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  1. #1
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    Exclamation Maternal Dominance Hypothesis and Priviledged Daughter Hypothesis

    Ladies, this is a massive undertaking and while I had sworn to myself I would never post another incomplete essay due to my habit of never actually coming back to finish them I feel like we need to get the conversation started on this.

    The Maternal Dominance Hypothesis and the Privileged Daughter Hypothesis
    (gasp!) Brace yourselves.

    I have been postponing this essay since the earliest days of the site because I seem to have an inability to write about this topic without giving offense. But I think the time has come; I think some sways have failed at least in part because of a lack of understanding of the Maternal Dominance Hypothesis. So I’m going to try, with apologies in advance for any clumsiness on my part.

    http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/con.../2371.full.pdf the Maternal Dominance Hypothesis is a theory of gender determination put forth by Valerie Grant, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Auckland, NZ. In a nutshell, the MDH is an idea that women who are higher in testosterone (as evidenced by certain personality traits reported on a psychological survey and NOT blood tests), have more sons.

    There are some other studies that seem to indicate testosterone sways blue Evidence that mammalian sex ratios at birth are partially controlled by parental hormone levels around the time of conception (a very handy compilation that brings together a lot of studies in one handy package, but be aware that the researcher, William James is promoting his own particular viewpoint of gender determination that also involves testosterone, and at times tries to stuff things that don’t fit, into tight spaces where I personally feel alternate explanations make more sense.)

    ?? Wait a minute, I thought we knew that maternal condition was what is swaying!! Is this the Trivers Willard Hypothesis?

    The MDH differs from the Trivers Willard Hypothesis; it’s an alternate explanation for gender determination in mammals, based on the same data from the same studies. Grant’s original claim was that maternal condition had nothing to do with gender ratio, that condition was a byproduct of dominance. Meaning, mama animals who were dominant simply took control of the available resources and as a result were in better condition, while less dominant females got fewer resources and then were in worse condition accordingly (this is true, this does happen; when resources are scarce, dominant animals get first pick and subservient animals tend to get whatever’s left). Grant’s take was that the observations of condition = gender that have been made in several species of mammal, were simply a coincidence that had nothing to do with why mammals conceive boys vs. girls.

    However, in a recent review, Grant acknowledged that http://www.reproduction-online.org/c...3/425.full.pdf it is likely that there is some interplay between maternal condition and maternal dominance. I’m glad of that because there is a plethora of info indicating it, and it was dismaying to me to see her ignore all those things when anyone could plainly see it only HELPS her overall case. Testosterone has been repeatedly shown to be affected by blood sugar, overall health, muscle mass, body fat, age, disease, exercise, etc. Condition, status, and behavior seem to be connected on a fundamental level.

    Simply put, the Maternal Dominance Hypothesis is the second part of the equation, the reason why you and I know people who are thin to the point of frail, and yet still keep popping out boy after boy. Aside from sheer bad luck, it’s the number one reason why otherwise good sways fail. Something in their environments is sending them cues that boys are a better “bet” for them, even in the face of lower maternal condition. Gender ratio just CAN’T be totally diet and condition or it would be a lot more obvious than it is and those clever old wives would have figured it out a long time ago.

    While I personally have a bit of a hard time accepting Grant’s claim that self-reported answers on a psychology worksheet can necessarily mean anything at all regarding testosterone levels, after talking to hundreds if not thousands of boy/girl moms over the course of the last 6 years I am convinced that the personality aspect really does have some fundamental role to play in gender ratio and that it is the primary reason why otherwise great sways produce opposites.

    ??What type of personality traits?

    According to Grant, the definition of dominance is influential, ascendant, prevailing, authoritative, or high in control. It’s NOT what most people think of when they think of high testosterone – it’s NOT aggressiveness (hostile, angry, violent, quarrelsome, argumentative) or domineering (overbearing, bossy, dictatorial, and high-handed.) Those traits seem to appear independent of testosterone. Grant uses a definition of “acting overtly to change the views or actions of another”.

    My observations are a little bit different. While I do agree with the general thrust of what Grant says and I do believe there is a tendency amongst boy moms to try to influence others, I have observed that additionally, the moms who have boys tend to be a lot more of control freaks and struggle with anxiety and OCD-tendencies than the girl moms do. It goes well beyond trying to influence others, into a strong, almost overwhelming desire to control as much of their surrounding environment as is possible coupled with a high level of anxiety over doing so.

    I would even go so far as to say, the desire to influence may come out of that anxiety to some extent – if an anxious person can get others to control their behavior, it may alleviate some anxiety for them. Example, if you have convinced everyone you have come into contact with to wash their hands with sanitizer, then you have less anxiety over germs, so that may be a strong motivating factor to influence others to live and believe as you do.

    Interestingly, research in animals shows that testosterone LOWERS anxiety and OCD tendencies, so again, I’m not totally sure we’re dealing with testosterone per se (keep in mind, this whole theory is based on self-reported results on psychology surveys and not blood tests) But since we don’t know what this Factor X (or Y LOL) really is, let’s just keep calling it testosterone until we find out differently.

    ??Where’s the controversy with that?

    First of all, I think Valerie Grant sounds like a bit of a bitch quite frankly, and so I can totally understand why people, girl moms particularly, take offense (here’s a particularly odious interview) Women with high testosterone may be more likely to have sons -- Health & Wellness -- Sott.net . Plus at first blush, the whole idea comes off sounding similar to some prejudices that a lot of girl moms face in their day to day lives – the idea that having girls is somehow less good than having boys and people who have all girls are inferior in some way. (I do NOT believe that is what the MDH is really saying whatsoever, but I think it can sound like that until one really understands it, and it can push people’s buttons.) But if we want swaying to work as effectively as is possible (and I DO) we may need to put our personal feelings aside to some extent and really examine these ideas without prejudice.

    Pink swayers dislike the Maternal Dominance Hypothesis because they feel like there is a subtle implication that women who have a lot of sons are bitchy, mannish, pushy, angry, unfeminine, and so on and that they’re not feminine enough to have a daughter.

    Blue swayers dislike the Maternal Dominance Hypothesis because they feel like there is a subtle implication that women who have a lot of daughters are inferior or weak and that women have boys because they’re somehow “better” or “healthier”, and that they’re not good enough to have a son. Also, because losing and failing can lower T levels, some people have interpreted this as meaning girl moms are “losers” or “failures”.

    Let me just put that oneto bed right here and now – just because losing or failing at something ~may~ lower testosterone levels, there are many other reasons why a person might have lower than average testosterone – diet, overall health, diet and illnesses during childhood, conditions in your mother’s or even grandmother’s uterus (the egg that is you, formed in your mother’s body when she was a fetus in your grandmother!!) even genetic factors could come into play – a petite person will generally have lower T levels than someone who is born with the genetic predisposition towards muscle mass. Lower testosterone is just a hormone level, it doesn’t carry any value judgements with it, having lower testosterone and daughters doesn’t mean that anyone is a loser or a failure in any way.

    Additionally, I believe that while suffering losses and having things not go your way can certainly lower testosterone, there are also many people for whom things have always come pretty easily, due to the fact that they’re totally awesome. These people also tend to have lower testosterone; if there’s no competition to be had because you’re just the best at everything naturally, your body won’t waste time and precious scarce resources making a lot of testosterone. You don’t NEED it. The war is over; you already won – why make testosterone at that point?

