My Son is Making Me a Girlie Man

The latest scientific study to get big press is one from Northwestern University that demonstrates men undergo a large drop in their testosterone levels when they become fathers. Previous studies did not show if testosterone dropped when children arrived, or if men with lower testosterone were likely to have children. But now there is proof that becoming a father sucks the manliness right out of you. And the effect is even more pronounced if the father takes a significant role in child rearing, meaning that my cute little son is actually a diaper-soiling male hormone remover. (See! I publicly used the word 'cute'.)

Maybe I wouldn't be so distraught, but the researchers make testosterone sound pretty damned awesome:

While scientists still argue over testosterone's exact function, it's fairly clear it provides a boost to confidence, increases competitiveness, and orients men to achieve more in the social world, said Christopher W. Kuzawa, co-author of the study and a faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern.

Don't worry, though, because I can't imagine any downsides from being less confident, competitive and outgoing. Nope, everything should be just fine.

All joking aside, the article, and apparently the underlying research, do a terrible job of thinking through what this drop in testosterone might mean, instead going with the pat answer that having less of the quintessentially male hormone will make men more 'nurturing' and 'caring'. First, hormones (like most of the other inputs into our biological functioning) aren't simple dials. You don't turn the testosterone way down to make men take on traditional feminine roles. Second, it seems unlikely evolution would be geared to radically lower a 'confidence' hormone when a man is going to have to take on a big new challenge and provide for a growing family. So let me offer some more nuanced takes on why testosterone levels might drop in new fathers:

1) Fewer stupid risks: It seems apparent that young men are often primed to be daredevils, taking crazy chances with little thought to consequences. Maybe this originally evolved to give males the courage to charge into battle when provoked. At any rate, dialing down the big T might help a new father pause before he charges someone with a club, or goes out racing on his dirt bike.

2) Open a bonding window: Children are likely to get more paternal affection and protection through life if they form a connection early on, and a lowering level of testosterone level could bring down the desire to socialize enough to keep dad around more. Less time at the pub means more time with the new baby.

3) Aid to fidelity: Let's be honest: new baby time isn't sexy time. Maybe evolution or a merciful God brings down testosterone levels in new fathers so they don't go crazy during the time when their wives can't imagine using the bed for anything other than sleeping.

Whatever the full explanation, I've decided to forgive my son for any decline in testosterone he might be inflicting on me. And I've realized another benefit of this study: if we can make sure the male cast members of Jersey Shore hear about it, we can be pretty confident they'll never procreate.

Agony and Ecstacy

World, say hi to Graham. He's new. And it is entirely fair to say that he's occupied the vast majority of my thoughts for the last four days. But when I haven't been wondering what it means when he does that little shaky twitchy thing he does, or trying to figure out if he's objectively cute or whether I'm just believing everyone who tells me that because I'm over the moon for him, I have had a few moments to think about fatherhood and child rearing in this crazy world we live in.

The first thing I've noticed about having a new baby is that you are not allowed to have your own emotions about it. You are told by everyone from the doctor to your friends to the woman who cleans your hospital room that you are feeling as happy as you ever have in your life. Which is, at some level, true. But I have to admit the dominant feeling I had was one of awe. I am in awe that I could have had anything to do with making something as great as Graham. But I am even more in awe of the responsibility that has been bestowed upon me by society. How can anyone live up to the task of giving a new human being a chance to reach whatever potential he has, without smothering him in the effort?

That thought made me realize there were many times I was entirely too hard on my parents. There's no good answer to that question, so you're bound to offend your child either by not doing enough for him or by not giving him the independence he deserves. (Now, I'm still not willing to admit that I was wrong and my parents were right in any particular argument, but I can appreciate their motivations.)

