[Glorantha] Nurture: hardware or software?

From: Jane Williams <janewilliams20>
Date: Thu Jul 6 20:00:16 2006

>> Clearly there is a physical compulsion
> >to breastfeed, ..

> >From all I've heard breastfeeding has to be learnt
> which makes
> it unlikely as an instinct never mind a physical
> compulsion.

FWIW, and without any personal experience of the matter, I gather that a new mother who does not breastfeed her baby gets painful breasts and potentially serious illness. Rather like a cow not being milked, and for the same reason. I've also heard that it acts as a natural contraceptive, which can be handy for spacing pregnancies to a survivable interval.

I think we can assume that there is some sort of basic instinct to make people want to produce babies, and to look after them once produced, as otherwise the human race would have died out by now. Whether that's an instinct that's stronger in one gender than the other is another matter, of course. But if men don't have some sort of protective, look-after-the-family instincts, why have they ever supported all the dependents? Some animal species have a "bonk it and leave it" social system, but humans aren't one of them.                                   

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