Why Do Mothers Care More About Their Children Than Fathers?

What it sounds like your saying is that money is the only thing that matters in caring for children. But most kids, when asked, would rather have their parents time than their money, especially when they are younger. There's no discussion here of bonding, or being there for or being with children. I'm not saying that women should or shouldn't work outside the home, but pointing out that money isn't the only, or even necessarily the most important, factor in child-rearing.

I didn't see anything in the article that mentioned families in poverty. If a family is in poverty, then whether or not a mom works has nothing to do with being biologically wired or socialized to care more. If they need the money, they need the money.

Deciding whether or not to work based on biology vs. sociology is a decision only people with options get to make. People in poverty don't have those kinds of options.

And for families in poverty, there is a strong possibility that the mom doesn't have enough earning power to afford daycare and have enough left over to contribute substantially to the household income. If she did, they likely wouldn't be in poverty. Very few families will choose poverty when other viable options, (such as mom being able to earn a livable income) are available.

Having been both a married, stay-at-home mom and a single, full-time working mom, and earning just enough to make ends meet in both situations, I do understand how family finances work, how it affects power in a relationship and how it affects children.

I'm kind of wary of the statement: "It follows that if maternal altruism is biological, freeing women to enter into the workforce should improve child welfare because maternal caring is not reduced and household resources allocated to children increases."

First, is the increase linear, exponential, or logarithmic?
Secondly, do household resources allocated to children increase indefinitely? Because I suspect there are going to be diminishing returns in the long run.

This also depends on how you define: "resource." For example, I consider money to be a resource; but, as with Kim, I also consider time, and love to be resources too. A mother from a family with low income may work to earn more money to increase the overall amount of resources available to their children. Beyond a certain income level; however, and the amount of resources available to children begin to diminish. Those who earn more tend to work longer hours or perform more labour-intensive work. That will consume time and energy that would otherwise be allocated to children and the rest of the family.

Also, I think breaking down parental roles into either being biologically imposed and socially imposed is a false dichotomy. Why can't it be both? If women should work outside the home if parental roles are biologically predetermined, and if women should stay at home if parental roles are socially imposed, then what should happen if it's actually both?

Why is there even a doubt about that? Even dads will admit that mothers ( working or not) are by biology, made to be the parent most close to the young child. The educated, modern dad is not far behind. But that's only in the richer section of society.
A mom working outside home, may do so out of two reasons: 1. she has no choice in which case this article is pointless. 2. she chooses to. If she does so, then she must really love her job, if that's so, she is happier person when working and will translate to a happier mother. Beyond the very young years ( and those years are crucial and I believe the woman with choice must stay home during that phase), children will do better with a happy-not-at-home mom than a unhappy-stay-home mom.
Bottomline: A woman is biologically pre-wired, but she can also through education, get herself to a position to choose what's best for her family.

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Your next article should be why men are better than women at driving because that no more sexist than Why Do Mothers Care More About Their Children Than Fathers... And I didn't know you could quantify care... point being there are just as many F!@#ed up mothers out there as there are F!@#ed up Fathers.

I'm sorry to say this but, women are not biologically prewird. fathers can do the same things as mothers do. It just that mothers will go ape s*&% crazy if they don't get praised for doing work that their obligated to do anyway. Most women are Boarder Line Crazy and should stop using information like this to discredit fatherhood. Women have treated men like homer simpson since the dawn of age. I see why men don't want to be fathers. but over all great article. #MGTOW

Do they pay you to write this rubbish?

Thanks for the absolute lack of empirical data or scientific references, hack.

Reinforces the idea of psychology as pseudo-science.

So I suppose it doesn't matter that the person directly providing childcare cares about the child? Let's farm that out to underpaid workers and send the mother to the office, whether she likes it or not!

I've got a better idea: pay women for childcare. Stop using mothers as unpaid labor simply because they care enough to let themselves be exploited.

Women need to be responsible about paying their share, just like men, and men need to be responsible about their share of housework and childcare. Plain and simple, nothing should be based on gender. When women keep having children, they are shirking their responsibllity to earn their share.

There are some men who are great fathers, who would do anything for their children, and who are very diligent in providing for all their needs. They seem to have a strong bond with their child. Until the divorce. Then they ghost on their kids from a previous marriage. It's like they focus in on their new female interest, put everything into starting another family with her, even up to giving all to her kids from a previous marriage, while they just wish their own "old kids" would just go away. Intuitively, one would think it would be an evolutionary benefit to love and nurture the carriers of your own genes and do what it takes to bring them to successful adulthood, so they could reproduce in turn. But bio fathers just walk away from their own flesh and blood, and deny, deny, deny they are the fathers of their own children. Abandonment and "spreading one's seed" might be a useful reproductive strategy if humans were like fruit flies. But human children are expensive. It takes 9 months to gestate, and 20 years to raise a human child. They need lots of resources for that whole time. Where are the studies on that seeming non sequitur?

