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193 pages

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First published in 1998, Baby Wars was the second title in a controversial trilogy of books which placed the past, present and future of human reproduction under the microscope of evolutionary biology. Baby Wars itself was focussed on parenthood and family strife, and attracted such international interest that it was translated into eight different languages. This digital English edition, with a new Preface by the authors, was released in 2017 to celebrate the book's upcoming 20th anniversary.Neither childhood nor parenthood is easy and to a greater or lesser extent babies mean wars in all families. Some of these wars are subtle and physiological, hidden from the conscious mind. Others are obvious, even aggressive, and plain for all to see. Even the most tranquil of families can experience conflict, and for some life can become virtually a running battle. But, as Baby Wars shows, there is an evolutionary rationale behind all of this disharmony. It even emerges that without many of the conflicts most people would gain less than they do from their reproductive and family experience, a paradox that forms one of the major themes of the book.The book's format, a hallmark of the whole trilogy, is first to dramatise each topic as a fictionalised case-study, then to use the perspective of evolutionary biology to interpret the behaviour shown by the drama's main characters. Topics covered range from the commonplace (such as conception campaigns, pregnancy sickness, labour pains, sleepless nights, and grandparenthood) to the illegal (such as incest and child abuse). Apart from the new Preface and an occasional minor correction or clarification the 20th Anniversary edition is a faithful digital version of the original paperback. Yet, despite the years since it was written, this release of Baby Wars is as relevant now to the understanding of the evolved drivers of reproduction and parenthood as it was at the time of the first edition. None of the scientific interpretations in the original book have been superseded in the interim. Nor, naturally, has there been any change in those instincts of men, women and children that are at the book's heart. For anybody who wishes to understand why family life and strife has evolved to be as it is, rather than how many would like it to be, the answers can be found in Baby Wars' pages.

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Sciences et techniques

Human biology

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Publié par	Hard Nut Books Ltd
Date de parution	07 mai 2018
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9788469740583
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0300€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

BABYWARS
Parenthood and Family Strife
Robin Baker and Elizabeth Oram
BABYWARS: PARENTHOOD AND FAMILY STRIFE
First published inEnglish in 1998
byFourth Estate Ltd, London
Digital editionpublished by
HARDNUT books Ltd, London, 2018

