Tag Archives: Parenthood

News

Scientists discover how fathers improve brain development of children

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Story from the Wall Street Journal. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

Dr. Braun’s group found that at 21 days, the fatherless animals had less dense dendritic spines compared to animals raised by both parents, though they “caught up” by day 90. However, the length of some types of dendrites was significantly shorter in some parts of the brain, even in adulthood, in fatherless animals.

“It just shows that parents are leaving footprints on the brain of their kids,” says Dr. Braun, 54 years old.

The neuronal differences were observed in a part of the brain called the amygdala, which is related to emotional responses and fear, and the orbitofrontal cortex, or OFC, the brain’s decision-making center.

[…]The balance between these two brain parts is critical to normal emotional and cognitive functioning, according to Dr. Braun. If the OFC isn’t active, the amygdala “goes crazy, like a horse without a rider,” she says. In the case of the fatherless pups, there were fewer dendritic spines in the OFC, while the dendrite trees in the amygdala grew more and longer branches.

A preliminary analysis of the degus’ behavior showed that fatherless animals seemed to have a lack of impulse control, Dr. Braun says. And, when they played with siblings, they engaged in more play-fighting or aggressive behavior.

In a separate study in Dr. Braun’s lab conducted by post-doctoral researcher Joerg Bock, degu pups were removed from their caregivers for one hour a day. Just this small amount of stress leads the pups to exhibit more hyperactive behaviors and less focused attention, compared to those who aren’t separated, Dr. Braun says. They also exhibit changes in their brain.

The basic wiring between the brain regions in the degus is the same as in humans, and the nerve cells are identical in their function. “So on that level we can assume that what happens in the animal’s brain when it’s raised in an impoverished environment … should be very similar to what happens in our children’s brain,” Dr. Braun says.

Read the whole thing.

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News

Less than half of 7 to 21 year old women think marriage precedes child-bearing

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The UK Telegraph reports on a survey of 1,109 British females. (H/T Andrew)

As I reported earlier, women today really do prefer big government to husbands!

Excerpt:

A ground-breaking series of studies, published next month, show liberal attitudes towards the make-up of the family, religion and cultural integration among the modern generation of girls and young women.

The survey, which questioned a representative sample of 1,109 seven to 21 year-olds across the UK, found that a third of girls in the younger age group thought they would be “grown up” by the age of 15, while 90 per cent of 16 to 21-year-olds regarded themselves as “grown up”.

Girls were generally positive about marriage but less than half thought it should come before parenthood. One in four thought it was “OK to get married several times”, rising to a third in the 16 to 21 age range.

One finding suggested that some teenagers actively plan to become single mothers. Of the girls questioned who had left schools and were unemployed, almost half (45 per cent) expected to have a baby before they were 21.

Try to keep in mind that what is best for children is a stable union of two opposite-sex, biologically-related parents that lasts from conception until they are grown up. What young women in the UK are saying is that the needs of their future children, or of society as a whole, don’t matter. Society as a whole will have to pay the social costs of out-of-wedlock children through higher taxes. I would guess that most of these women are fatherless themselves. What a tragedy!

Meanwhile, the results of the feminist plan of for anti-abstinence sex education are in: 1 in 4 teenage girls has an STD. This is another reason why I think my decisions to remain chaste and not to marry are warranted. It’s a different world tpday. My values are not the values of today’s young unmarried women. My goals are not the goals of today’s young unmarried women. And feminists are running the show now with huge amounts of taxpayer money, including a bunch from me that I needed to fund my marriage. Even if the right girl came along, how could we escape the high taxes needed to support the welfare state? Someone has to pay for all these broken homes.

Commentary

How much profit does the non-profit Planned Parenthood make?

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This article from the American Spectator provides the answer.

Excerpt:

Left-wing activists are indignant at obscene oil company profits, hefty CEO bonuses, and sweet golden parachutes — but what about expansion of the No. 1 violator of human rights in the United States?

No, it’s not Dick Cheney and the CIA. It’s Planned Parenthood. The abortion giant took home $85 million in “excess of revenue over expenses” (a nifty way of saying profits) and had an operating budget of over $1 billion for the 2007-2008 fiscal year, according to its latest annual report. Included in that budget was $350 million in “government grants and contracts” (an equally nifty way of saying your tax dollars). An increase in the number of abortions performed helped fuel the profits.

Should government money be going to special interest groups that helped Obama to get elected?

Uncle Sam helps, too. The federal government has morphed into Planned Parenthood’s sugar daddy, and the co-dependency is only going to get worse in the age of Obama. Fully one-third of the organization’s revenue last year came from the government, compared with less than one-fourth from private contributions. If Planned Parenthood can’t get your money voluntarily, its advocates in Congress will coercively.

That’s why limited government advocates have a stake in the pro-life cause. On April 15, over one million Americans flocked to state capitals, public parks, and town halls to protest runaway government spending — and rightly so. Although most of the movement’s furor was directed at bailouts and stimulus packages, government’s love tryst with the abortion lobby should be exhibit A in the tea partiers’ future arsenal.

The first target should be Obama’s executive order rescinding the Mexico City Policy, which had ensured that American taxpayer funds would never be used for overseas abortions. The move didn’t get much ink because of the media’s preoccupation with the economic crisis, but it stands as an example of both Obama’s abortion radicalism and intention, even in a troubled economy, to throw public money at groups that helped him get elected.

Yet another reason why fiscal conservatives should be social conservatives.

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