A new study by researchers at the University of Oregon asserts that genetic factors are more important in determining when a child will first have sex than whether or not they have a father in the home. According to a BBC story on the report, "The more genes the children shared, the more similar their ages of first intercourse, regardless of whether or not the children had an absent father."
I have a few problems with their conclusions:
1) On just about everything else where there is a genetic predisposition towards a behavior, we do not allow that genetic predisposition to act as an excuse for the behavior. Think about addictions. Drug addiction has genetic markers. Yet we don't say that a drug addict therefore has no control over whether or not he uses drugs. That would be letting the genes act as an excuse for bad choices.
2) Simon Blake, from a sexual health nonprofit called "Brook Advisory Centre," while disagreeing that genes are the overriding factor, does not then conclude that father involvement is important - even though the study showed clear correlation between early sexual activity and father absence. He instead points to the need for "better education." I guess it is hard to disagree with that, but it ignores the clear father factor that exists here.
I guess this gets back to the age old "nature versus nurture" question. What do you think? Is it genes or dads?
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Genes or Dads?
1 comment:
We welcome many points of view and great discussion. However, please be aware that comments go through an approval process. The blog administrators reserve the right to not post or delete any comments that are not appropriate (ie: comments with obscene, explicit, sexist, racist or otherwise derogatory language), impolite (ie: comments containing personal attacks, insults or threats), dishonest (ie: potentially libelous comments), or are spam. Thanks for understanding!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
An addendum to my post. The BBC article cited in the post references the following factors as contributors to early sex: lower educational achievements; friends and the media being the main source of information about sex education; socio-economic status; early sexual experience and the earlier age at which girls start their periods.
ReplyDeleteHere is the thing: even if you argue that father presence/absence is not a direct contributor to child sexual activity, father presence/absence is a contributor to all of the factors cited above.
So, in the least, father presence/absence plays a powerful indirect role in determining when children first have sex.