There are lots of _theories_ about how it's advantageous to have long-term mates for raising children, especially when human babies are very "expensive" to raise compared to (say) kittens.
Imagine that there's a genetic disposition to go "Awwww, it's so cute! I wanna baby too!"
Imagine that you have it, but I don't.
I don't have any kids, because to me they're just little goblins. You think they're amazing and smell lovely, so you have three of them.
The end result is that the gene for wanting kids is passed onto the new generation, while the gene for not wanting kids vanishes into the mists of time, never to be seen again.
Obviously this is a vast oversimplification - but you can see the mechanism there, yes?
There's very unlikely to be one gene for it - and cultural things come into it a lot too.
Mind you, cultural stuff can work in the same way - if your culture believes that children are icky and should be avoided then you'll be outbred by neighbouring ones sharpish.
Anyway - I've read a bunch of stuff about child-rearing, etc. but not seen anything definitive. Not surprising at this point in our understanding of the human brain. Another 10-20 years I suspect for this kind of thing to be nailed down.
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There are lots of _theories_ about how it's advantageous to have long-term mates for raising children, especially when human babies are very "expensive" to raise compared to (say) kittens.
no subject
no subject
Imagine that there's a genetic disposition to go "Awwww, it's so cute! I wanna baby too!"
Imagine that you have it, but I don't.
I don't have any kids, because to me they're just little goblins. You think they're amazing and smell lovely, so you have three of them.
The end result is that the gene for wanting kids is passed onto the new generation, while the gene for not wanting kids vanishes into the mists of time, never to be seen again.
Obviously this is a vast oversimplification - but you can see the mechanism there, yes?
no subject
no subject
Mind you, cultural stuff can work in the same way - if your culture believes that children are icky and should be avoided then you'll be outbred by neighbouring ones sharpish.
Anyway - I've read a bunch of stuff about child-rearing, etc. but not seen anything definitive. Not surprising at this point in our understanding of the human brain. Another 10-20 years I suspect for this kind of thing to be nailed down.