    As a result, these inherently fantastic ladies tend to have more daughters, and evolutionarily speaking, it makes complete sense that they have daughters because a woman who has a charmed life, may be able to provide the same for her daughters (and her daughters will likely be equally awesome and more likely to be successful at handing down genes for future generations.)
    There are some primates where the dominant females have more daughters (LINK). Even in some other primates where this was not the case, when researchers took the females from the communal environment where they had to compete all the time for resources, into individual living quarters, they were shocked when they started having way more daughters (LINK). It’s believed that their testosterone levels dropped when they no longer had to compete. And in a study done by Elissa Cameron (the blood sugar researcher) to refute Grant, in humans, the vast majority of the wealthiest women in the world who inherited their wealth, had more daughters (LINK) – think Paris and Nicky Hilton, the Kardashians, and so on.

    Very beautiful women also tend to have more daughters than the population as a whole http://personal.lse.ac.uk/kanazawa/pdfs/JTB2007.pdf

    I have a couple of books in my personal library, that describe an alternate theory of gender determination called “the Privileged Daughter” hypothesis. (For some reason I could not find anything about this online?? It’s a real theory.) Just as the name suggests, for very privileged individuals in an environment where a daughter would be safe and well cared for and may have a reproductive advantage (beauty, charm, inherited social position), it makes evolutionary sense for those individuals to have more daughters.

    In an imaginary world where females were protected, highly valued, and given lots of advantages, and males not as much, t would be “smart” for one’s genes to have a daughter in that scenario. Universally since the dawn of time, the average male is less successful at reproduction than the average female – remember a boy is a gamble that can pay off big time, whereas a daughter is a sure thing. Why would you even CHANCE having a boy if you had an excellent shot for daughters to have offspring that would survive to adulthood??

    EVERYONE dislikes the Maternal Dominance Hypothesis because they feel like there is an implication – actually Grant comes right out and SAYS this! - that some of us plain SHOULDN’T have children of a particular gender because we’re not “suited” to raising them. I’m going to address this specifically further on in this essay, but on a personal level, I feel like the human animal is nothing if not flexible, and now that heaven has plopped a baby girl in my lap my parenting has changed to suit her (and OMG you should see my husband!!! W.O.W. he’s like a different man when it comes to her.) Could some of us be more “boy-mom” or “girl mom”, why certainly, and I will discuss this in more detail shortly.

    ??Wait what? I thought people who were high in testosterone were always running around getting into fights and acting like the Incredible Hulk.

    While higher testosterone levels may bring out those traits in a person (a hostile and angry person, under influence of testosterone, might then try to influence others or control their universe in a hostile and angry manner) the testosterone is likely causing the attempt to influence and control, NOT the hostility and anger. Those things are separate. An authoritative person who tried to influence others calmly and rationally thru the use of carefully written pamphlets LOL may be just as high in testosterone or higher even, than the person running around getting into scraps with strangers. I have known some very delicate older ladies who can influence others with a raised eyebrow and I suspect they were packing some serious T. I explore that in more detail in this essay What does it really MEAN to have high (or low) testosterone?? Scientifically??

    There are A LOT of very negative studies and articles regarding testosterone online that are put out by people with anti-male political agendas, and many other studies that aren’t negative at all but are manipulated by people with anti-male agendas. Overall, by anyone who isn’t trying to spin data to support a particular worldview, testosterone is not believed to be a negative influence on personality and in fact has been shown to increase honesty, fairness, and leadership tendencies in many studies. The “negative” (read: stereotypically male) effects of testosterone were shown to be rooted more in cultural expectations (honor-obsessed cultures, the ones where people are highly concerned about their self-image and getting respect = more violence than cultures who don’t value “honor”, even when those cultures coexist in the same country LINK) than in anything inherent in testosterone in and of itself. And some of the “negative” personality factors linked to higher than normal testosterone were retested on women and testosterone was found to have absolutely no effect on female personality (women have way way way less testosterone than men do).

    BTW – let me just pause a moment and point out that this is a major weakness of the MDH because we are dealing with self-reported personality traits on a psychology survey and NOT testosterone levels in blood – if female personality does not seem to be affected by T levels the way men’s is, then HOW can these answers on a survey mean that dominance = high testosterone = more boys in women?? Maybe it can, but then again maybe there is some other factor at play here. After all, Clomid raises T levels in the blood but still sways strongly pink!

    ??I still don’t get it.

    Grant’s definition of the MDH is a murky one and difficult to understand and once you throw PDH (Privileged Daughter Hypothesis) in the mix it gets even muddier. So let me offer a different one based on my own observations (here is where we may get into trouble so please bear with me, I’m not trying to offend anyone so please everyone cut me some slack, I’m trying to help!!).

    We have talked a lot about boy moms being “control freaks”. I personally believe that the fundamental difference between boy moms and girl moms, is that not only do boy moms try to be in control, on some level they feel like they HAVE to or dire consequences will result. Boy moms on balance are a lot more anxious and wound up than girl moms are and have the idea that they must control, control, control, every possible variable in any given situation. They spend a lot of mental energy thinking up every horrible thing that could ever go wrong and making plans on how to prevent these things from happening, or else making contingency plans in case they do.
    To a boy mom, if something goes wrong, it’s because they themselves failed to control for every circumstance but that’s ok, because they will simply regroup and try harder and fix all the little things that went wrong the first time.

    Girl moms on the other hand, don’t seem to have this same drive to the same extent; in my opinion they may have a bit more tendency to attribute things to being out of their control or as being the responsibility of someone else and that they are either powerless to change them or that it isn’t really worth it to bother because someone else will take care of that and probably things are going to turn out ok in the end anyway, they always do. (and this isn’t a bad thing at all as I will go into greater detail about, further on).

    Now whether that is down to testosterone or what, I’m not sure we can say. Women have SO little testosterone when compared with men, that I find it hard to believe a microscopic fluctuation in T levels is altering people’s personalities so strongly that, as the stereotypes would have us believe, they are turning from normal, balanced, adult human females into raging she-beasts or passionless milksops. And the data doesn’t support it either, because as I mentioned, testosterone did not seem to affect women’s behavior the way that it did men’s and cultural factors are much more important to behavior than anything having to do with testosterone.

    Estrogen and progesterone fluctuations really do mess with one’s behavior (it’s these fluctuations that cause PMS/PMT) and since testosterone, progesterone, and estrogen are all made from the same stuff, I think it’s absolutely likely that a person who is higher in T levels might have a different hormonal makeup all together. There are other hormones such as oxytocin, cortisol and many others, that have been proven to affect personality as well and testosterone has been shown in a recent study to counteract the effects of oxytocin – so if you are higher in T levels, it may not be testosterone affecting your behavior per se, it may be a lack of oxytocin (the cuddle hormone) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/08/he...mone.html?_r=0 or some whole other thing(s)entirely.

    So PLEASE PRETTY PLEASE I just really want you guys to be CALM about T levels. Keep em in perspective. We don’t know how it works and so PLEASE no one panic pink swayers if you get stressed out or upset while swaying, or blue swayers if you feel laid back about the whole thing, that’s FINE!!! It very likely has nothing whatsoever to do with testosterone (if testosterone is even swaying!!) because testosterone can’t be influencing your behavior ANYWAY. I don’t want anyone to read this essay and then start spending hours online looking up all the various herbs ever said to raise/lower testosterone and planning to incorporate them into their sways.

    Fugidaboutit – we don’t even KNOW that testosterone is doing anything at all.
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  2. #2
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    !!The Ferris Bueller Dichotomy

    So now let’s talk in a bit more detail about the Great Boy Mom/Girl Mom Divide. (please don’t hurt me)

    Most everyone has seen the movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”; if you haven’t, I think you should as a part of your sway homework because I think it’s one of the best illustrations there is of the difference between boy moms and girl moms.

