Recently my wife, Alicia, and I put her down to sleep in her Moses basket. We then got into bed, turned off the light and breathed a sigh of relief. But just as we both started to drift off, we heard a noise that sounded like “cooooo!”
Rather than let a much-needed slumber claim me, I was alive, alert to the danger, and ready to save my daughter from whatever danger she was cooing about.
INSIGHTFUL: LouAnn Brizendine made some important discoveries about the male brain.
Her far more sensible mum suggested I wait and see if she fell asleep. I did as I was told – momentarily – until I heard another “cooooo” reverberating in the stillness of the night. This time it was a louder, longer noise, so my new fatherly instincts well and truly kicked in. I had to make sure she was okay!
Knowing I would get into deep trouble if I made Thea wake up fully, I looked at her behind the cover of my duvet so she couldn’t see me. Straight away I could see her big eyes were wide open. But what were they looking at?
That’s right, her eyes were locked firmly on me.
Instinctively, my daughter knows I am the weak one, the one who will jump out of bed at the slightest sound, the one who will give her ‘the world’ at the merest flutter of her eyelids. The sucker!
“Don’t do it, she will fall asleep,” encouraged my wife, knowing perhaps that the battle was already lost. Three weeks into parenting and Thea knows her Dad is wrapped around her little finger. Yelp.
Other fathers have warned me about this new protective instinct, but I was taken by surprise at how strong the pull is.
Take, for example, when some well-meaning people in the church I attend suggested Thea should one day marry a friend’s baby boy, born the same week. Everyone thought the idea was cute. But not me. My nostrils flared, my fists clenched, and out of my mouth came some uncharacteristic words: “Over. My. Dead. Body”.
PROTECTIVE INSTINCT: Chris admits some ‘base emotions’ have arisen in recent weeks.
Oops. Not quite the thoughts of a man who seeks to submit to a higher authority on a daily basis.
The protective instinct is a real thing – and science confirms it. LouAnn Brizendine, a celebrated US neuropsychiatrist, conducted extensive research on the male brain and found that newbie Dads go through hormonal changes that trigger their grey matter to be more protective and nurturing, to the point where we can hear our infants cry from much further away.
Men also have something called the SRY gene which is responsible for developing our testes (in other words, this gene literally helps us to grow a pair). Recently, scientists discovered it did something else too. When we experience a threat, the SRY gene increases blood flow to our major organs and releases the ‘fight or flight’ chemical. In contrast, women who don’t have this gene, have a different stress response system that makes them less prone to aggression and more likely to try to ‘tend and befriend’.
The simple truth is a man’s brain and body are literally primed and ready to protect, save and fight at the first sign of our infant being in trouble (or perceived trouble).
This protective instinct may go into overdrive sometimes but, overwhelmingly, it is a good thing. Neurologist, Sigmund Freud, went as far as saying: “I cannot think of any need as strong as the need for a father’s protection”.
We may not have to fight off Sabre Tooth Tigers anymore, but the world brings new dangers that are having an equally devastating impact. We know, for example, that kids who spend more time on social media have a much higher rate of depression than children who don’t.
FATHER FIGURE: Sigmund Freud understood why Dads feel they must protect their daughters.
So why am I writing about this?
Because it’s important new dads know their role in raising a child is equally important to that of the mother. But mainly I was looking for a solid defence I could give to my sleep-deprived wife when I inevitably do jump out of bed and unnecessarily wake up Thea.
In that regard, they don’t come much better than: “God made me this way!”
Chris Kerr is a senior executive in the UK’s legal industry.
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