Mars vs Venus (Parenthood)

Parenthood: "It's all about the baby"

Mom's brain

After giving birth female brain changes structurally and functionally. The hormons and physical contact with a child make a woman ready to do anything to protect their children.

The smell of a baby contains pheromones that stimulate female brain to produce oxytocin, the same hormon responsible for falling in love.

Giving birth and breast feeding very often decrease the sexual desire. This is normal as the contact with the baby's skin produces oxytocin and dopamin which makes her feel loved, connected and physically and emotionally satisfied.

Now, the female brain has been irreversibly changed and woman will find it difficult to go back to work. She needs to balance the care for the child and keeping up with the career, which many women find stressful and almost unmanageable. Are women not meant to work then? Even in prehistorical times, women were taking on two roles of both taking care of children and providing for food. But the key was the reliance on help from other women. Caring for a child doesn't have to be solely mother's responsibility as long as the person who is taking care of them does it with love and patience.

Regardless of what choices they make regarding their careers, new moms need a predictable environment to function well. This goes for the context of high and low resources (money, other people helping etc).

Dad's brain

Women are not the only ones with chemical reactions to a pregnancy and new born child. Some men get a Couvade syndrom, where they feel everything that their wife feels during the pregnancy (nausea, tiredness, gaining weight). The level of cortison increases just before the due date in order to increase their alertness and caution. The level of testosteron decreases which decreases their sex drive and makes them more caring.

Same as mom, dad builds the connection with the child through the physical touch. This helps him be synchronized and have a specific way of communicating with his child.

Research shows that the interaction between dad and baby is more frequent and different when mom is not around. When dad is alone with his child, he is more spontaneous. Maybe he feels that the mom dominates and is not so trusting. This is because since the prehistorical age women were trusting their children with other women. Therefore, moms should make a conscious effort not to criticize them and encourage their interactions with the baby.

Dad's way of interacting with children spurs the curiosity and their ability to learn. The game with boys is typically more physical, creative, and thus more visible and stimulative. The rough game with the father builds the boy's self-confidence and physical and verbal teasing is the way that fathers connect with them.

With their baby girls fathers build connection by listening to their wishes and being helpful (e.g. repairing a broken toy) and solving their problems.

Fathers also use a more direct and authoritative way of communicating with children. They think that their role is to teach their children the discipline. Therefore, they balance between being protective and authoritative but at the same time playful and mischievous.