    Jeannie, as you may recall, is Ferris Bueller’s sister. She is consumed with justice and fairness and a need to right the wrongs and make sure that Ferris doesn’t get away with breaking the rules. She isn’t satisfied with her life as it is - she wants to change herself and control her image so badly she even wants to give herself a whole different name. She’s pretty much a stressed out ball of tension for the entire movie, plotting and planning and trying to call everyone’s attention to the fact that HELLO, Ferris is faking being sick and actually he’s really kind of a douchebag.

    Despite this fact (or maybe because of it) her parents and teachers and the kids at school really don’t care for her much and everyone seems to prefer Ferris even tho he’s the type of person who is perfectly happy to lie to everyone, harass his sick friend into driving him around, and leave said friend to take the blame for something that was totally Ferris’ fault. BTW she can also beat the crap out of Rooney when the situation requires it.

    On the other hand, Sloane, Ferris’ girlfriend, is happy to follow his lead. She lets Ferris make a lot (all) the decisions. He gets her into and out of a lot of scrapes but she never panics or gets upset over them. She has a good time even when things seem bleakest, and instead of being uptight or anxious over it, she can chill and find the magic and wonder in the middle of the chaos. She doesn’t need to control any aspect of the day, she just rolls with whatever Ferris suggests.

    She’s emotionally available and nurturing for Cameron and Ferris alike – she’s not all wrapped up in her own worries and problems – she has enough energy left over to take care of others. Though she was probably terrified the whole time about getting caught, you would never have known it. Everyone likes her and no wonder, she’s awesome. Sloane had probably been just that awesome since she emerged from the uterus - always pretty, well liked, popular, made good grades effortlessly, and so on.

    Can you imagine if Ferris would have brought Jeannie along on his day off?? She would NOT have been having a good time. Ferris would NOT have been having a good time. Cameron and Sloane would NOT have been having a good time. The people of the city of Chicago would NOT have been having a good time. Even dating back to the first time I saw this movie I couldn’t help but think that I would not have had fun at all if I had gone with Ferris. It looked so stressful to me and not fun at all. I would have been freaking out over every little thing, trying to control where we went and what happened, wanting to go home or back to school, taking Cameron’s temperature repeatedly, and admittedly would probably not have been as awesome to be around as Sloane was. I would have been inwardly seething about getting dragged into it– seriously, couldn’t we have done all this crap on Saturday??? and in a state of constant panic the entire time. I would have wasted so much energy on trying to control the situation and on worrying, that I would have had nothing left to give in terms of caretaking. The movie would have been called “Ferris Bueller’s Shitty and Stressful Day Off Ruined By His Obnoxious Control-Freak Girlfriend”.

    Now obviously these are meant to be extreme characters but like the best movies, the characters in FBDO are based on real people, real personality types that we immediately recognize or else the movie wouldn’t ring true. Jeannie needs to control (or thinks she does) even though it causes her nothing but trouble and makes everyone dislike her….it eats up so much of her energy that she really doesn’t have much left for enjoying life, although she does occasionally find the time to gloat about how ~she~ got a car, while Ferris got a computer, and she has absolutely nothing left to give back to anyone else. Sloane, on the other hand, sails gracefully through every situation with aplomb – she never panics because she is inherently awesome and is perfectly confident in her ability to handle any given situation as it arises. She doesn’t compete because there is no competition; she doesn’t worry about what others have or don’t have, because she has enough. She has so much emotional gas in her tank, that she has plenty of energy to give towards taking care of other people.

    Jeannie = boy mom, Sloane = girl mom.

    ?? WTF was the point of all that??

    On previous occasions when we’ve discussed the MDH, some boy moms feel like they’re these hideous monsters denied daughters because they are brutes who can’t be trusted with them. Girl moms have gotten offended by the misconception that this theory means boy moms are in some way stronger, better, or what have you (or at least that they think that they are). THEY AREN’T, we don’t think that, we hate ourselves LOL, and that was never my intent for girl moms to have that perception in any way. I think Grant (who is a mom to 3 sons and I suspect suffered from GD herself and may have used some of her theorizing to soothe her own emotional needs) puts things rather clumsily in her studies and comes off like an arrogant jerk in her interviews, and then when I tried to report on the studies and ways to lower testosterone in general, I did a poor job of it.

    Additionally, I know that many girl moms face a pretty strong anti-girl prejudice from society and family, the sense that feeling like boys are better, or that sons are superior in some way. That may predispose them towards assuming that everyone thinks that and so the entire idea of the MDH seems to be just another assault on them and their daughters. But please believe me, the boy moms don’t think that – we ARE women ourselves and WANT daughters desperately! But we just can’t ignore this whole can of worms – if we want gender swaying to work we have to come at it from every angle.

    Are there differences, YES, I believe that they are. But no one is bad or wrong here, no one is being punished or denied a child of their desired gender because they are fundamentally flawed in some way. These are just personality archetypes that have been with us since time began and while they are stereotypes to some extent, we can learn from them to benefit our sways.

    !!! So boiling it down, what is the fundamental difference here?


    The difference between boy moms and girl moms in my opinion, is that boy moms not only want to control everything in the whole universe, they feel like they HAVE to. They feel like they have to so much, they never stop thinking about it and worse, they never shut up about it. Dire circumstances will result if they don’t control everything in their surroundings – no detail is too small for them to just let go. Even the behavior of others is fair game for this need to control and this leads to confrontations, escalation, conflagrations, and medication . They are Jeannie in a world that likes Sloane way, way, way better. And let me tell ya, take it from a Jeannie, it’s NOT FUN to be a Jeannie.

    I don’t want any girl mom to walk away from this essay feeling that the boy moms are secretly feeling superior just because some jerkish woman’s stupid theory says dominance = more boys. Remember, one big reason why girl moms are so laid back is because they are confident in their ability to handle anything that life throws their way. Privileged Daughter Hypothesis states that if you will have awesome, gorgeous, and talented daughters, you will have more of them!!

    Now if a boy mom walks away from this essay thinking that girl moms are secretly feeling superior, well…ladies, I do apologize but that’s good for your sway anyway. There’s nothing wrong with having awesome, gorgeous, and talented sons either. You cannot control everything in this world, there is too much going on out there to control. You need to let others shoulder some of the burden of responsibility and acknowledge that not everything can be controlled – and even that not everything SHOULD be. Life can be more fun when it surprises you. Be like Sloane!!

    !!Back to our regularly scheduled programming – Hold on atomic – I’ve SEEN you write about this before and you talk about women being downtrodden and that being oppressed sways pink.

    This is entirely true. I do totally believe that. Like many things involving swaying, there seem to be TWO ways to get girls. One is by being laid back and going with the flow and taking life as it comes, secure in the knowledge that whatever happens, things will be ok (Sloane) and I think for most women in the modern world, this is the more common of the two.

    The other way to get girls, I think is something that used to matter a lot more in human and primate history.

    Imagine if you will, that Jeannie and Sloane were transported back a millennia or three and are now living in a prehistoric tribe or a small village. Life is dreadfully hard; aside from a privileged few, most women have a life of unbelievable hardship. Making matters worse, occasionally Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, or their caveman equivalent comes rolling through, laying waste to everything in his path. You could spend your life living with your happy little clan in peace and harmony, and then whammo out of nowhere, you might find yourself in the unwilling employ of a whole new tribe/king/emporer. Or, your father might have showered you with love and affection your whole life and then when you turned 14, shipped you off to a husband you had never met, in a land you’d never seen, in order to secure a business deal or political treaty. Or, your husband may have died leaving you with little option other than marrying a total stranger with a brood of his own that needed raising.

