To Be or Not To Be: What Does “Parent” Mean To You?

Recently, a friend asked me, “why don’t you want to be a parent?”

It’s been a long time since anyone asked me that question, and my first response didn’t seem right.

So, I thought about it some more.

Fortunately, some time earlier, the same friend had asked me to define what I meant by “parent.”

I define “parent,” as a person for whom a child is the most important consideration in his or her life. A parent, in this definition, is a person who gives ultimate weight to the well being of a child when making decisions about life.

By reflecting on that definition, it became clear to me why I don’t want to be a parent.

I don’t want to be a parent because I am not prepared to give a child that level of consideration in my life’s decisions. Moreover, I’m not prepared to sire and/or raise a child, unless I am willing to give him or her that level of consideration.

I should say, my observation is personal and not general.

I think it’s possible for parents to live very fulfilling and productive lives, however, I’m not convinced that I could live the life I want to live, while giving a child’s well being ultimate consideration.

How do you define “parent?”

Are you a parent? Why did you become a parent?

Not a parent? Why do you want to become a parent, or why don’t you want to become a parent?

Philia v. Eros: What (How Deep) is Your Love?

For all women, there is at least one person she is meant to love with all her heart and not to desire sexually. For all men, there is at least one person he is meant to love with all his heart and not to desire sexually. Depending on a person’s sexuality, it will either be his or her mother or father or, perhaps, both.

From this, it makes sense that a child learns to distinguish between the person or persons s/he loves and the person or persons s/he sexually desires. Because a parent is such an important figure in a child’s life, it also makes sense that s/he learns to hold the person or persons s/he loves in higher esteem than those s/he desires sexually.

To further complicate matters, historically, sexual desire is often characterized in a negative light and love — familial or romantic — in a positive light.

As a result, many men and women often distinguish between the persons they love, the persons they love romantically, and the persons they desire sexually. They also tend to hold in higher esteem the person or persons they love. Moreover, when a person both loves and sexually desires another person, typically, the love is thought to be more important than the sexual desire.

By the time I hit puberty, I had decided there were two kinds of girls: girls I could include in my sexual fantasies and girls that I shouldn’t include in my sexual fantasies because I loved them. I had sexual desires for the girls I loved but, for some reason, I thought it inappropriate to entertain those desires even in my imagination. I suppose I had internalized the meme that sexual desire corrupts love or, at the very least, that love should trump sexual desire.

At some later point in life, presumably after some relationships that were both loving and sexy, I realized — or I should say, I hypothesized — that romantic love is sexual desire that has been rebranded by the choices and commitments we make with the person we desire and who desires us in return. We start with the k-i-s-s-i-n-g and only get to love, marriage, and the baby carriage if we use that desire as a motivation to create a lasting attachment. Ideally, we will also be compatible with the person or persons we love but often that is not the case.

So what do you think? Is romantic love and sexual desire distinct or are they more or less the same experience?

She’s So High Above Me: The Satisfaction of Inequality.

Recent research suggests that the best marriages involve women who are more physically attractive than their mates.

Men, the research indicates, are more supportive when they partner with a woman who is more attractive; women, it is claimed, care less about looks and more about having a supportive partner. Women also are said to mirror the level of support they receive from their partner. So, when a man is more supportive, everyone is happier.

Whether or not this is true for all men and for all women and whether or not physical attractiveness is the main consideration for every couple, this research implies that the best long term relationships, at some fundamental level, are unequal. The inequality, it seems, causes one person to be more supportive of the other and this support is then reciprocated by the other person.

This conclusion is somewhat hard for me to swallow because I regard every person as an equal and strive to treat him or her as such until given reason to do otherwise. Over the years, however, I’ve slowly come to realize and accept that some of us — maybe even many of us — like to — and maybe even need to — organize ourselves around relationships of inequality. Some of us even benefit from it.

This research seems to support that view.

What do you think? Are the best romantic relationships at some fundamental level unequal? Is this true for none of us, all of us, or only some of us? Are there broader implications for other kinds of human relationships.

