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So the near-complete eradication of childhood mortality is outweighed because…bosom contact is slightly more inconvenient? The vast increases in housework efficiency by microwaves, refrigerators, vacuums, laundry machines and dishwashers thereby giving you more time for your children is outweighed by…circadian rhythms? The complete elimination of starvation as a realistic threat/stress is outweighed by…?
Any slightly objective assessment would find the scales tipped dramatically towards the past having far more dramatic stressors, hardships and timesinks than the present. I don’t see how you can realistically just handwave away six children in a row dying of scarlet fever as less stressful than the present
Childhood mortality and mortality in childbirth are stressful events, naturally, and every animal species deals with the death of children. That does not turn the entire enterprise into stress. A death during early years is stressful for the mother after it occurs, but this does not mean that all of motherhood and all of its tasks and labor spent are stressful. Women miscarried and their children died young, but this was normal during that period, and it’s not as if they didn’t social bonds to help them through the emotional pain.
… Are you kidding? The key difference is the 9-5 work week that most women are forced by conditions to deal with; the lack of training in motherhood; insufficient time spent with child and breastfeeding. That was the whole post. Mothers do not spend more time with their children in America today. Especially when you consider that “time” is not “experience salience”; the importance hours are during high alertness, not making them dinner after they’re exhausted from daycare/school.
Sure I can. How about three children in a row being infanticided by their mother? How about women not even trying to have children because they find it too stressful? How about the increase in childhood obesity and autism which are associated with stressed mothers, or BPD increases associated with poor mother-child bond?
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