IRE3B: MOTHERS AND FATHERS

Berkeley Battle

Except for the birthing process and breast feeding, do you think that a mother's position as
a care giver of an infant or child is biologically different from that of a father? Why?
(Required length: at least 200 words.)
While I do think that a mothers position as a care giver of an infant and growing child is
different from the fathers position I would like to quote Temple Grandin and say that the
fathers role is different, not less. While Temple is of course referring to autism and her life
experiences with the disease, I like the phrase and find it be an exact description of how each
parents role is equally important in the life of their child. Nutritionally the mothers role is more
important for obvious reasons especially if she is capable of breast feeding. As the father does
not have mammary glands and cannot physically provide his growing infant with anything in the
way of food until the child switches to formula and other types of food, however, his support
emotionally, psychologically, and physically is instrumental in all things for the optimum health
of his child, if he is present. Fathers affect development from conception on (Berger, 2014, p.
68).
If I were to imagine this concept as a philosophy argument diagrammed it could be in the
simplest form or very complex with many sub arguments; both arguments would lead to the
same conclusion: fathers are differently responsible for the health and welfare of their children;
but not less so than the mother. Picture a triangle with mother and father at the bottom corners
holding up the infant on the top corner, or a diagram with the conclusion on top and the
arguments for the mother and father linked underneath that conclusion; not convergent as that
would mean that the conclusion would be the same with or without each supporting argument
(parent) underneath supporting. Now add as many sub arguments as you wish underneath each
the mother and fathers side; the outcome is the same: if you remove or weaken one of the
parents arguments in the diagram then the (baby) conclusion will metaphorically topple
meaning the baby will not be as supported (healthy) by having only one parent as a care giver.
There are many ways in which the father is right there by the mothers side equally, not less
importantly, helping the baby. A few examples in the infants life would be co- sleeping, postpartum depression and feeding. As a toddler and young child the father will be even more
important in the stages of learning especially when babbling and communication starts as B.F.
Skinners core ideas suggest: Parents are expert teachers, although other caregivers help
(Berger, 2014, p. 124). Obviously if an infant is co-sleeping than he is sleeping with both of his
parents and sleep is crucial to development as One consequence of brain maturation is the
ability to sleep through the nightWith responsive parents, full term newborns sleep more than
low-birth weight babies, who are hungry every two hours (Berger, 2014, p. 98). So naturally
with both parents present to respond to the babys needs and to provide physical comfort and
nourishment when the baby awakes; that baby will thrive.
A mother and father are the same in terms of what genes they have given to their baby and by the
nurturing component the mother and father both contribute to feeding, touching, holding,
stimulating all the little nerve impulse firings that are so very important for that tiny persons

development. For cognitive development both parents can contribute in the same ways giving
that child all the cues for growing up healthy that it could possibly have.

Reference List
Berger, K. S. (2014). Invitation to the life span (2nd Ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.