    Your environment could easily have gone from something you have a fair bit of control over, where you were as safe and secure and valued as anyone could be back in those days, to a situation in which not only might you have no control over anything at all, but you and your children may even be in mortal peril.

    In such circumstances, going all “Jeannie” on everyone and making demands and insisting that everyone follow your rules, is not going to get you anywhere and may even get you and your offspring killed or at such a permanent disadvantage that they were less likely to reproduce as adults.
    That’s kinda been a woman’s lot in this world until very recently and still is, in many parts of the world. Is it right that things were like that, are we HAPPY it was ever like that, NO, obviously not. Just because something is wrong and repellant to us, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t TRUE. But these things happened, it was real and in fact, it’s largely what our bodies are primed for. We’ve had hundreds of thousands of years of evolution (millions, if you count our primate ancestors who also had to put up with similar circumstances even more so) wherein our genes had to be able to adapt to sudden, shocking changes in our environment, most of which tended to come down hard on we-the-fairer-sex.

    Our genes don’t read Ms. Magazine, they don’t know that women don’t have to live that way any more and that we are safer and better off than we have been in the past. Our genes keep right on doing what they think is going to be best for their odds of surviving to make it to future generations. They detect the cues that you send them and act accordingly, to ensure you have the child with the best odds of surviving to adulthood and reproducing.

    In a world of this nature, it’s not just diet swaying gender, it CANNOT be just diet, because the fact is that you can have all the food you need and yet still be in a horrible circumstance, and daughters tend to be more likely to survive to reproduce in horrible circumstances than sons are.

    Even when we remove Trivers-Willard from the equation, this is true. (LINK) Time and again throughout history (and primates and many other mammals do this as well), a new despot rolls into town and the first thing they do is kill off all the males, young and old, to remove the competition. A woman who could “only make boys” – her genes would have been annihilated a long time ago. Those of us who are alive today are only here because our genes were flexible and could make boys when they had the best odds of survival to reproduce, and girls when they had best odds. If a Jeannie couldn’t change when the situation required it, there would be no Jeannies left alive today.

    Additionally, there was many a time in history, where EVERYONE was living under terrible conditions and no one had any food. If some people didn’t have continue to sons in that circumstance, the entire human race would have died out. In fact a woman who could produce a boy in bad times because of her personality factors (she could continue to indulge her inner Jeannie even then, which would indicate she may be higher-ranking socially than others) would actually have a major reproductive advantage over those who were in equally poor condition but were less able to control their lives and environments, and less in a position to confront/compete with others. Sons have a more secure fate and reproductive future when their mamas are da boss and it’s as true when the tribe/ village is living off of bread or grain and water, as it is when times are good and everyone is feasting nightly. Maybe even more so, because if everyone else is having daughters, She-who-has-a-son is gonna be at a huge advantage.
    Last edited by atomic sagebrush; August 24th, 2013 at 11:46 AM.
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  3. #3
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    !!!!!Cads and Dads, Marys and Marthas

    This essay has taken me quite a while to research and write and along the way I have come up with a theory that I think is easier to understand and explains the function of maternal personality in gender determination in the real world, better than the Maternal Dominance Hypothesis does.

    Evolutionary biologists suggest that there are two fundamental reproductive strategies that men employ – dads vs. cads. The name is pretty self-explanatory; basically, there are two lifestyle paths that men can follow to increase their odds of reproductive success – a man can be a Dad, or a Cad. For more info on how this may affect swaying, see here LINK)

    The Cad Strategy entails running around and getting a lot of ladies pregnant and not investing any time or effort (or not very much) in ensuring that those kids are taken care of. A prehistoric Cad might have 17 offspring and only 3 of them live to adulthood; a modern day Cad might have one child, then run out for a pack of smokes in the middle of the night and never come back again, going on to have a couple more kiddos along the way.

    The Dad Strategy on the other hand, means that a man does stick around and help with his children’s protection and upbringing. Dads may have only three children with one woman but they do everything in their power to make sure those three children survive to adulthood. Net result, both Cad and Dad end up with three offspring in the end.

    It’s not that men are Dads or Cads per se, these are strategies that men employ to a greater or lesser extent, to pass down their genes. We’ve all seen guys who we thought were great Dads turn around and leave their family to start a second family with another woman (too many examples to list), or men who were card-carrying Cads who suddenly one day meet a girl, settle down, and start a new life as Ward freaking Cleaver (Warren Beatty).

    A guy is not SET to Dad or Cad – while some men may be inherently more likely to use one strategy over another, all men can use either when the situation requires it. Very few Cads would stand by while their hungry child died in the streets and an impending midlife crisis seems to send seemingly committed Dads to Cad-dom in the wink of an eye.

    I suspect that there are two fundamental reproductive strategies women employ as well. By virtue of biology, women are stuck with their offspring for at least the first 9 months and generally speaking, more like 3-5 years, so a “cad” strategy really doesn’t fly where women are concerned. (yes, there are some women who leave their children, but we are talking about overall trends here and the vast majority of women thru the history of time, don’t – those genes would have been weeded from the gene pool long ago because a child without a mother doesn’t tend to live long in nature, red in tooth and claw.) So we have Moms, and Moms – but not all moms “Mom” in the same way.

    I believe that women employ the “Mary” strategy and/or the “Martha” evolutionary strategy.

    In the Bible, there is the story of Mary and Martha. You may have heard of it. Martha (and you can remember her because she has a “T” for testosterone in her name) was a lady who heard about Jesus and it all sounded pretty great so she invited Jesus back to her house so He could tell her and her family more about it. But she kind of freaked out that Jesus was coming over and went on a cooking and cleaning rampage. Her sister Mary was really chilled about the whole thing and was all like “Martha, the house is fine, if this guy Jesus is really as cool as you say, then He doesn’t care about a few dust bunnies” and went back to reading her Sinai Women Today magazine while Martha slaved away.

    Then Jesus shows up with an entourage and sits on the couch and starts telling parables and Mary sat down to listen with the disciples and the neighbors while Martha was running around bringing out wine and loaves and fishes and manna and whatever else stuff people ate in Bible times. She got so annoyed by the way that Mary was just sitting there listening and not even helping one bit, when she, Martha, was the one who had even FOUND Jesus in the first place, that when there was a brief pause in the storytelling she piped up and said, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

    Well, the truth of the matter was, Mary had been right all along. Jesus didn’t and doesn’t care about dust bunnies and the disciples and neighbors could have gotten their own wine. Martha didn’t NEED to be doing all that stuff, no one wanted her to, she was driving everyone nuts with it, no one was impressed, and it was so distracting that no one could even enjoy the parables. What she needed to do was sit herself down and listen and learn, and maybe even bond with the other disciples and the neighbors. Jesus told Martha in no uncertain terms that worrying over all those meaningless details was taking away her joy from what really mattered and that Mary was totally right in letting go of the extraneous details to focus on what really mattered – other people.

    Later on, Mary and Martha’s brother Lazarus got really sick. They sent several messages to Jesus but he didn’t show up until after Lazarus had been dead for two days. Both Mary and Martha were understandably upset because Jesus didn’t show up in time to heal their brother. But their reactions were totally different. When Jesus eventually showed, Martha locked herself away in the house and refused to see Him because she was so angry and wanted to punish him. But Mary, even though she was also angry, sought out Jesus and was like “Hey, what gives?” Jesus was so moved by Mary’s tears that He actually raised Lazarus from the dead and all was well. Mary was able to use that bond she had forged with Jesus for her family’s benefit.