Love Needs Something To Conquer, If It’s To Conquer All.

I’ve been thinking about my past romantic relationships and I think I see a pattern.

In all my serious relationships, there always seems to be an insurmountable obstacle to overcome — like she wants something out of life I’m pretty sure I don’t or vice versa.

At first, I thought this pattern might be symptomatic of some kind of latent self-sabotaging commitment-phobia on my part. Maybe, I hypothesized, I only allow myself to get serious in a relationship if it seems like it has little chance of long term survival or, perhaps, once serious, I invent an insurmountable obstacle to sabotage it.

Then, I thought, wait a minute, the narratives of fictional romances always involve a seemingly insurmountable obstacle to overcome. Love needs something to conquer, if it’s to conquer all. Maybe, I hypothesized again, the tried and true story arc of our fictional romances reflects an essential feature of all our real life romances.

In fact, it might even be the case that a couple needs to confront and overcome a major obstacle together in order to create the kind of attachment necessary for long term pair bonding. If this is the case, it might also be the case that the couple will go out of its way to create an insurmountable obstacle to overcome — to test and, in some cases, secure the relationship.

What do you think?

Do most humans need — or, at least, really, really want — their romances to involve an insurmountable obstacle to overcome?

And for those of you who are in a long-term, happy, and healthy relationship, when you tell the story of your romance, does it feature a major obstacle that you had to overcome together. As a result, do you feel more sure in your relationship?

And last but not least: does anyone know of any couples who met, fell in love, and lived happily ever after, without any real conflict at all.

A Choice Between Two Irreconcilable Goods.

Some time last summer I made a discovery. I figured out how I could live life as a coal miner.

I’m not sure why I couched my discovery in these terms but, at some point, I realized: for this person, for this embrace, for this feeling, I could work sixteen hours underground, if I knew she would be there waiting for me at the end of the day.

Fortunately, there are no coal mines in Ottawa.

Unfortunately, forced to choose between two irreconcilable goods, she recently decided to go with the other good. Given the circumstances, I can’t fault the decision, even if it isn’t the decision I would have made.

John Gray argues, contrary to the claims of some, that it is possible to choose rationally between two irreconcilable goods in the here and now. No one answer will work for all people in every circumstance but for each particular person and for each particular decision a rational and correct choice can be made.

In academia, the debates about these kinds of choices normally emphasize the sense of loss experienced by the person who is forced to chose one good over the other. Outside the tower, I’m learning that the experience of not being chosen kind of sucks too.

The problem with history is the absence of a control group. There’s no way for a person to know how he would have chosen in the here and now if he had chosen differently in the very many choices leading up to the present decision. The choices we make change who we are and how we will choose in the future. What once seemed impossible becomes plausible, probable, and, at last, a reality.

Having said that, I’m fairly certain the guy who was ready to go into the coal mine wouldn’t have let this happen. Same for the girl who would have made his life in that coal mine worth living. Of course, if she and I are the results of the choices they made, I suppose in their own way they did contribute to this decision.

People live; they choose; they evolve: sometimes they grow closer, sometimes they grow farther apart.

And life goes on.

Revisting Personality Type and Gender: A Prerequisite For Survival.

In a previous post, I discussed the age old question of whether or not men and women have unique and distinct personalities because of their gender. I discussed the question from the perspective of the Myers-Briggs personality test and I argued, based on the research that I could find online, there is no good reason to think men and women have unique and distinct personalities because of their genders.

In this post, I want to discuss the age old question from the perspective of “The Big Five” personality traits, a descriptive model of human personality for which there seems to be a broad consensus regarding its empirical validity. According to this model, a human personality can be accurately measured with respect to five domains: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.

If Wikipedia can be believed (the citations look legitimate), from the perspective of “The Big Five”, there are clear and measurable differences in personality based on gender which are apparent across cultures.