Email: hardnutbooks@gmail.com
ISBN978-84-697-4058-3
Copyright © RobinBaker & Elizabeth Oram, 1998, 2018
www.robin-baker.com
RobinBaker and Elizabeth Oram have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designsand Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the authors of this work.
RobinBaker is represented by:
The Susijn Agency Ltd
820, Harrow Road,London, NW10 5JU, UK
www.thesusijnagency.com
Cover
Designed by Hard NutFilms Ltd.
About the Authors
Robin Baker and Elizabeth Oramhave lived together since 1987, first in Manchester, England, and since 2002 inthe foothills of the Spanish Sierras. They have three children.
Dr Robin Baker was Reader inZoology in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Manchesterfrom 1980 to 1996, then left academic life to concentrate on his career inwriting. He has published over one hundred scientific papers and 19 books,including the international best-seller Sperm Wars . Based on his ownoriginal research into human sperm competition and its implications for humansexuality and infertility, Sperm Wars has so far been translated into 25different languages. Robin Baker’s work and ideas on the evolution of humanbehaviour have been featured in many television and radio programmes around theworld. In addition to his three children with Elizabeth, he also has three froma previous relationship.
Elizabeth Oram is a graduate of the University ofManchester. She has published a number of articles in wildlife and women’smagazines and is the author of five children’s books. She worked closely withRobin Baker during his writing of Sperm Wars .
Alsoby Robin Baker
Academic
The Evolutionary Ecology of Animal Migration
Human Navigation and the Sixth Sense
Migration
Bird Navigation
Human Navigation and Magnetoreception
Human Sperm Competition
Popular Science
Sperm Wars
Sex in the Future
Fragile Science
Fiction
Primal
Caballito
The Hitchhiker’s Child
Forother books and further details: www.robin-baker.com/books/
Dedication
1998
ToNat and Mimi
2018
ToNat and Mimi, for being there at the time
and
ToRomany, for coming later
Table of Contents
BABY WARS
Parenthood and Family Strife
Robin Baker and Elizabeth Oram
About the Authors
Also by Robin Baker
Dedication
Preface to the 2018 digital edition
Acknowledgements
lntroduction
CHAPTER ONE: Highs and Lows
SCENE 1: Real Soap
CHAPTER TWO: Getting Started
SCENE 2: Conception Campaigns
SCENE 3: Barren Times
SCENE 4: Success?
CHAPTER THREE: Pregnancy, Labour andSerenity
SCENE 5: Sex during Pregnancy
SCENE 6: Pregnancy Sickness
SCENE 7: Labour
CHAPTER FOUR: Baby Wars
SCENE 8: Breast-feeding
SCENE 9: Sleepless Nights
SCENE 10: Post-natal Depression
CHAPTER FIVE: Families and Dynasties
SCENE 11: All’s Fair ...
SCENE 12: Quality or Quantity?
SCENE 13: A Single Mistake
CHAPTER SIX: Family Strife
SCENE 14: Sibling Rivalry
SCENE 15: Parental Favouritism
SCENE 16: Incest
SCENE 17: Child Abuse
SCENE 18: Lone Parenthood
CHAPTER SEVEN: The Road toGrandparenthood
SCENE 19: Preparing the Ground
SCENE 20: Rebellion, Exploration andFledging
SCENE 21: Mate Selection
CHAPTER EIGHT: Grandparenthood
SCENE 22: Extended Help
SCENE 23: Beyond Reproduction?
SCENE 24: The Family Helper
CHAPTER NINE: The End
SCENE 25: Final Commitment
Further Reading
Books
Papers
Preface to the 2018 digital edition
Baby Wars , when first published in 1998, was thesecond title in an eventual trilogy of books that placed the past, present andfuture of human reproduction under the microscope of evolutionary biology. Thefirst title was Sperm Wars (1996), which focussed on the evolution ofsexuality, and the last was Sex in the Future (1999), which explored howancient urges might cope with future advancements in reproductive technology. BabyWars itself focussed on parenthood and family life – or rather strife. Inparticular it addressed why in even the most tranquil of families the stresses andstrains of everyday life so often create conflict; why, to a greater or lesser extent, babies mean wars in all families; and why, in some cases, family lifebecomes nothing less than a running battle.
All three books in the trilogy used the same unique format.Each topic to be discussed was first illustrated by a short scene in the styleof a fictionalised case-study. This story was then followed by an evolutionaryinterpretation of the behaviour shown by the scene’s main characters. In BabyWars , the topics covered ranged from the commonplace, such as conceptioncampaigns, pregnancy sickness, pain during labour and sleepless nights, to theillegal, such as incest and child abuse. There was no shortage here of dramaticmaterial, nor was there a shortage of evolutionary interpretation.
At the time of writing this Preface 20 years have passedsince Baby Wars was first published in English. Since then it has beentranslated into eight other languages, ranging from Turkish to Chinese.However, as one of the last trickle of books to be submitted and line-edited onpaper a digital file of the book as published never existed. The 20 th anniversary seemed an appropriate time to correct this situation and to publishthe book in digital form.
Apart from an occasional minor correction or clarification this20 th Anniversary edition is simply a digital version of theoriginal. None of the scientific interpretations have since been superseded.Nor, of course, has there been any change in those instincts of men, women andchildren that are at the heart of the book. We could perhaps have revamped thefictional scenes a little to give them more of a 21 st Century feel.Our characters could have used smart-phones, lap-top computers and WiFi ratherthan need to be near a telephone or wait for letters through the post. But onthe grounds that family dynamics and the instincts that dictate them aretimeless and transcend such technology, we decided instead to leave them asfirst written.
Baby Wars is asrelevant to the understanding of the evolved drivers of reproduction andparenthood as it was 20 years ago. Our hope is that the same can be said even20 further years into the future.
Robin Baker & Elizabeth Oram
Spain, 25 April 2018
Acknowledgements
This book is a collection of scenes illustrating differentaspects of parenthood and family life, each followed by a discussion of thebehaviour of the scene’s main characters. The aim is to highlight the manyinteresting and new ideas that have recently been generated by evolutionarybiology, but to do so in a way that will be intelligible to a lay audience.Such a book could not have been written without the ground-breaking researchcarried out by huge numbers of scientists. We have opted, though, not to loadthe pages with footnotes and references, so our major acknowledgement must goto all of those unnamed people whose research or insight has contributed in anyway, large or small, to the ideas and stories presented in these pages. For thesake of those readers who might wish to pursue matters further, there is a listof further reading at the end of the book. Wherever possible, we have limitedthe list to books that are readily accessible, rather than to research papersand the like.
We gratefully acknowledge the support we have received fromour publishers from the earliest stages of planning and writing. ChristopherPotter of Fourth Estate, UK publisher of the year in 1996, believed in theproject from the start, and gave us the encouragement that we needed to see usthrough the long months of research and writing. Laura Susijn, also, played akey role in winding up our motivation and getting us started; now working forour agents, Sheil Land Associates, she has continued to provide helpfulinsight, advice and encouragement.
Finally, I, RRB, would like to thank the School ofBiological Sciences at the University of Manchester, who in late September 1996accepted at what must be record short notice my request for early retirement on1 October that same year, so that I could concentrate on a career in writing.It took a great deal of effort and organisation on the part of several people,Dr Ron Butler in particular, to make my departure possible. Special mention shouldalso go to Chris Bainbridge and Charlie Nicholls who have the dubiousdistinction of being my last ever research students. Not only did they acceptwith magnanimity my sudden disappearance and hence reduced supervision, theyalso volunteered to shoulder the main burden of supervising those undergraduateresearch projects for which I continued to be responsible.
We thank them all. Without their help this book would havetaken many months longer to write.
lntroduction
Parenthood and family life affect everybody. Moreover, most people,first as children and then twenty or thirty years later as parents themselves, undergoboth sides of the experience. Many will have fond memories of family life, and manywill have memories that they prefer to forget. Neither childhood nor parenthoodis easy, and from time to time even in the most tranquil of families the stressesand strains of everyday life rise to the surface. In fact, for some people, familylife is nothing short of a running battle. To a greater or lesser extent, babies mean wars in all families.
When family strife surfaces, many people are tempted to blamethemselves – or their partner, parents or grandparents – suspecting an element ofinadequacy. But as this book will show, internal conflicts are a normal, inevitableand important feature of parenthood and family life: without conflict, most peoplewould gain less from the experience. This paradox is one of the major themes ofthe book.
In Baby Wars , as in the earlier Sperm Wars wh