    ????Ya lost me. How are those evolutionary strategies?

    The point of evolutionary strategies is to up our odds of survival (because if we don’t survive, we can’t hand down our genes and we can’t keep our kids alive to hand down their genes) and also to help our children in the short and long term, not only by keeping them alive when they’re small, but by amassing resources that will improve their ability to survive and pass down their genes to their offspring.

    The “Martha” evolutionary strategy would be to focus more energy in controlling the environment as a whole. A Martha would always be working at obtaining/preparing food, keeping things clean and orderly and warm, and even prodding others (as Martha did to her sister) to live up to their responsibilities (as she saw them). Marthas are rather competitive sorts but they mean well by it; I suspect that while Martha thought that Jesus and entourage would surely be impressed by how good a hostess she was, she didn’t just do it to impress. I really believe she loved Jesus with all her heart and wanted to be sure everyone was having a good time – it’s just that was how she showed her love, by feeding and pestering everyone. She probably reminded Jesus to wear his cloak when He left because she had heard that getting chills caused leprousy and didn’t want Him to get sick.

    The “Mary” evolutionary strategy would be to focus more energy towards interpersonal relationships and also to some extent, reserving energy for things that are truly necessary for one’s survival while relying on others to carry more of the weight. Mary was certainly not perfect, she did kinda drop the ball when it came to helping Martha – she knew Martha would do everything for her and she took advantage of that. She got to relax and conserve her energy and focus on forging friendships that could pay off in the long term, while Martha cooked and cleaned for everyone. To some extent, Mary rode on Martha’s coattails – the house was clean and everyone was fed and had wine, so she was able to capitalize on what Martha did, while at the same time she was able to be relaxed, fun, and not a b—like her sister. Mary was able to show her love to her friends via interpersonal relationships because she had the energy to do that – she wasn’t consumed with anxiety and worrying over silly things – and that paid off when Lazarus needed Jesus’ help.

    Brief pause – please understand that I am not saying nor even distantly implying that Mary is lazy or not pulling her own weight, or that moms of girls don’t do housework or whatever spin anyone is gonna come out of left field and try to put on this. The problem inherent in being a Martha is that you burn up sooooo much energy on worry and what is in essence STUPID crap that no one even notices or cares about (being perfectionistic and overly detail oriented) that there are not enough hours in the day and enough energy in the human body to enact the grand plans that Marthas can envision. It does no one any good at all to have handmade, hand embroidered matching napkins, placemats, and tablecloth sets if dinner isn’t ready when people are hungry (or Lazarus is DEAD and you’re so resentful that you lock yourself in the house and refuse to go see the one person who can fix it.)

    Marys typically have the knack of focusing on what matters and letting go of that which doesn’t. Marthas can and often do end up spinning their wheels so furiously that they never get anything of any value accomplished. Sloane may not have particularly wanted to go to the baseball game with Ferris and Cameron, but eh, what else was she going to do for a couple hours, may as well enjoy it because she was there, and her acceptance allowed the guys to enjoy themselves as well. Whereas Jeannie was burning with purpose and would have sat there stewing the entire time about how much it sucked, how boring it was, and all the other things she’d rather be doing – but what purpose would that serve other than to mentally exhaust her and ruin it for everyone else?

    Just like with the “Cads and Dads”, both approaches do have their advantages. A “Martha” strategy would help aid a woman and her offspring’s survival because she would be constantly controlling the environment as much as she’s able, planning ahead and preparing for every contingency no matter how farfetched. Marthas often demand that people play by the rules and do what they’re supposed to do. But, among the downsides to Martha is that it’s exhausting to be hypervigilant all the time, and it can enable people to stop carrying their own weight (because if they don’t do it “right”, a Martha will take over and do it themselves) and also can make people dislike you, because hey, it’s freaking obnoxious and also no one likes having the job that they have done, criticized and taken over by a bossy-boots. Plus, a Martha strategy is not going to get you very far when Genghis Khan comes rolling into town.

    A “Mary” strategy would aid a woman and her offspring’s survival because she wouldn’t be expending excessive amounts of energy worrying about things that are really not that necessary. The kids will be fed, but they don’t necessarily need to be fed Organic Raw Himalayan Yeti Milk obtained by the hands of virgin Shaolin monks dressed in hand-dyed saffron robes while they chant prayers in ancient Tibetan (boy moms, I’m exaggerating but looking at you here!). She is willing to rely on other people to carry their weight and do what they’re supposed to do without trying to take over and boss anyone around – even if they don’t do it “right”. A Mary trusts that people will help her and help her children (and even trusts that her children can help themselves, an idea that is utterly foreign to Marthas), and doesn’t expend energy worrying about details that are really meaningless.

    Interestingly, I have found that people are generally more willing to help you when you NEED it rather than when you demand it - we all know that person who is a little bit of a disaster (I am NOT not not saying this applies to girl moms!!) and always getting into scrapes but everyone makes excuses for them and bails them out constantly, whereas the person who usually never asks anything from anyone has one little thing go awry and suddenly people are either pissed and resentful about it or else whispering “man, she’s slipping” LOL. And perhaps less interestingly, no one wants to help someone who is demanding your help and then criticizing the way you did it.

    Marthas take care of themselves and their children by doing it themselves and demanding that others do things the “right” way – as I mentioned above, if the whole world is using hand sanitizer, that can help protect your kids against germs. Marys take care of themselves and their children by cementing social bonds, trusting that others will carry their weight (thereby not alienating potential sources of help aka OMG will she ever freaking shut UP about the hand sanitizer?? I’m not going to use it just to spite her), and asking for and accepting help from others – while bringing one’s brother back from the dead is an extreme example , there are many real-world scenarios where a person who is willing to accept some help graciously from a friend, relative, or neighbor pays off big time (see The Little Red Hen Factor below)

    While some of us are definitely more Martha or more Mary than others, just like with the “Cads and Dads” these aren’t really set in stone, people utilize both of these strategies and can switch from one to the other when the situation requires it. So if you’re a Mary- or Martha-type please don’t despair that your sway is doomed to failure, you can reprogram yourself to some extent and it will really help your sway.
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    !!! The Little Red Hen Factor

    Or, how social bonds really DO improve odds of survival for yourself and your offspring.

    As I’ve reread my Mary and Martha essay I feel like the whole “accepting help” thing seems a little lame and not terribly important when it comes to being an evolutionary strategy. In the modern world in which we live, securing the help of one’s community really seems a little passé – we all just take our money and buy all the “help” we need in the form of goods and services provided by strangers. But it wasn’t like that, never ever before in all of human and primate history and it used to be hugely important and necessary for survival to be able to do so well.

    Once upon a time there was a little red hen. She found some grains of of wheat scattered in the barnyard. "Look what I've found!" she said. "Who will help me plant these grains of wheat?" "Not I!" said the dog."Not I!" said the cat."Not I!" said the pig.

    "Then I'll do it myself," said the Little Red Hen. And she did. "Who will help me water these seeds?" asked the Little Red Hen. "Not I!" said the dog. "Not I!" said the cat. "Not I!" said the pig.

    "Then I'll do it myself," said the Little Red Hen. And she did. When the wheat was golden, she knew it was ready to be harvested. "Who will help me harvest the wheat?" asked the Little Red Hen. "Not I!" said the dog. "Not I!" said the cat."Not I!" said the pig.

