. There are hormones exchanged. AND you're learning and doing something. AND you're remembering (and having to deal with) your own childhood memories. And realizing that in your memories, you were the kid ... now you're the adult. It's different.

fcatalan•about 1 hour ago

This is not mere learning, must have some kind of pre-wired special mechanism because it's very quick and very strong.

dofm•about 1 hour ago

Iliza Shlesinger has a great bit about how men discover that "woman is person too" when they have a baby daughter.

Best not go overboard on this whole thing about fathers and increased empathy. Elon Musk has a father, after all. So did Donald Trump.

The Roblox CEO has children. Magical universal father empathy is clearly not working out there, or he would shut down his business and give any remaining money to charities.

karunamurti•about 2 hours ago

No wonder Magnus lost 4 times in a row.