I've also become profoundly aware that the world has acquired a greatly enhanced ability to cause me pain. Anything that happened to Graham would be completely devastating. In fact, I don't even want to write about this or think about it anymore: let's move on to the flip side. What's that? Simply that every achievement or triumph or happiness that Graham has going forward will provide me a deeper satisfaction than anything else I can imagine. Even the other day, when the lactation consultant noticed his fast-darting eyes and said, "Wow, he's really observant, you're going to have a smart one on your hands," I wanted to run a victory lap. I've been searching for an analogous feeling, and the only one I can think of is that sensation when you sit down to watch one of your sports teams at the start of a season, and follow them obsessively through a whole year until they win the championship. There is a feeling that you've been given happiness for free, that you've been swept up into something bigger than your own striving and seen it come to a perfect conclusion.

So that's what gets balanced in parenthood: the happiness of meeting your child with the overwhelming sense of responsibility going forward. The agony of fearing what could happen to them with the ecstacy of watching them grow and achieve. I feel pulled in both directions at each moment, and while it makes my stomach churn, I wouldn't have it any other way.

The Future of...Me

I have it damned good. I try to remind myself of that as often as possible, because I find it remarkably easy to slip into pessimism, or even outright cynicism. And since so many good, exciting, transformative things are happening right to me right now, I thought I could risk your indulgence in writing a more personal post than is normal. (I will strive to ensure it is less than completely irrelevant to people who aren't me.)

First, my wife and I are expecting our first child this summer. This has triggered an instant change in every parent we know from trumpeting the glory of child-rearing to cackling about the lack of sleep we'll be getting for the foreseeable future (estimates range from 6 months to 18 years of sleeplessness, depending on the parent, or perhaps on the child). I am hesitant to say anything back to people who have already run the gauntlet, but can I say in general that our society's attitude towards parenthood is completely screwed up, and is based on the notion that every moment of life should be the best it possibly can be? I don't look at my child as a moment-to-moment affirmation of my life choices and how great I am, but as an investment. I'm not particularly thrilled at the notion of a baby (it's exciting, but I know it'll have plenty of pain), but I'm increasingly ecstatic as I think about that child being 3, or 10, or 18, or 25. The point is that you're investing yourself in the future of humanity and, in particular, in expanding your family to include another member who will be loved, and love back. Sure, a baby loves in its basic way (and that way is damned hard to resist), but that love matures and grows and becomes more worthwhile with time, and THAT'S why I wanted to get married and have children, dammit! (Ok, rant over.)

The next (potential) big change is buying a house. Is it any surprise that the first change triggered the second? As many flaws as there are in the system of home purchasing as there are, I have to say that it's extraordinary that our society fosters the purchasing of property by new families, even as the country (or many parts of it) get more crowded. We still have this cultural commitment to family and individuality that I think is, for the most part, a very healthy and even critical thing. We still allow and encourage people to chart their own course, and making a decision to buy a bit of land and a house to call home is a big part of that, both practically and symbolically. I wonder if, between a rising population and increased governmental and social pressure to live a green lifestyle, if this institution can be preserved in the future.

With all this change, the most stable aspect of my life is work. But is that stability only an inch deep? I don't mean that I won't be working at Cline Davis & Mann in a year, but that the whole industry might be on the cusp of transforming in ways that will make my actual work very different than it is today. Right now healthcare marketing is all centered around personal one-on-one relationships between the physician and the sales rep. No one entirely likes this state of affairs, but it has persisted because reps do provide a needed service (quickly disseminating information about new drugs) and because the physician is a relatively small market not efficiently reached by mass mediums like television. (There are exceptions, but I'll leave that aside.) But both of the above assumptions no longer entirely true. Reps increasingly don't have time or access enough to share meaningful information, and there are other ways to effectively target small markets. Everyone in the pharma advertising industry, just like the consumer advertising industry, acknowledges that digital relationships are somehow going to supplant or and the very least supplement traditional communications. But no one knows how. My contention is that the 'creative' aspect of advertising will primarily provide inducement for an audience member to enter into, or deepen, a digital relationship. The business end of advertising will be making use of this relationship in a way that doesn't turn the audience off. It's going to be a delicate dance, and we're so far from figuring it out the way that rep brochures and journal ads are figured out that everyone who thinks about it gets intimidated.

So my future doesn't look to hold a lot of stability. But it does hold adventure, and excitement, and possibility. And I have a great wife and family as the base to build on. And so, onward!