Cross-cultural research from 26 nations (N = 23,031 subjects) and again in 55 nations (N = 17,637 subjects) has shown a universal pattern of sex differences on responses to the Big Five Inventory. Women consistently report higher Neuroticism and Agreeableness, and men often report higher Extraversion and Conscientiousness. Sex differences in personality traits are smaller in prosperous, healthy, and egalitarian cultures in which women have more opportunities that are equal to those of men. Both men and women tend to grow more extraverted and conscientious and less neurotic and agreeable as cultures grow more prosperous and egalitarian, but the effect is stronger for men [source].

On first inspection, this seems to support the age old notion that a person can be expected to have a specific kind of personality because of his or her gender. Closer inspection reveals something else: the differences between the genders are less apparent in certain kinds of cultures. What does this suggest? It is the culture and environment in which men and women find themselves that is the more relevant factor.

One doesn’t need to be too radical a feminist to recognize that a woman’s well-being is at a much greater risk in cultures that aren’t prosperous, healthy or egalitarian. It comes as no surprise to me that women tend to be more neurotic and agreeable in these environments. I suspect it is a prerequisite for survival. I’m also sure that, if the male population were further segmented between the bullies and the bullied, the latter would also be more neurotic and agreeable. Furthermore, so long as men are able to use violence and physical coercion as a means to resolve their disputes with women, it is not unreasonable to expect women to be a bit more neurotic and agreeable on the whole. They are this way not because of their gender; they are this way because the fact of their gender is too often used as an excuse by others — both men women — to treat them in a manner which leads to a rational, consistent, and seemingly universal response.

Of course, that “on the whole” alludes to another important consideration which is often overlooked in these discussions of personality types and gender. Individual men and women are born and raised in a variety of cultures and environments and, as a result, can be expected to exhibit a variety of personality traits and types. Since this is true, is there really any value comparing the average man with the average woman when, strictly-speaking, neither exist?

More on this point at another time!

Revisting Personality Type and Gender: A Cosmetic Distinction!

Historically, it is often claimed that a disproportionate number of women exhibit a certain set of personality traits and a disproportionate number of men exhibit a distinct set of personality traits.

From the perspective of the Myers Briggs framework, it is said women tend to prefer “to come to decisions by associating or empathizing with the situation, looking at it ‘from the inside’ and weighing the situation to achieve, on balance, the greatest harmony, consensus and fit, considering the needs of the people involved.” In contrast, men tend to “decide things from a more detached standpoint, measuring the decision by what seems reasonable, logical, causal, consistent and matching a given set of rules.” In either case, both decision “styles” can be more or less rational, depending on the given circumstance and the decision made (Source). Call the first style of reasoning, F-type, and the second, T-type.

There is, it seems [big “seems”, read on], empirical evidence to support the claim that women prefer F-type reasoning and men prefer T-type. For instance, it is often claimed online that roughly sixty per cent of women prefer F-type reasoning and sixty per cent of men prefer T-type. Thus, on the whole, most women are F-type reasoners and, on the whole, most men are T-type. Unfortunately, as often as I find this claim online, I can’t find a study to justify it. I should also admit I have been guilty of citing these numbers in conversation and, probably, even on this blog. I thought I sourced them in a peer reviewed paper but I can no longer find the mysterious source! Looks like I may have been guilty of some lazy online research!

After a little more digging, I found a credible source, which initially seems to support the claim that the genders are divided along a preferred type of reasoning. The surprising conclusion is that men often falsely report their preferences. On closer scrutiny, it seems many more men, who are initially assessed as T-type reasoners, are, in fact, F-type. The gender differences that seems to exist in the numbers might very well be caused by men who prefer to think of themselves as T-type reasoners when they are, in fact, F-type.

