Mike wanted to buy a new bike and was short of cash. He decided to ask his parents for money. He first thought of going to his father, but, on a second thought, he dropped the idea. He went to his mother instead who happily complied with his request.For a large part of his life, Mike had thought that his dad loved him slightly less than his mom. He knew that his father loved and cared for him, but not as much as his mom. Initially, he thought only he felt this way but after talking to many of his friends he came to realize that most dads are just like that.Mothers typically love, care, support and provide for their children more than fathers. This is the general trend, unless there’s an exceptionally strong relationship between a father and his child. Still, many would think twice before claiming that a father’s love is equivalent, let alone greater, than a mother’s love.But why is it so?
Parental care is costlyMull over the phenomenon of parental care for a while. Two people come together, bond, mate and devote most of their time, energy and resources to raising their offspring. By investing in offspring, parents lose out on resources that could be as well devoted to themselves. For example, these resources could instead be channeled toward finding additional mates or increasing reproductive output (i.e. number of offspring).Also, parents who protect their young jeopardize their own survival. They’re more likely to get wounded or even die while fending off predators. Due to such high costs, parental care is not universal in the animal kingdom. Oysters, for example, release their sperm and eggs into the ocean, leaving their offspring adrift devoid of any parental care. For every oyster that manages to survive, thousands die.Thankfully, we’re not oysters and natural selection has programmed us humans to care for our young, at least till they reach puberty. The costs of parental care are, more often than not, outweighed by its reproductive benefits.….and more costly to malesParental care is more costly to human males than to human females. This stems from the fact that males have more to lose reproductively than females if they engage in parental care.Effort directed toward parenting cannot be directed toward mating. Since men can produce much more offspring than women, if they engage in parental care they miss out on additional mating opportunities that could have increased their reproductive output.Women, on the other hand, can produce a limited number of children throughout their lifetime and raising those children carries its own costs. So they generally cannot afford to increase their reproductive output by capitalizing on additional mating opportunities.Plus, beyond a certain age (menopause), women become incapable of producing children at all. This physiological strategy probably evolved to ensure that women take good care of the few children that they do bear. When they reach menopause, other avenues of reproduction become practically non-existent for women. So their existing children are their only hope- their only vehicles for passing on their genes. Like it or not, this is perhaps the fundamental biological basis for a mother’s exceptional love.On the contrary, men can continue to produce offspring as long as they can live. Hence, their additional mating avenues don’t necessarily disappear.Men have built-in psychological programs that lure them away from parental care to seek out additional mating opportunities because it could mean more reproductive success. As a result, men tend to invest less in offspring, at least lesser than women, possibly with the unconscious hope that they could use these resources to gain more reproductive success.Paternity certaintyAnother reason why a woman invests her resources, time, effort, heart and soul into her offspring is because she can be 100% sure that she’s the mother of her child. After all, she’s the one who gave birth to her child. The child is essentially a part of her body. She’s 100% sure that her offspring contains 50% of her genes. Men don’t enjoy this sort of certainty. From a male’s perspective, there can always be some probability that another male has impregnated the female.Males suffer tremendous costs by channeling their resources to other men’s descendants. Resources devoted to a rival’s children are resources taken away from one’s own. Therefore, they have a subconscious tendency to be stingy when it comes to investing in their children.ConclusionLost additional mating opportunities coupled with paternity uncertainty have shaped the human male psyche to invest slightly less in their offspring than the females. However, thanks to education, cultural values and other forms of social conditioning, some males are able to rise above this biological tendency.