You know perfectly well that mother's presence is ESSENTIAL to baby's proper development. Whose belly do doctors put fresh-born babies on, their fathers?
And last time I checked, men can't breastfeed no matter how hard they may try.
And last time I checked, men can't breastfeed no matter how hard they may try.
I wasn't the one who downvoted you, but I think it's unfortunate that you're citing a social practice to try and establish biological fact and claiming to understand what I "know."
Nothing about a distinctly female presence is necessary for a child's proper development, much less the specific woman that birthed the baby originally. All the major psychological associations that I know of support gay adoption as healthy for children. The biologically necessary thing is a loving parental presence, gender non specific. Formula exists and can be given to children, midwives existed to feed babies before that.
For older children , any loving adult care is fine. But the original post was about the priority the mother has, indicating post-birth.
1. Let's replace "essential" with "optimal". The original point still stands.
2. You conveniently omitted the 9-month bonding time.
3. Formula is good enough, but breast milk is optimal. Never heard of midwives breastfeeding other women's babies in 21st century.
4. Researchers have long known that newborns recognize – and prefer – their mom's voice. http://www.babycenter.com/404_is-it-true-that-babies-can-rec...
2. Yes, I did. It didn't seem relevant to the point I was arguing, see #1.
3. For optimal, see 1, and for midwives—yes, and that's a societal trend rather than a biological fact.
4. True but still irrelevant, see #1.
I'm not arguing that biological mothers aren't generally inclined to want to spend more time with their children than their male partners, or that newly born infants aren't going to instinctively want to spend time with their mothers. It's just OP's original claim didn't logically follow from the evidence he presented—nothing about childbirth necessitates women having "the first choice to spend time with those children, and [...] bargaining power in relationships."
Also, breast-feeding is how nature intends it, milk formula (invented relatively recently) is a crutch. So it does give women an advantage over men. As for midwives - they are women, not men.
Following your reasoning, we could say "there is nothing that necessitates sex between a man and a woman" - because we have in-vitro conception?
My understanding is that they can lactate. Normally this is the result of certain medications, but I think all the necessary equipment is there and stimulation alone could cause it. But I don't suspect it would provide enough nutrients.