It should also be emphasized that the MBTI test is designed only to measure preferences. We are all capable of employing either type of reasoning and we all do, depending on a variety of different factors, and, it seem plausible, we might even use both types of reasoning for any given decision. Moreover, there is no reason to assume that the different forms of reasoning will lead to different conclusions. Ultimately, the MBTI test, even when perfectly administered by a trained professional, only indicates a generalized preference which may or may not manifest itself in any given circumstance. So, even if some well-executed study demonstrates a strong correlation between gender and reasoning preferences, I’m not sure it will be of much use to us on a person-to-person and day-to-day basis.

Moreover, I now doubt the validity of the distinction drawn between the two types of reasoning. When I imagine a group of human primates living on the edge of survival thanks only to their mutual cooperation, it is, I think, very logical for them to employ F-type reasoning to draw conclusions about the vast majority of the decisions they face. Once I draw this conclusion, I then start to wonder if anything meaningfully distinct is captured with the expression “…a more detached standpoint, measuring the decision by what seems reasonable, logical, causal, consistent and matching a given set of rules.” There is, after all, no reason to assume that reasoning involving empathy, internal coherence, and giving due consideration to the balance of reasons is not also reasonable, logical, causal, consistent, and involve rule-following. “Thou shall take all perspectives into consideration to identify the best outcome” is a rule that is reasonable, logical, consistent, and causal! Similarly, I know many reasonable and logical people who solve complex problems “by associating … with the situation, looking at it ‘from the inside’ and weighing the situation to achieve, on balance, the greatest harmony, consensus and fit, considering the needs of the … [ideas] involved.” For example, a thought experiment about what it might be like to travel at light speed is consistent with this kind of reasoning. Some mathematicians also solve math problems the same way some people just get other people.

My claim, then, is this: the proposed distinction between F-type and T-type reasoning is tantamount to a distinction between “six” and a “half-dozen”. The only difference is the language employed to describe the very same phenomenon. Perhaps, some people prefer to describe their reasoning with one set of words as opposed to another but I don’t think the preference is terribly important to understanding how they reason. In support of this claim, I note that the “Big Five Personality Traits,” for which there is a growing body of supporting empirical research, does not seem to have a distinct trait corresponding to the F/T distinction. Finally, even a cursory glance at the cognitive neuroscience research on reasoning suggests there is much more going on in our brains when we reason than is implied by the F/T distinction.

The last lingering question, of course, is why a particular description of reasoning was identified, distinguished, and, for the most part, privileged. I suspect that it had something to do with the fact that appeals to higher order, abstract principles, or ideals is an easy way to disregard the reasonable claims of others standing in front of us.

Through The Looking Glass: A Pre-Reflective Sense of Girth!

In the past couple of weeks, in a variety of contexts, on more than one occasion, and from a variety of people (but mostly from Erika), I’ve been reminded that I’m … wait for it … a slender guy.

Shocking! I know!

Now, if I reflect consciously on my body type, I realize I’m slender. I’m a little under 6’ 2” and, according to my last weigh-in at the gym, I hover a little over 180 lbs. Furthermore, I need only look in a mirror for undeniable proof.

And yet, every time someone describes me as slender, I experience something not unlike cognitive dissonance. Some pre-reflective part of my brain genuinely believes I’m a large guy both in terms of weight and build.

I suspect this pre-reflective and false belief took root when I was twelve. I was both tall for my age and overweight, during my first hot rush of puberty.

Tellingly, I can’t remember my height but I distinctly remember my weight!

At the time, I was 125 lbs. and my appropriate weight for my height and age was 100 lbs. I think I can even remember the moment when my doctor told me I was too heavy and had to lose weight for the sake of my health.

For some reason — and I’m not sure why — it was that twelve-year-old sense of size that was internalized into my sense of self.

Because I’m inclined to think these kinds of questions about self-identity will be settled by neuroscience, my best guess is that some part of my brain — crucial to self-identify and self-perception — was coming on-line and / or stabilizing itself during puberty and, because of this, the sense that I’m big and bulky was rooted into my pre-reflective sense of self.

Admittedly, when all is said and done, for me, this internalized sense of girth is no big deal. It has lead to no ill-effect in my life as far as I can tell.

