I know men like nurturing traits in us, but don't men have some nurturing traits too?

[Anonymous]

This father singing to his baby girl seems like a nurturing trait to me:

So is nurturing just a female trait or is it unisex?

Updates

1 y

The father on the video seems as nurturing as a loving, singing mother would be.

[NamerOfStars]

Of course we do- our children wouldn't last very long otherwise. Our species are consummate K-strategists, and natural selection favors those who pay attention to their children.

The thing is, once you get beyond the VERY earliest stages of infancy (and to a lesser extent, even before), men nurture children (their own and others') in different ways. Oh, we protect them in similar ways, but we it comes to teaching, both our approaches and lessons vary. The most succinct expression of it I've heard is "Mom gives you flowers; Dad gives you seeds and a shovel". Talking to a baby using the high-pitched babbling nonsense usually referred to as "baby talk" is far more common among women; they're focusing more on just social interaction with the baby then men, who tend to use real words in whatever language they actually speak (babies learning to talk will go through every available phoneme, including lip, tongue, and cheek clicks, regardless of the language they're raised to speak) in their natural voices. I made a point of using plain English when talking with babies, even when I was just a kid, since it made no sense to me that you'd use fake words when you were trying to teach a baby to speak real ones.

Heck, one of my favorite memories is helping my three-month-old nephew learn to walk by showing him what he could do if he coordinated BOTH of his legs to push at the same time. The smile that lit up his face has seen me through many a dark night.

Now, one thing you might be wondering about is the stories you've doubtless heard about women going into "Mama grizzly mode", when they perceive their children as being threatened and snap into high-adrenaline mode and gain the ability to throw around 200lb men. But you never heard of men doing the same thing. Oh, you hear about "Dad reflexes" stories, when men pull of great feats of dexterity, but not strength. Why? Because men don't go into "Mama grizzly mode"; we go into "Papa elephant mode", where our muscle inhibitors switch off and gain the ability to throw around women in Mama grizzly mode. The more hands-off, let-them-learn-from-their-mistakes nature of male parenting means it's a rarer thing, and frankly, a lot of people who see it don't survive it.

[Rockstarrrrr]

Umm... Men have them too... And on top of it, they also have this natural instinct to be a protector / guardian... So, they have the best of both worlds lol... I've seen fathers who treat their adult children like they're still kids, being super nurturing and affectionate... And when I babysit other people's kids, my dad energy skyrocket lol... No wait, scratch that... When people bring over a cat... That's right.. a cat... I take care of them like it's a baby 😆...

[HighValue]

From what I have seen IRL while working in schools and interacting with students and parents, it seems that men are actually MORE caring and nurturing than women the majority of the time. Too many mothers and women teachers/school staff that I have interacted with over the years not only seem uncaring, but they seem to enjoy being mean to kids sometimes.