The Biology of Dads by James K Rilling Article Analysis

James K Rilling’s “The Biology of Dads” is a research-filled piece that educates the reader on the different hormonal and behavioural changes that men experience after assuming an active paternal role. His ample research and studies prove that the aforementioned areas in fathers were drastically different than that of single men, and this evidence is used to support Rilling’s claim that the changes which occur after becoming an involved parent are not just limited to mothers. It is an altogether well-supported and thorough article that allows the viewer to experience what it is like to sit through a college lecture for no charge! Bland, monotone, and mind-numbingly phlegmatic; a piece that was meant to break the stereotypes which associate fathers with being the least emotional parent was ironically written with less emotion than one would find in a ceramic pot or an empty nail polish bottle. Rilling seems so disconnected from the topic that the reader would never know that he was a father himself had he not stated so at the beginning of the article, and even then, his lack of personal experience and involvement allows them to quickly forget this. While his use of evidence is more than generous, the thesis which it is supporting falls apart the moment that one realizes the word “involved” is a unbelievably large blanket statement compacting countless different paternal parenting styles into a single term. In this lies the largest fault in Rilling’s piece.

To put it simply, parenting is a very complex process. No one mother or father is the same, and even if there are a few characteristics people are able to assign to each group, each parent has their own unique way of caring for and loving their children. While there is a universal idea of what makes a parenting style unacceptable, there is no solid definition of a good or involved one- because each and every person assigns different traits to their own picture of that. So despite the fact that there is indeed ample research proving that there is a change in the brain functions of men that are fathers, there are too many variables and factors involved in the actions of paternal figures for them to be able to be defined and predicted by any kind of scientific experiment. After all, there is no way that every single father involved in those studies happened to share the exact same style of parenting- or if they did, then the hormonal imbalances observed only pertains to paternal figures that fall under that specific category. Both of these indicate a small-minded perspective within an overly vague thesis.

The problem does not lie within the data itself. Instead, it is found within the way the research was conducted. Expanding on the previous point, there are infinite combinations of variables that influence the way a parent interacts with their child- and to try and generalize those interactions for the culmination of paternal figures in the world is a fool’s errand. If one wishes to prove changes among such a large span of individuals, they need to examine several of the groups that exist within them. For example, Rilling never touched upon the changes that happen in the hormones of a divorced father that still visits his children. Surely, it’s different. Fathers with disabilities and mental disorders, fathers that abandoned their children, neglectful fathers, fathers who were raised by a single mother, and fathers who had no connection with their own dad are some of the other overlooked groups that could have been studied in the experiments. Examining these categories could have enabled the scientists to make more definitive observations, but by narrowing their sighs, their evidence became flimsy and questionable.

If by some chance the original thesis was correct, then the assumption that each dad that has a decrease or increase in certain chemicals is going to act the exact same way without fail is almost laughably incorrect. As stated at the start of this essay, the experiments insinuate that fathers who are more involved in their children’s lives are usually more gentle and more understanding. They react more positively to pictures of babies, and have altogether positive reactions to kids. So why are there fathers who love their children, but can’t gauge their emotions? Why are there fathers that are strict and fathers that are too lenient when both care for their children the same amount? Why don’t fathers all automatically treat their kids the same around the world? The answer is simple: the human brain is complicated, and as much as scientists can try to map it out and find correlations, humans themselves are too unpredictable for these studies to apply to any one group as a whole. There will always be outliers- and this is what Rilling’s article failed to address.