In love with my daughter
No i’m not talking about some pervert kind of incest, but about the love for my newborn daughter.In july 2007 my wife gave birth to a lovely girl, our first child. Being a father and a wannabe scientist this gave me the opportunity to analyse my feelings for both my wife and my daughter. My wife and i are together for almost eight years now. This means that the first feelings of being in love have is replaced by real love. Just after the birth of my daughter my feelings of being in love for my wife grew again. Seeing her so happily playing with our child. This was to be expected ofcourse. But a very strange (to me) fenonemon happened alongside with it. I found myself really in love with my daughter. Even now, four months after she was born, i still feel butterflies in my stomach when she wakes up in the morning and gives me a big smile.
I always thought that the feeling of being in love has something to do with finding a partner. When you first meet someone you are attracked to, you start to feel the well-known butterflies. Some people confuse lust with being in love. In my opinion lust is just a short physical and chemical reaction that triggers arousal while being in love is a more lasting feeling. Things may start off as lust and grow into being in love or you might feel attracked (not physically per se) to someone from the start. The feeling of being in love is a real feeling.
When we meet someone, a range of chemicals build up in our bodies. Phenylethylamine (PEA) is believed to be a neuromodulator. That is chemical that resides in the fluid in the brain that surrounds the neurons. It plays a role in transmitting information between neurons. This is the famous chemical found in chocolate that many people believe to stimulate sexual arousal. Other chemicals are dopamine and norepinephrine. Dopamine makes us feel good while norepinephrine stimulates another well-known chemical called adrealine. The combination of these chemicals makes that we feel very happy all the time. In evolutionary terms this means that we are happy when we spend time with our partner (to be). This makes the chances of mating higher and thus producing offspring. After a while the spark diminishes and other chemicals kick in (called endorphins). Endorphine are natural pain-killers and makes us feel calm. It is these that make us stay with the same partner for a longer time thus increasing the odds of raising a child more succesfully.
So why am i feeling in love with my daughter? Wouldn’t it be better if i would feel love (as in endorphines) instead of being in love (dopamines). Both have to do with wanting to be with the child and being protective. As a father i know that i wanted to show my daughter to everyone and i could not talk about anything else (boring lots of friends with it). Why would this behaviour be evolutionairy beneficial? Being a social species it is good to let others of the society know that a new child is born. This makes others look after the child to giving the parents more freedom to fourage for food. But this still doesn’t explain why we feel butterflies instead of love.
When i try to find information about this i only find studies that recognize the presence of the endorphins but not the presence of PEA. Maybe there is a difference between maternal and paternal love, but i recall my wife having told about butterflies too. If there is anyone that can shed a light on this i would like to here from it. Please comment this article if you like
sources:
http://www.cyberparent.com/love/love-being-in-love-1.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenethylamine
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977754,00.html