    "Then I'll do it myself," said the Little Red Hen. And she did. "Who will help me take the wheat to the mill to be ground into flour?" asked the Little Red Hen. "Not I!" said the dog. "Not I!" said the cat. "Not I!" said the pig.

    "Then I'll do it myself," said the Little Red Hen. And she did. The miller ground the wheat into flour, and the Little Red Hen carried it home in a sack. "Who will help me make this flour into bread?" asked the Little Red Hen. "Not I!" said the dog. "Not I!" said the cat. "Not I!" said the pig.

    "Then I'll do it myself," said the Little Red Hen. And she did. The Little Red Hen mixed the flour into dough and kneaded it (kneading bread with feathers, ew). "Who will help me put this bread into the oven to bake?" asked the Little Red Hen. "Not I!" said the dog. "Not I!" said the cat. "Not I!" said the pig.
    "Then I'll do it myself," said the Little Red Hen. And she did. The delicious scent of baking bread filled the air, and the other animals came to see what was for dinner. The Little Red Hen took the warm loaf out of the oven, and set it on the table. "Who will help me eat this fresh, tasty bread?" asked the Little Red Hen."I will!" said the dog. "I will!" said the cat. "I will!" said the pig.
    "Oh no you won’t," said the Little Red Hen. "You didn't help me plant it, or water it, or harvest it, or mill it, or bake it. I shall eat it myself!" And she called all her baby chicks to her side and they ate the whole thing right up!

    According to the moral of the story the dog, the cat, and the pig repent and change their ways and are forever helpful. But in real life, there’s actually a second part to the story, about the time when the Little Red Hen gets the flu really bad in the coldest part of the winter, the rooster has found his way into the farmer’s soup pot, and LRH desperately needs help to feed her baby chicks. Because the dog, the cat, and the pig are harboring seething resentment over the bread incident, no help is forthcoming. That story doesn’t have such a happy ending for the Little Red Hen or her chicks.

    Martha can be a great strategy if you are always able to keep up with it. If you really are able to always control your environment and provide the best of everything, then your sons are going to be able to grow up big and strong and have a good shot at reproducing. Beyond that, lots of big strong sons can even help each other and each other’s offspring by banding together to fight off predators, hunt, and grow food to share. The good of the entire tribe/village depends on the existence of Martha and her sons.

    But Martha hangs on the thinnest of threads; when times go awry as they so often do, while Martha can manage singlehandedly in the shortest of terms (like the Little Red Hen, succeeding all alone for the season it takes the wheat to grow), humans don’t live in the short term. We live in the LOOOONG term and our genes live beyond us, indefinitely if we/they are successful. A social bond formed by two families or two individuals can live on for generations conferring benefits on both parties.

    Even in less-dire non-life-or-death circumstances, social bonds are very important for the success of one’s genome. Choice of marriage partner, business relationships, fostering children, apprenticeships, and servitude (historically, many children did not stay with their families, once they got old enough, they were sent off to other families to learn a trade or to be cared for and educated by others if their parents still had small children at home, while poor families had to send their children to work as soon as they were able to) were all very important to the success or failure of one’s offspring.

    I just don’t want anyone to think I’m saying girl moms, the Marys and Sloanes of the world are like Blanche DuBois, passively relying on the kindness of strangers. Not so. Forging social bonds and maintaining them, is an active business, it doesn’t just happen, it takes a lot of work. The myth of the rugged individualist that raises all their own food and never needs help from anyone, is just that, a myth. Those social bonds are just as important as anything that a Martha/Jeannie brings to the table and in the long term are actually MORE important for the survival of one’s genes. The Mary strategy can of course backfire if bonds are formed with the “wrong” people who withhold help when it’s needed (like the dog, the cat, and the pig) – but that’s why women emply both strategies. Remember, we’re neither all Martha nor all Mary, but a blend of both.
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    Is There Life After Martha??

    Since the beginnings of this essay were posted, tons of pink swayers have frantically contacted me wanting to know what they can DO to become less of a "Martha". As an example, one of my Custom Swayers recently requested a bullet list of talking points and lifestyle factors that she can mark off to make herself be more pink friendly. (and c'mon ladies, she is not alone in that desire)

    But you see, there's your trouble.

    In order to sway pink, we MUST learn to let go of control. The type of Jeannie Bueller mentality that wants to know precisely what to DO, exactly what to change, that wants to have a concrete to-do list of things that can neatly be marked off...THAT is what sways blue. It's NOT feeling stressed or rushed or hopeful, or excited about starting to sway. It's that drive/need for control, that belief that if only we have a list in hand and can mark off the boxes, tick, tick, tick one after the other, that we can change ourselves and MAKE anything happen. But pink swaying just simply doesn't work that way.

    Of course this is not hopeless, but before I get into the advice section I want to address one thing very clearly (and I am going to use a bit of "atomic tough love" here so apologies in advance). Stress, the type of normal, unavoidable, day to day stress we all experience, we do not know that it sways blue whatsoever and may even sway pink. (LINKS). Obsessing over stress, I believe, DOES sway blue. Panicking over things you cannot change, breaking into a cold sweat, hyperventilating, and repeatedly muttering "I gotta calm down I gotta calm down or my sway will FAIL!!" I also believe sways blue. Writing long and tortured messages to atomic detailing the minute and intricate events of one's life history, spelling out every single event of the last day/week/month/year and lamenting over how they might have affected "testosterone levels" (when we don't even know that testosterone is swaying to begin with), sways blue beyond a shadow of a doubt.

    I am always happy to help and act as a sounding board for you guys for any reason, but I get seriously concerned when I receive these messages from pink swayers where it clearly has taken hours and a massive amount of attention to detail to write - particularly when I can just tell that it is a huge part of their lives on a day to day basis - going over it again, and again, and again, reliving the events constantly, convincing themselves these things will ruin their sways because of "stress" or "testosterone".

    Ladies, it's SUCH a step in the wrong direction, I can't even TELL you. People are replacing worrying over pH levels and timing with worrying over worrying. It is NOT the events that occur, and it's CERTAINLY not the events that HAVE occurred months and years ago, it is the obsessing over them and spinning your wheels making plans and taking action that is largely futile and serves no purpose other than to make we boy moms feel like we've DONE something to change things.

    Stressful things happen to everyone, boy and girl mom alike. That cannot be changed. What you CAN change is your reaction to that stress. Sitting down for 3 hours to write a monologue about how so-and-so did such-and-such when and how and why, reliving it moment by moment, or even just going over it again and again in your mind, obsessing about how it surely wrecked your sway, is the absolute WRONG thing to do.

    I can reassure you that any one event cannot wreck an otherwise good sway. However, I cannot reassure you that obsessing over events that occured days, weeks, months, and even years ago and repeatedly reliving them up close and personal, live and in Technicolor, won't. I also cannot reassure you that constantly going over and over your sway, poring over others' old sways, comparing and despairing and worrying over the teensiest details will not mess up your sway - in fact I'll come right out and say that yes it probably can. Swaycession ruins sways, there is not a doubt in my mind that it does.

    People want to get the "atomic stamp of approval" and reassurance that their sway is "perfect" or that it didn't get messed up by whatever-it-was-just-awful event that happened, but unwittingly this actually serves to mess up sways. My crystal ball is in the shop, they have to order parts for it from Outer Mongolia and they don't know when they'll be in so I just can't GIVE you that reassurance because I just don't KNOW whose sway will work an whose won't. And the obsessing and writing long drawn out messages over things like "should I use RepHresh 8 hours or 12 hours before attempt" or "did my fight with my boss cause my T levels to go up" sways a zillion times harder than those things actually ever could have to begin with. Again, I'm happy to listen and help in any way that I can but I really thing several people are undoing themselves with this stuff.

