Better Mind The Bullocks: Study Suggests Men With Small Balls Are Better Dads
Men who more strongly engaged the brain’s pleasure centers, specifically the ventral tegmental area (VTA), in response to images of their own babies were also more likely to be nurturing according to the surveys. Men with strong VTA activation also tended to have smaller testicle volume.
Dr. Rilling admits that the study brings up a whole mess of new questions, such as:
Do men genetically predisposed to smaller testicles become more nurturing fathers, or does nurturing shrink testicles? Does life experience alter testicle size and then affect parenting? Are some men genetically predisposed to get more brain reward from nurturing, or do men who make a conscious effort to nurture get rewarded and learn to like it? Or both?
So cue the hundreds of men who when asked to change a diaper will now reply with:
I can’t babe, my boys will shrink.
It’s an interesting study, but I’m not sure how this helps us in the real world. Will women know be measuring their partner’s junk in an attempt to determine if they are daddy material? Will people who have a partner who has gigantic gonads now blame his bad parenting on this? Do any of you have first hand knowledge of this correlation and are you going to show your partner this article and say something like :
So this is why you never help with bath time!
(Image: Everett Collection /shutterstock)