Conference quark::mennotes-v1

    father's behavior is as instinctive as mother's behavior
    
    as you pointed out through the ages men have had relationships
    with women in many different ways but during all of recorded history
    there have always been strong familiar relationships all over the
    world.
    Man is a social animal and prefers his peers around him.

	Fathers intinct with the women may be instinctive..........
	.......which I doubt......but there is no instinctive bond between 
	a new human baby and its sire (as there reputedly is between a woman 
	and her infant). There is generally a stong bond BUILT up between
	father and children....otherwise little finger symdrome would not
	exist 8^).....But to say it's instinctive I feel is misleding...and
	misguided.....Dads who love their children (and don't we all) tend to
	attribute that love to natural instincts and not to the love, affection
	and trust that is forthcoming from forsaid sibling(s)...That nobody
	doubts there is a bond between the father and children, is fact but
	my vote would be for forged links...not intincts...
	There are too many arguements against them.....fathers deserting family
	Instant family fathers.....to name but a two!

	Go at That then....

Richard.

    I'd argue strongly against the position that there is no instinctive
    bond between father and child.  I feel instead that the bond is
    usually kept from forming by what the father feels his relationship
    to the child should be.
    
    All I can say is that when my son was born, and I held him just
    moments after he was born, I sure felt something instinctive.
    
    Today, three years later, there's still a close, tight bond between
    myself and Tommy.  It is strained by my not being with him half
    of the time, but each time I'm with him again, it's as if we never
    parted.  I feel truly sorry for those fathers who don't enjoy a
    similar relationship with their children.
    
    					Steve

    I would rather be loved by a father that decided/chose to love me rather
    than a father who was responding to instincts.  Responding to the
    base note question, it appears to me that the level of instinct varies 
    primarily as a function of the fathering a man experienced.

	re -1
	Well old boy you don't have to worry...paternal love is just that,
	and don't let anybody tell you that he's forced to love you, cuz he 
	ain't!

So there!

Richard.

    
    It seems to me that most men only love and feel father instinct
    for the children that they have with women that they love - or at
    least loved at the time they fathered the child (such as an ex-wife).
     Men who father children with one-night stands or women they didn't
    really care for usually don't seem to have any love for the child
    or desire to make sure that it's cared for.  There are rare exceptions
    to both of these, but they are certainly few and far between.
    
    I think this is because it is so easy for a man to walk away from
    a pregnancy with a woman he doesn't want to have in his life.  He
    can have sex with her, get her pregnant, and walk away, and never
    even come back to see the baby if he doesn't want to.  On the other
    hand, a woman who gets pregnant by a man who was a one-night stand
    or somebody she wouldn't want to marry, still goes through 9 months
    of pregnancy with the baby growing in her body, and then has to
    go through the trauma of childbirth.  It's pretty difficult not
    to realize that you are a mother after all that regardless of who
    the father was.
    
    I think maybe that nature forces women to realize that all the children
    they have are theirs, whereas men can kind of pick and choose when
    to let the father instinct flow.
    
    Those are just my observations and thoughts since I'm not a man
    and didn't have my child under negative conditions - her father
    loves her.
    
    Lorna
    

    
    I have to agree with Steve.  There is a special bond between a father
    and child.  Its definitly instinct.  I held my daughter and son
    in their first minutes and that intangible bond was created.
    
    GOG
    
    

    Like Suzanne I believe we choose to love a child, both men and
    women. We have one "homegrown" and four adoptive children. We may
    have taken a little longer to learn to love the adopted kids -
    but we love them all equally now.
    
    Bonnie

    I wonder if the choice to love a child may be helped by the child
    loving the father first.  I think I believe it is.  Assuming that,
    and assuming the childs love is less a matter of choice and more
    a matter of instinct (for young children), it might be that the
    father's love is indirectly instinctive.