Moms, Fertility & The War On Both
Introduction
Another week, another dozen lessons! This week was filled with a lot of driving as I began meeting my new team with my new employer. It was a week filled with learning about the wonder of God’s design at a chemical level. I learned about all the hormones that are at play in helping a woman become a mother. This week was a series of long drives, so I had ample opportunity to listen to many hours of podcasts and audiobooks.
The more I learn, the more I read, and the more I want to learn! Every time I listen to a new book or podcast, I find at least one new podcast to listen to or a new book I want to read, and so rather than getting shorter, my list of books and podcast queue gets longer and longer!
What I Learned This Week
Mom Genes - Abigail Tucker
As I shared a few weeks ago, I was going to be reading this book just as soon as I finally had some more audible credits available for spending. Let me tell you, this book has not disappointed me as someone who is endlessly fascinated by the human brain and the things we do psychologically without ever giving it a second thought is incredible to me! With that being said, I must confess I am about an hour and thirty minutes from finishing it, but I do have some cool things from this book that I do want to share!
The placenta is created by the father’s genes and not the mother's!
What is most incredible is that the placenta is the avenue by which the child is provided for and fed. As someone who very much so believes that men are called by God to be the provider for their children, the idea that even at the microscopic level, the father is responsible for creating the avenue by which his child is fed and provided for is so cool.
Mom ultimately pays the highest provisional cost for the nourishing of the child, and that should not be forgotten, but often times the story that men are told is that we have no part to play in the development of our children, and again I want to be clear mom does indeed pay the majority of the cost. But as a man, it is cool to know that I am responsible genetically for creating the biological bridge that allows my children to be fed and nourished by mom!
Oxytocin, often known as the love hormone
I honestly can’t fully digest the level of detail that Abigail lays out about the effects of all the varieties of hormones. But one of the more interesting things I learned is that Oxytocin is one of the key hormones that allows “Mom” to become “Mom” at a psychological level. This hormone allows the mom to shift her brain into mom mode. The number of studies done that have observed this is many.
A thought I found myself considering as I have been learning about all these different hormones that we have in our brains, as well as how all the synthetic alternatives that we are pumping into ourselves. I wonder if it is possible that all the prolonged exposure to hormones via hormonal birth control can cause a woman to have a harder time bonding with her child, as hormonal birth control does have dampening effects on many hormonal receptors and can, in some cases, cause permanent hormonal damage.
Is it possible that some women who have been on birth control from their early teens and into their twenties or even thirties, could they be experiences permanent damage to their ability to naturally bond with their children?
It is both a compelling and scary question to consider. There seems to be such an increase in young women today who seem to be disinterested in the idea of being or becoming a mother. I wonder if it’s possible that the dampening effects of these hormones cause women to have less of a desire for motherhood, or hinder their ability to develop the uniquely beautiful natural bond between mother and child.
I am no neuroscientist, but the results do beg the question.
The Frailty of Fertility
The array of things that can affect a woman’s fertility is utterly wild! Studies have shown that a woman’s fertility may be hindered if she outearns her husband or significant other. A woman’s fertility may also vary based on the national economy, or the threats of war.
Within the Redpill community, there is a word often used called “Hypergamy,” which simply means that women, in general, are more attracted to a man who is of higher social and economic status than herself. What I find interesting is that what some might call a “shallow” preference for a woman to have in biological terms makes sense. A woman is neurologically programmed to desire a man that is capable of providing for and protecting her during her most vulnerable time, pregnancy.
These neurological preferences exist within both sexes, and both can be taken to extremes, as humans often tend to do in our fallen human nature. But it is incredible to me to learn that at a molecular level, a woman is affected by how she perceives the man with whom she is involved.
All I can say is this book has been very, very educational for me and something I would consider a must-read! One note of warning that I think is worth mentioning is that this book looks at its studies from an evolutionary psychology perspective, and so should be read with wisdom. Also, I believe I would do a disservice if I did not warn the reader that if you go down the evolutionary psychology rabbit hole can often lead to a very deterministic mindset, and I want to remind you that we are ultimately a creature created with free will, and so have the ability to make choices apart from our natural animalistic instincts. It is also important to understand how incredibly fearfully and wonderfully we have been made as a species made in the image of God.
“Our hormones do not control us, but they do direct us.”
Struggles of loneliness, love, and dating
Key takeaways from this podcast.
Personal and Professional discomfort
The only place where you will find growth in your personal and professional life is where there is discomfort. If you are comfortable and you find no new challenges, then you are doing yourself a disservice either by not pursuing new challenges within your current job or perhaps pursuing a new job for the sake of new challenges and discomfort. As my readers will know, I recently changed jobs, and though I did not change industries, I did change employers. It was a step I took with great trepidation as the fear of the unknown lurked, and I knew where I was I was safe, and I could count on continuing from where I was. The issue I found nagging within my gut was that there was no longer any challenge, nor was there any path forward that would allow me to continue to grow and challenge myself.
This is no different in our personal lives if we never pursue discomfort in our personal life, then we never truly grow. I’ve heard, it said like this
“The couch is where dreams go to die. Comfort is where dreams go to die.”
So the question I find myself asking is where am I failing to grow, where am I afraid, where am I comfortable?
When your friends come to you with problems, don’t try to fix.
This takeaway was an important one for me to ponder as I am very much someone who instinctively goes into fix-it mood anytime someone comes to me with a problem. I am currently trying to learn to listen to what they have to say. I always go into solutions mode as soon as someone gives me a problem, and often times the most helpful and caring thing I could do at that moment is simply listen.
I need to learn to sit in the mud with my friends
“Greater love hath no one than he that would lay down his life for a friend.”