    Ok so now onto the stuff that you CAN do (of course, the physical pink sway tactics like diet, exercise, supps, etc are all covered elsewhere, this is specifically the mental game here). I have parsed these down to a few little mantras that hopefully you can repeat to yourself when the going gets tough – I tried to keep it brief so please let me know if anything is less than clear.

    Desire is the root of all unhappiness.

    We Martha-types like to have everything just so and the more important something is to us, the more out of control this tendency gets. In some arenas of life, an eye for detail and a desire to get things right serves us very well. But when it comes to the gender of our offspring, the more we envision things as they “must” be and the harder we try to get everything just so, the worse it is for our pink sways – not just in swaying, the day to day life stuff matters too. The more you wantwantwant, the less you can reasonably achieve, the unhappier you are going to be, the harder you must work to get everything up to snuff, and the more of a payoff you get in terms of testosterone (or whatever it is that is swaying blue) if you do manage to pull it all off.

    Remember Mary sitting on the couch and not caring about the dust bunnies?!? Try not to aspire to a Martha-Stewart-Level of perfection in any arena of life – there is a reason why her name is MARTHA.

    So much of life is really just not that important. Try to channel Bill Murray in the movie “Meatballs” – it just doesn’t MATTER if you win or you lose! IT just doesn’t matter! It just doesn’t matter! Meatballs - Great Motivational Speech - It Just Doesn't Matter - YouTube

    Will dinner really be RUINED if you are out of cumin? Will anyone even notice that your earrings are teal instead of cerulean? If the kids watch 2 hours of tv instead of one today or every day, will it keep them from getting into Harvard? Even in swaying, keep it in perspective. Does it even make any sense that eating a little extra fat one time, months before you plan to sway, can cause you to conceive a boy? If that were the case we’d all just do diet one day before we conceive.

    She who reaches for the stars, often ends up falling on her face.

    Boy moms aim high and are often pretty driven people who manage to regularly pull off the near-impossible. But for the duration of your sway, it is important to keep this tendency reined in. Good enough is good enough. Remember the 80-20 rule – you get 80% of the results from 20% of the effort, and in order to get that last 20% of results, you will have to expend 80% of the effort - and with swaying pink, that remaining 80% of the effort is what drives testosterone levels (or whatever it is) to the stratosphere and also prevents pregnancy for the vast majority of people.

    Aim at a target you can actually HIT. The kitchen-sink style sways look great on paper but I have seen all too often, people going on month after month getting BFN, then getting fed up and convinced that they “can’t get pregnant with swaying” and drop EVERYTHING all at once only to conceive an opposite. Worse, tons of people doing uberstrict sways who end up stopping ovulation and have to sway BLUE just in order to conceive at all. IT’s so much better to do the doable. I have seen more far more pink oopsies conceived by people doing nothing to sway, than successful “perfect” pink sways.

    Whatever goes wrong is NOT literally the worst thing that ever happened, we cannot prevent every bad thing from happening, nor should we try.

    Boy moms are often “worst first” thinkers; despite this we tend to be cockeyed optimists (BBC NEWS | Health | Optimists more likely to have boys) and convinced we can do anything if only we try hard enough. We are often shocked, surprised, and utterly dismayed when things do not go according to plan (even in the smallest of ways.) This might appear to be good for a pink sway, but it really isn’t because when things go awry, we Marthas dwell on it incessantly, going over the events again and again in our mind, looking for what we did wrong and thinking about how we can improve it in future. On a fundamental level we are convinced that when things go wrong it was due to our shortcomings and that next time we will do it better and will succeed.

    We are like Captain Kirk taking the Kobayashi Maru test (for non-nerds who have no clue what I am referring to startrek kobayashi maru - YouTube and those of us who are nerds and know already, can just ogle Karl Urban for 2 min 5 sec). Marthas, like Captain Kirk, don’t believe in unpassable tests or no-win scenarios. We only believe in things we haven’t succeeded at yet. We’re obsessed by our “failures” and incessantly relive them in our minds in order to come up with a plan that will enable us to “succeed” the next go-round. Marthas are convinced there is always a way to reprogram the test and win.

    But one of the absolute hardest lessons I have ever learned and something that I still struggle with daily, is that a LOT of life IS unwinnable. Many more times than that, by far the better option is to concede defeat and walk away because the psychic cost of the battle is NOT worth it, even if you CAN win. All too often, situations involving interpersonal conflict or the setting of unobtainable goals, quickly degrade into Pyrrhic victories Pyrrhic victory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia where you literally have to scorch the earth itself and destroy what you love (friendship, marriage, your own sanity) in order to win.

    We cannot force or trick the universe into giving us a daughter if only we do the “perfect” sway. By trying for the “perfect” sway we actually destroy what we desire and often many other things of value along the way. Swaying cannot and will not ever be a guarantee and if you need a guarantee, you need to go HT.

    We live in a friendly universe.

    The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe. Albert Einstein

    Boy moms tend to view the universe as unfriendly and thus feel a need to achieve a high level of control over every aspect of the environment. We evolved in a world of saber tooth tigers and dangers around every corner and in that world, being a control freak worried about everything was a benefit – especially to a mother of sons, who tend to play it a bit more extreme than girls do.

    In the modern world, things just are not that dangerous any more. We live in the safest time in all of human history. Try to let go of irrational fears about things that are very unlikely. Marthas tend to be extremely anxious even to the point of OCD, because they have such a high need for control that they sometimes feel the need to repeatedly do things that are almost a bit ritualistic in order to protect against things that are not that threatening. Using hand sanitizer 20 times a day, feeding your kids only the absolute healthiest of foods, thinking that they will be snatched by sex predators if they are out of your sight for a moment – some people take sensible precautions too far and as we are finding, sometimes things that once seemed healthy like hand sanitizer, extreme low fat diets, and overprotective helicopter parenting, end up harmful in the long run anyway.

    There are no guarantees in this world and lightning can strike anyone at any time. All control is an illusion. This idea is anathema to many boy moms but it’s true. You can do everything right and bad luck comes from the blue and strikes without warning. In the real world you DO need to pass the Kobayashi Maru test and acknowledge the existence of the no-win situation and look your worst fears directly in the face. There is a deep peace in realizing and acknowledging this. We ALL live, die, succeed, and fail by the Grace of God, Fate, or sheer dumb luck as is your belief system. Slathering on the hand sanitizer till your hands are chapped and bloody, or checking your pH every hour for 4 days till your VJ is in the same condition, may alleviate your anxiety in the short term but it does nothing for really keeping you safe or ensuring your sway will succeed, and they just create other problems that are worse over the long run.

    If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking.

    If you’re swaying and you have done what you can do, the rest is in God’s/Fate’s/Lady Luck’s hands. Leave it there. Worrying over a sway like a dog with a bone accomplishes nothing. Poring over other people’s sways for hours a day trying to glean some magic bullet that will ensure success is pointless and worse it will undo otherwise good sways. There ARE NO MAGIC BULLETS. Spending months online every waking second trying to figure out how it all works, hunting for the pinkglittersparkledust that guarantees pink sway success is only going to raise testosterone (or whatever it is) through the roof. Meet my 4th son!!

    People think that somehow they can go through all these sways and discover some untapped gem or larger trend, but literally thousands of other women have already combed through them! Or somehow if only they know how every food out there affects testosterone or blood sugar or minerals or pH, somehow they can come up with some combo of magic foods to eat that will give 100% success. THERE ARE NO MAGIC FOODS or combinations of foods. I and many others have been doing this full time for the better part of a decade and it just doesn’t work.

