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PREFACE
The best theories have three basic features. First, they are exceedingly simple. Second, although they may not have been obvious to the people who discovered them -- once they are widely known, they seem rather obvious to everyone else.
Take the theory of natural selection: that new beneficial traits are likely to be passed on. Or of psychoanalysis: that unconscious feelings can affect one's behaviour. Both are easy to understand. And now that they're familiar to us, they simply ring true in our daily lives, and have a secure place at the very centre of our common world view.
Of the entertaining theory presented in this short book, I can say for certain only that it is simple. I cannot say whether the Twinkle Theory will fit in with everyone's daily experience and so become part of our accepted knowledge of the world. But what has prompted me to write down this theory is that virtually everyone to whom I've mentioned it has commented that the theory seems to ring true. Since hearing the Twinkle Theory, people involuntarily see every father and child they meet in terms of its simple equation. It has already become a part of their world view.
The third feature of a good theory is the Eureka! factor. This refers to the moment -- such as when the apocryphal apple falls on Newton's head -- that a casual observation finds itself suddenly inflated into a full-blown truism.
Whether a portent or not, the theory in this book started with just such a moment.
One evening in Spring, my wife, young son, and I went to a pizza restaurant opposite Hyde Park, here in London. Although a pizza place, and therefore suitable for children, this particular restaurant has a vaguely glitzy, adult atmosphere, attracting status-conscious urban parents who would rather avoid fast-food chains. As we sat waiting for our pizzas to arrive (two mushroom, one quattro formaggio, for historical accuracy), I watched a mother and two little girls -- one about my son's age, the other about a year old -- come in the front door of the restaurant. By the style of their dress and the famous names on their shopping bags, it was plain to see that they were visitors from America.
The mother was holding the pre-schooler's wrist with one hand and pushing the baby's pram with the other, the handles of which were laden with bags and parcels from Harrods, Laura Ashley, and the Scotch House. They were shown to a table near to ours. Then there followed the inevitable commotion: parcels and children put down anywhere, sweaters and wraps removed, high chairs and booster seats brought and assembled, cutlery knocked to the floor, whining, scolding, tears, consolation, and the repeated re-arrangement of seating positions.
When the reticent waiter finally ventured near to clear away the fourth place setting, we overheard the mother say to him, "No, please leave it. My husband will be here in a minute. He's just parking the car."
I don't know why, but with a sly grin on my face, I turned to my wife and whispered, "I'll bet you anything that her husband is one of those macho guys with a moustache and a muscle shirt."
"What makes you think so? Do you think the woman is pretty?" she asked.
"It's not that. It's because they've got two daughters. Those kind of guys always want a son -- you know, to coach in Little League, go fishing on weekends, play rough and tumble in the living room. Having frilly daughters is, kind of, their come-uppance."
As my wife began to object that girls needn't be frilly and can be just as good at sports as boys, in he came. Six-foot-three. Well-built. Moustache. OK, no muscle shirt -- but a T-shirt with L.A. Rams insignia. Looking harassed, and to me rather resigned to his fate, he said not a word to his little harem of females, sat down, and ordered a Budweiser.
I smiled at my wife. She rolled her eyes and said nothing for a moment. Then smiling herself, she said, "And what about you? Is having a boy your come-uppance for being a wimp and reading my magazines?"
"No, it's my reward for being kind and sensitive," I corrected her. "My type always has boys."
THE TWINKLE THEORY PROCLAIMED
'When you were just a twinkle in your father's eye,' the old saying goes. It's an intriguing thought -- that there's a tiny, magical glimmer of every new being in the eye of its predecessor. But what about this twinkle? What is its significance? And why is the twinkle in the eye of the father rather than the mother?
The mother's role in reproduction is naturally beyond all controversy. Her womb and hips clearly made for gestation, monthly cycle made for fertility, breasts made for first nourishment and bonding, and womanly instincts made for nurturing and nesting, couldn't be more pregnant (excuse the pun) representations of her central, vital role in making babies. Moreover, it's now generally taken for granted that a child receives most of its guidance in post-natal development from its mother, not its father -- immunity and ideal nourishment from the mother's milk, emotional security from the mother's affection and physical contact, and intellectual stimulation from the mother's face and voice, and later from her speech and activities.
By contrast, particularly in the late twentieth century, the father's role in furthering the species has been radically marginalised, and sometimes denied altogether. Apart from supplying (these days, not even necessarily implanting) the requisite sperm in order to make up the missing complement to the egg's 23 chromosomes -- the character, behaviour, or abilities of the father would appear to have little if any significance in child bearing or rearing. In terms of participating in procreation, the father is, if anything at all, a support and backup system for the mother -- occasionally helpful, maybe desirable, but not at all necessary.
In many aspects -- from sperm banks to custody battles to confusion about sexual orientation -- Western society in the late twentieth century echoes the effects of this marginalisation of the male. And it appears to be getting worse -- lately, young women are intentionally arranging to conceive, bear, and raise their children without the burden, as they see it, of having an interfering man on the scene.