"note that it has been consistently shown that money given to mothers is far more likely to be spent in a way that benefits their children than is money given to fathers."

Especially the "consistently" shown. And i hope your sources compare mothers with children vs fathers with children. with similar levels of needs. Because mothers are generally poorer and more dependent on handouts, more of what they spend their handouts on will likely be for food and shelter, than a father who isnt on his a$s expecting a handout.

I am with William, I would love to see this "Source that empirically shows that mothers consistently spend more money on their children than Fathers". This doesn't match up with my "anecdotal" experience nor the "anecdotal" experience of nearly half a million followers of The Fathers Rights Movement. I would love the opportunity to review your source data for this biased opinion piece and offer an official rebuttal from the Vice President of Operations for the Fathers' Rights Movement. Dustin Long VP of Operations TFRM

Here is the fundamental flaw, even assuming some of the rest of the assumptions were correct, which I'll get to later. The statement "maternal caring is not reduced" bears need for some further explanation here. Is the author saying "mothers continue to care about their children irrespective of whether they work or not?"; I personally believe this to be the case - but I think this statement came with the implication that "maternal caring [that is available and received by her children] is not reduced."

If a mother were living in a remote country, never able to see or communicate with her child, would it make a difference to the child's wellbeing what the mother, far removed and distant, thought in her heart (good or bad)? Possibly no, because the child would be largely unaware of this. Reducing this extreme to, if a mother were working 60 hours a week, and a child had waking exposure to the mother of only an hour a day - would it then deeply affect the child what the mother subjectively intended? I think it would be hard to argue that whomever is with the child the remaining 11 wakeful hours would not have greater influence, and impact how loved the child felt more than the mother in this case.

If one considers that to have a meaningful impact a person must invest time in their children, it logically follows to greatly scrutinize who is spending time with the children. Should it be the mother? The father? A family member? A stranger?

And that brings us to the other points of the article. In most families I know, women are indirectly in charge of the budget. So it is a natural conclusion that they are spending the money their husbands give them, whether or not they also work, to the "needs" of the family, which in a healthy family, are also largely the needs of the kids. Since the women are usually in charge of child's spending, it is quite possible that men are left to spend discretionary income without thinking of the children because their wives have already assumed meaningful responsibility in that area - and if they stay home with their kids, they are best equipped to understand their children's needs, so it would really be something if a man in this situation elected to determine expenditures given the reduced exposure to the day to day needs of the children.

But I feel the article has a subtle twist to it too, in making the assumption that because men spend less on children directly, they somehow care less. It is the usual pitting men against women - making men sound as though they are inherently a detriment to their families and their children and selfish, and encouraging women to seek control at all ends.

The issue with women seeking control, financial or otherwise, is that it encourages them to work against their spouses - which is not a war that will have no winners, but clear losers: their children. The more women and men are pitted against each other, the less love available for children. The more random strangers, who view children as a job - and let's face it - who cares about a job as much as their own kids? - will be left to babysit and fill a void that simply can't be filled - at least for young children.

I don't know honestly who benefits if children do not receive solid parental love from two invested parents. Babysitters perhaps? People looking to sell therapy to them down the line? People with malevolent intent? Perhaps articles like this are published through sheer ignorance and hubris but, the effect is the same - a varying level of child abuse.

And no amount of spending will entirely reverse that.

Here's an uncomfortable question indeed: do we care about children at all in today's society, or only about how we feel subjectively?

There should not be roles based on gender with exception of females having to be pregnant and give birth. These should be treated as medical conditions just like anyone taking off work for any treatments, physical therapy, etc should be treated same and once patient gets medical permission, back to work. I know many women don't want to hear this but it's true. People need to get skills that are not "traditional. For example, men need to learn how to take care of children and not dole out money to women, just because of gender. Cheryl "sherry" Knepper, gender role expert consultant, former hypnotherapist.

There should not be roles based on gender with exception of females having to be pregnant and give birth. These should be treated as medical conditions just like anyone taking off work for any treatments, physical therapy, etc should be treated same and once patient gets medical permission, back to work. I know many women don't want to hear this but it's true. People need to get skills that are not "traditional. For example, men need to learn how to take care of children and not dole out money to women, just because of gender. Cheryl "sherry" Knepper, gender role expert consultant, former hypnotherapist.

I went through three pregnancies. It was a beautiful and huge experience that men cannot comprehend except to be a partner in the delivery room. I can't understand how people leave their children with complete strangers for money if they have a partner who works full time. I lived in a small home with not alot of money to spend until I was able to drop my kids off to school. Now I help my daughter with her baby because her husband says 'he can't do it alone'. He is home more than he works. There are limits to how far you can take this discussion. Respect before speculations about making the Mother do even more than she already does. Father stays home. Most of the men I know wouldn't know what to do with themselves at home.