-John 15:13
This verse is so significant and often quoted. Oftentimes when I have thought about it, I thought it meant giving up my life only in the literal sense, but maybe another way to look at is this. Maybe it also means learning to give up what I have to say, to give up my opinions, and to learn to simply listen and sit with them in the mud and mess of their life. Learning to listen for the sake of understanding them rather than just fixing them. Again this is me preaching at myself as this is very much a place where I struggle. I am a much better friend if I can learn to be present in the conversation, rather than just listening for the sake of trying to fix the problem and instead listening for the sake of understanding.
A key to healthy and successful relationships is to show up with accountability rather than accusations.
This point also struck me as so important to consider. We should seek to keep our friends accountable and help them to grow and move forward, thus holding them accountable. What this does not mean, is that I show up with accusations when they do fail, but instead with accountability.
It is important to give your friends, the ability to be there for you.
“Ultimately, you are being selfish by denying them the opportunity and the ability to walk through the pain and sorrow’s life with you.”
This is a very challenging idea for me as someone who likes to pretend to have it all together, and that I have it all figured out, I had never thought about the idea that it may be selfish of me to deny my friends the opportunity to be there for me. I think this is an idea that can easily be taken to unhealthy extremes on either side. But I do think it is important to learn to allow your friends to be there for you!
This was an incredible podcast that I very much enjoyed! Ten outta ten would recommend it!
This is an incredibly fascinating podcast discussing the possibilities of Nuro-link, and how we can potentially use it in the future to help people use their Nuro circuitry to interact with technology, allowing someone to control and interact with their computer with their mind. This will be especially helpful for those suffering from spinal diseases, or paralysis, and those who are paraplegics and capable of operating in the physical world!
The scary part, though, is that the technology that is being developed and intended for good has so much potential for evil and malicious purposes. It is scary to consider the idea of a computer chip being inserted into the brain or the body to be used as your credit card, your bank pass, your transport pass, the keys to your house, to your car!
All these things could then be shut down, by someone who might not agree with your personal beliefs, or if you disagree with their beliefs, they could potentially shut your world down through this Nuro-link. It sounds like the plotline of some sci-fi novel, and yet many of these technologies are increasingly becoming reality.
Fertility Collapse
The core of this podcast really focuses on the idea that those with more liberal beliefs are, in general, less likely to have any children, and so they are inevitably going to eliminate their beliefs from society as they have no one to carry them on.
The idea that we have a fertility crisis is very true as we come increasingly close to no longer being above replacement levels in America. An idea that is not mentioned in this podcast but one that was prompted in my own mind as I listened to this conversation is that it makes sense how the extremist left seems to have an obsession with the children of today. Insisting they have a right to perform drag shows for children, pushing many liberal and extremist ideas in kindergarten. Insisting they have a right to teach your children what “they” deem appropriate and, in some states, even going so far as to tell parents they have no right to know what their children are being taught!
This is something we saw in the “Parental Rights Bill” which was passed in Florida in 2022 and prevented teachers from being allowed to speak of their sexual orientation or any other matters of sexuality within the school. As I recall, the bill specifically focused on K-12 age groups. This bill was then villainized and created a media storm of attention.
The truth is many are choosing not to have children of their own, but they insist they have a right to yours and that they have the right to teach them what “they” want. There are many incredible teachers, out there I know many personally. But there is also an increasingly loud group who don’t wish to educate your children; they wish to indoctrinate them.
The Other Side of Surrogacy
As someone who has been trying to educate myself on this industry and understand what exactly is happening within it, I was horrified to learn of many of the practices happening within it.
From a Biblical view, I think it is so important to see and recognize that there is a continued war being waged against mother and child! There are laws and technologies being created that would tear them apart. As I was reading through Abigail Tucker’s book mentioned above, I was just awe-struck by how incredible and unique the bond is between mother and child. A bond that is seen as a form of oppression by many extreme feminists, who call pregnancy attacks on their freedom and the child a parasite.
It is socially unpopular for me as a man to speak on this subject because I can never understand their plight, I can never understand their “struggle,” and it’s true I will be able to bear a child as a man (Though even that is being debated now), but I do believe it is my responsibility to provide and protect and many men today have backed down from this conversation for fear of being mocked or canceled by the internet mob which forces many into silence.
I do not subscribe to this view, I have not only a right, but I have a responsibility to see the attacks coming against women and children and to defend and protect them against them. I have a responsibility to go to war in prayer, speech, and when needed to go into action to defend those who can not defend themselves. There is no one more vulnerable than a child in the womb, and I will not cow before the internet mob telling me I have no right to speak in defense of those children. There may not currently be a war in the flesh being waged here in America, but there is a war of the spirit, and men have a responsibility to be equipped to wage that war.
This is by no means a call to violent action. It is a call not to be stupid and uninformed about what’s going on. It is a call to be prepared to give an account of why you believe what you believe and to stand firm on that ground. A current aim of mine is simply this, to not have an opinion on anything I do not understand, to not speak on anything I do not understand. As someone who has many opinions on many subjects, I have my work cut out for me, and I have a lot to learn each day so that I can confidently each day give a reason for my beliefs.
What did I do
Continuing in my new job (seeking to be wise within it)
Learning to ask more questions (still very much a thing I need to be better at)
Hoping to continue my education on rev-ops
I am currently giving up alcohol for a season (7 days)
Practicing minimizing being on social media and my phone in general!
In an effort to do this, I am sharing a public look at my screen time for the week. I want to learn to be more present, and more intentional with how I spend my time each day. So this is week 1 of me being transparent and open.
Thank you all for joining me once more on this journey, as I seek to learn and grow each day, to be a little better, a little wiser. I am far from perfect, and I will often say things that could have been said better, and I will do things I could have done better. I readily confess this and hope and pray for this daily!
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