Most dramatically, these attitudes have affected the Western male's perception of himself. The heartfelt need of every modern thinking man to discover his cosmic relevance and even justify his very existence -- mainly in terms of earnings, social status, or similar achievements -- is the source of much unhappiness in men themselves, in their relationships, and in society at large.
Perhaps the time has come to change men's perception of their existential importance to the future of the species. For the essence of the Twinkle Theory is that the father too has a vital and hitherto unrecognised role to play in procreation, in society, and in human history.
* * *
To put it succinctly, the Twinkle Theory holds that a child's sex is determined by its father's temperament (at the time of conception). More specifically, the Twinkle Theory proposes that a father with a traditionally 'masculine' disposition will produce a daughter, while a father with a disposition commonly thought of as 'feminine' will produce a son. More generally, the theory suggests that the father's temperament may also determine other key characteristics of the child.
Why should it be the case that psychology affects heredity? The simple, direct rationale is that a man's temperament -- volatile and changeable, as every woman knows -- is a reflection of the state of the social group into which the child will be born. The male's role in procreation, beyond simply contributing half of the child's chromosomes, is to reflect by his psychological state the trends and needs of society, and to fulfil society's needs through his effect on the inherited character of his offspring.
The corollary of the Twinkle Theory is that the mother's role in procreation -- beyond contributing half of the child's chromosomes and providing an appropriate environment for gestation and early development -- is to balance the male's changeability with hereditary constancy and stability.
Apart from the Twinkle Theory, elementary biology itself already suggests a profound difference in the respective roles of males and females in the process of heredity. At a female's birth, her ovaries contain all the eggs (approximately 400,000) that she will ever have. They never change. But the male, once matured, constantly manufactures new sperm throughout his lifetime. This makes the male's gametes more likely to be subject to complex environmental influences. Why has Nature imposed this radical difference between males and females, if not for some essential reason?
One must not be misled to assume that the Twinkle Theory is somehow addressing the nature (heredity) versus nurture (social environment) debate. In recent decades, this debate has ostensibly been resolved in a 'de facto' compromise -- in the idea that every person is moulded by both their genes and their upbringing. The Twinkle Theory does not re-open the nature/nurture debate. Rather, it should be seen to signify the end of this dichotomy, because it implies that nature and nurture are the very same thing: that social environment changes heredity at every conception and that heredity changes the social environment with each new generation.
Also, the sex determination aspect of the Twinkle Theory is in no way contradicted by the scientific hypothesis that the mother's vaginal acidity may correlate with her baby's sex. This correlation tells us nothing about cause and effect. A woman's acidity may also correlate to her mate's temperament, or even to her preference for that temperament in a man. It is nonsense to think that pH, for no reason, in itself causes X- or Y-chromosome-bearing sperm to succeed or fail. Such a correlation may or may not be a fact, but without a rationale it is a meaningless fact. By contrast, there exists a meaningful rationale for the Twinkle Theory (see Chapter Two).
The biological fact that X-chromosome-bearing sperm yield girls, and that Y-chromosome-bearing sperm yield boys, is of course pertinent to the Twinkle Theory. In biological terms, the Twinkle Theory might suggest, for example, that the relative propensity of X- or Y-chromosome-bearing (male- or female-making) sperm to fertilise an egg is temporarily affected by a man's psychological state. There may be a reproductive link, for example, to the neurotransmitter seratonin, the levels of which have been shown to correlate with high or low self-esteem. Or perhaps a man's temperament causes 'protector' sperm to alter the proportion of X and Y 'fertilising' sperm.
If such hypotheses are not already being researched, I suggest that they are likely topics for lucrative grants. But scientific evidence is no more necessary for the Twinkle Theory than it is for, say, the theory of evolution, or for Freud's theory of psychoanalysis. Experimental science is inadequate to the task, because the effects of such complex phenomena as social environment and individual temperament -- or for that matter the ecological management of species, or the history of the subconscious -- cannot usefully be examined by the isolation and study of single variables in a laboratory.
The most entertaining implication of the Twinkle Theory is that one should be able to tell a couple whether they will have a boy or girl just by knowing the father's temperament at the time of conception. Indeed, it seems that one can -- although truly 'knowing' the father's temperament at any one time is far from easy. A lot of men are very skilled at disguising their real attitudes and feelings.
Most of this work deals with the sex determination part of the Twinkle Theory -- defining it, analysing it, and exploring its various repercussions. The last chapter, however, deals with what I consider to be the more interesting implications of the Twinkle Theory. Namely: that men as individuals are anything but surplus to Nature's requirements. That a father's role in life's continuity is as much a given as a mother's role. And that although men and women as groups have equally important roles to play in procreation, an individual father's contribution to the character of his offspring is -- dare I say it -- ultimately more important than the mother's. |
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