What Fathers Do Best

June 17, 2005 Posted by Roger Overton

“What Fathers Do Best, Hint: Not the same things as Mothers” is an article in the most recent Weekly Standard by Steven E. Rhoads, author of Taking Sex Differences Seriously.

Dr. Rhoads notes the increasing influx of “Mr. Moms” into the national media’s eye. Men who do many of the things that women use to do (like cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc.) feel excluded and sometimes anger toward advertisers who play to the more traditional motherly roles. One example he offers is for peanut butter, “Choosy Moms Choose Jif.”

However, “In the real world, “ he says, “there are still 58 moms staying home with minor children for every dad who does so. This is not just an accidental social arrangement, to be overcome once the media have sufficiently raised our consciousness about the joys of stay-at-home fatherhood. Mothers are loaded with estrogen and oxytocin, which draw them to young children and help induce them to tend to infants. And babies themselves make it clear that they prefer their mothers. Even in families where fathers have taken a four-month-long paid parental leave to tend to their newborns, the fathers report that the babies prefer to be comforted by their mothers.”

Dr. Rhoads goes on to cite other differences between the effects of mothers and fathers on their children. This flies in the face of what many liberals believe; that there are no essential differences between men and women aside from sexual organs. The truth of the matter is that only fathers can provide certain things for their children and only mothers can provide certain other things.

I’ll borrow an example from Dr. Rhoads’ article. “Testosterone inhibits nurturing. In both men and women high levels of testosterone are associated with less interest in babies. Low levels of testosterone are associated with a stronger than average interest in nurturing.” Simple scientific evidence that women are better suited, and since I believe we were created this way- better designed, for nurturing than men. Sure, there may be some men who do nurturing (to some degree) just fine, but these are really exceptions to the general principle.

The distortion of the sexes is one way the devil has attempted to undermine God’s plans for His creation. In creating us male and female, God decreed that there would be differences among us. And not just for the sake of there being differences, but He did so purposefully. For more on this see Part I and Part II of my series on Feminism (if you wish to comment on them please comment here as I don’t check those).

When it comes to my hopes for starting a family, I don’t put much weight in becoming a parent. Maybe I’m being picking about words, but I think parents are generally overrated. Rather, I want to become a Godly father. What we really need are men who seek to become fathers to God’s glory and women who seek to be mothers to God’s glory.