I exercise regularly and am conscious about what I eat for my general sense of well-being and not as a means to control my weight. More importantly, when I reflect on my size, I can easily remind myself that I’m not really such a big guy after all.

However, the cognitive dissonance I experience when someone describes me as slender makes me wonder about the other pre-reflective beliefs I must hold about myself. How do they affect me and my interactions with others?

I wonder, have any of you discovered unexpected pre-reflective beliefs that you hold about yourself — rooted in adolescence or some other time. How did you discover them?

What interests me is the phenomena itself because, in my own experience, once we are aware of these beliefs, it is within our power to change them.

The Greatest Thing You’ll Ever Learn Is To Love And Be Loved In Return!

Last Sunday night, I watched Moulin Rouge with Erika who is a huge fan. I was impressed at how well it stands the test of time. The energy and dexterity of the first half of the film, in particular, is exhilarating.

On more than one occasion, I wondered how the creative team even conceived the images I was watching. I can’t even imagine how they planned to make them. I’d love to see the story board!

On that night, an important element of the film, which I had previously overlooked, resonated. The film’s principal claim, which is lifted from “Nature Boy”, an eden ahbez song made famous by Nat King Cole, is this: “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is to love and be loved in return.”

Here is a clip of Cole’s version. It’s actually quite lovely!

I suspect I overlooked Moulin Rouge’s claim the first time I saw the film, in part, because the overall tenor of the film works against the claim’s sentiment. Christian is clearly distraught, the Moulin Rouge itself is destroyed, and Satine was destined to die either way.

One wouldn’t have to squint too hard to think the movie intends to deny the notion that the greatest thing you’ll ever learn is to love and be loved in return. Lives were thrown away for one happy day and the film does not suggest unequivocally that the correct decision was made.

I suspect I also overlooked the film’s main claim because when I first saw it I was still testing my “Love is dead!” hypothesis. At the time, I was probably too busy raging against the love machine to be moved by — or even notice — such a sentiment.

Fast forward nine years, and I’m happy to say ahbez is correct.

Do you agree or disagree?

Desire’s First Expression: So What’s With All The Sunglasses?

Does anyone else remember Desmond Morris’s The Human Animal? You may not remember the series but, if you were anywhere near a TV in 1994, odds are you remember the episode, “The Biology of Love.”

Why? It’s probably the first and last time you saw explicit sex on primetime television and a glorious full color money shot to top it all off!

The Learning Channel got away with such scandalousness because The Human Animal is a BBC production, it was shared in the name of science and education, and the really naughty bits are filmed with a heat-sensitive camera and the money shot is seen from the inside. Way inside. Like cervix deep inside!

Thanks to the miracle of You Tube, I can share with you the glorious culmination of this fine piece of scientific investigation (not work appropriate). I can’t find a clip that shows the whole sex scene so you will need to content yourself with the grand finale:

Other than the inside-the-body money shot, the other thing that stuck with me from this episode is the claim that bold eye-to-eye contact is the touchstone for all future courtship.

Which nicely dovetails with yesterday’s holiday thoughts about sunglasses.

I don’t care what your Grade 8 health teacher told you, smoking always makes you look cool. And so do sunglasses. And because looking cool is inevitably about attracting a mate, it seems odd to me that sunglasses impede our ability to make eye-to-eye contact.

I’ve come up with three plausible theories (the third is inspired by Nadine’s comment on yesterday’s post).

1. Perhaps, the large dark lenses reference large dilated pupils — a sure sign of arousal.
2. Perhaps, covering the eyes more easily creates the illusion of bold eye-to-eye contact. For more confident wooers, covered eyes always means that all eyes are on them.
3. Perhaps, sunglasses create an opportunity for a ritual of intimacy: the eyes are uncovered only for those who really deserve that level of intimacy.

What do you think? What role do sunglasses play in the your mating rituals? And does anyone else have any fond memories of the first time they saw “The Biology of Love?”

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