From the Publisher
“I remain fascinated by the possibilities of the evolution of the genus Homo so Sarah Hrdy’s Father Time clarified much for me. Our ancestors couldn’t have survived the Pleistocene without alloparenting, with fathers and other men helping to care for and provision young.”—Francis Ford Coppola“Sarah Hrdy gives us a fascinating, compellingly readable account of the new science that has revealed the deep potential for nurturance in fathers. The book is both a personal, immensely important and gripping story, and a masterly summary of equally compelling and important scientific research.”—Alison Gopnik, author of The Gardener and the Carpenter“Who better than Sarah Hrdy, known for her studies of motherhood, to delve into fatherhood. Men caring for babies or young children can be as tender and competent as women. Doing so transforms their brains to be more like the maternal brain. Hrdy’s timely point is that attempts to balance gender roles in the family by no means go against human nature.”—Frans de Waal, author of Different: Gender Through the Eyes of a Primatologist“No one has shaped our understanding of human motherhood quite like Sarah Blaffer Hrdy has, and now her latest book challenges us to rethink fatherhood and the future of the human family. In Father Time, Hrdy brings her expansive curiosity, humility, and deep expertise to bear on one of the questions that drive culture wars: What does it mean to be a man today? She takes readers along on a journey of discovery that challenges even her own understanding of gender and caregiving, and she demonstrates how nurturing has always been at the center of human nature.” —Chelsea Conaboy, author of Mother Brain: How Neuroscience Is Rewriting the Story of Parenthood“In Father Time Sarah Blaffer Hrdy takes readers on an accessible, compelling journey that adds important evolutionary muscle to the premise some of us have known for a while—many fathers can be and are equal partners as nurturing, emotionally nourishing parents.”—Andrew Reiner, author of Better Boys, Better Men: The New Masculinity That Creates Greater Courage and Emotional Resiliency