    To have a great sway, make a plan as far in advance of your sway as is possible and stick to it. Let it become second nature to you. I have seen even the most anxious and swaycessed of individuals (and I can name names, starting with my own LOL) get girls by planning a sway out in advance and simply enacting it calmly as a lifestyle rather than a major military campaign, when the time came.

    Don’t go barreling off the path that has worked for people in search of a better way. Although I did that myself, it only helped me get a daughter after years had passed, one failed sway, and a LOT of hard work on my part. And it was only because no one else was doing it and swaying just didn’t make any dang sense to me. This is my passion in life and I promise that I will continue to work as hard for your guys’ sways as I did for my own (harder). If there is something new out there, I will find it and share it with you guys but it’s never going to be a magic pink pill. If you’re disappointed that I cannot offer 100% success and tell you what herb to take to guarantee a DD, you should not be swaying and need to go HT.

    If it was a simple matter of the right herb or the right food combination those clever old wives (or the thousands of women who are already on the Internet going over old sways and scientific studies with a fine tooth comb) would have figured it out already. As long as you’re on the right path, just stay the course and keep putting one foot in front of the other. It’s normal to worry and doubt, but don’t let those doubts trick you into leaving the path.

    Be the reed in the wind.

    You’ve probably heard the story about the forest in the wind – a big storm comes along and uproots the big trees, but the flexible reeds are able to bend when the wind blows and survive. That is what we “Marthas” need to aspire to in our day to day lives AND in our sways. Go with the flow, bend but don’t break. Do not panic if you find out your husband released when he was supposed to abstain. Don’t worry if you missed a day of SP. If these things could make or break sways it would be obvious by now. What DOES make and break good sways is white-knuckled maniacal control-freak tendencies running amok. This too shall pass. No matter what happens, you CAN handle it even if you don’t have the patented “Martha 10 Point Plan” to fall back on, and soon it will be just a distant memory.

    For all you know, when things go wrong as they inevitably do, it may be God/Fate/Lady Luck’s way of ensuring you will have a SUCCESSFUL sway and not a dealbreaker in any way. Sways NEVER EVER EVER come down to one little thing like that, unless that one little thing is just sheer dumb luck. Have faith that things will work out at they should and don’t ignore the universe when it offers you what may actually be a helping hand.

    We must be willing to let go of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. Joseph Campbell

    You could have all the exact problems you have right now, only be living in the midst of the Black Plague.

    Keep things in PERSPECTIVE, ladies. Of all the humans who have ever lived, being alive now is a pretty fricking sweet deal. The poorest among us are better off than the richest and most powerful people even just a hundred years ago. 250 years ago Thomas Jefferson’s wife died of mastitis. Less than 100 years ago, Calvin Coolidge’s son died from an infected blister on his toe. 50 years ago, Jaqueline Kennedy, gave birth to a son 5 weeks premature who died (as did most babies at the time born that early) who would almost certainly have lived had he been born today.

    WE ARE SO RIDICULOUSLY LUCKY THAT WE SHOULD NEVER COMPLAIN ABOUT ANYTHING. We live in a time of miracles!!! Here’s the brilliant (and girl dad) Louis CK on the subject - warning contains quite a bit of cursing: Louis CK - Hilarious - Part 6 - Cell Phones And Flying - YouTube

    This is swaying, it’s not a life or death thing and the worst that can happen is that you get another little boy to hug on. If you can’t wrap your mind around that, and having another boy is the worst thing you can envision, you shouldn’t be swaying anyway and you need to pack it in and go HT.

    You are not giving up, you are changing tactics.

    If you aren’t getting pregnant and it’s been a couple months and the scale is dipping lower and lower, you NEED to start dropping things. But it’s NOT that you’re giving up things that were going to make your sway succeed, you’re giving up things that were preventing you from getting pregnant. If you cannot get pregnant, you have no chance at your desired gender anyway. Giving up is NOT quitting, it's letting go of something that didn't work for you.

    Giving up and letting go is the most difficult, yet most important skill for Marthas to learn. Remember, Marys instinctively understand that in order to have strength for the things that REALLY truly matter, it’s important to pick your battles and reserve your energy, not break yourself to smithereens crashing up against the rocks of the impossible. Virtually every pink sway I have seen where people went on for 1 and 2 years not getting pregnant, has produced opposites. Why?? Either they go on so long doing perfect sways that they eventually give up and drop everything and often even sway blue just to be able to conceive at all, or else because they were clinging so tightly for so long, their T levels (or whatever it is that is swaying) were insanely high, or both.

    Remember, it CANNOT be just diet and even just maternal condition, because for much of human existence everyone had a terrible diet and was in cruddy condition and if people hadn’t been having both boys and girls, the human race would have died out a long time ago. I know it feels foreign and strange to Marthas, but judiciously giving up on things that aren’t working for you in your sway, sooner rather than later, is actually GOOD for pink. Think of Jeannie and Sloane when Genghis Khan came to town!

    Fighting hard to protect yourself and your relatives is good for your genes, but when captured and escape is not possible, giving up short of dying and making the best you can of the new situation is also good for your genes.
    Keith Henson

    This is a new lifestyle, not a short term event, and not a game that you can win.


    Girl moms live a pink lifestyle every day of their lives and they really do not put much thought into it. It’s best to start your sway gradually so you can ease into it and make changes slowly over time. Don’t worry about shocking your body; while we considered that as a possibility a couple of years ago, it's not proved to be a successful tactic and slow and steady has yielded better results.

    I believe that at least part of why we have seen better results with longer on diet is because the human brain eventually stops perceiving the sway as “the Great Sway of 2014” and raising T levels (or whatever it is that is swaying) in order to win a battle, find food, etc. In pink swaying, if you worry too much about winning the battles, you end up losing the war.

    Focus on other things aside from swaying, without launching new and exciting projects.

    If you’re a reader, start a new book series that will take a long time to get through (and if they involve romance and girly stuff, that’s great BUT at the same time, when I had GD I was not able to read or watch a lot of “girly” type things because they depressed me) . Suggestions - the True Blood books, Game of Thrones, Harry Dresden mysteries, or reread beloved books from your childhood like Anne of Green Gables, Nancy Drew, or Little House on the Prairie if you can stand them from a GD perspective. Lifetime and Hallmark romance movies are awesome if you like them.

    If you’re a little more bloodthirsty like me LOL, try getting a subscription to Netflix or Amazon Prime and “binge watching” that TV series you have always meant to watch but never made the time before. If a show has several seasons, even better. Suggestions on Netflix – Supernatural, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (this show used to give me horrible GD though, just warning ya). On Amazon Prime, Justified, Veronica Mars (GD warning)
    Stay busy in your day to day life and focus your attention on others instead of dwelling on that internal dialogue. Take the kids to the park, read stories and do craft projects with them (without getting hung up on the results please!!) go out to lunch with your mom or friends, date nights with DH (planned diet cheats are in order!) Go to church, temple, even if you don’t normally. Go outside and plant some flowers. Pamper yourself - get a relaxation massage, a new haircut, a mani/pedi.

    Do NOT sit at home on the computer reading every post on Gender Dreaming and the other swaying sites. Don'y go over old sways till your eyes cross and your husband moves to Tahiti. Don’t make elaborate flow charts detailing a complex and elaborate sway. Don’t make long lists of pros and cons of various sway tactics. Don’t write up long detailed lists of the stresses in your life to send to atomic so she can tell you if they sway or not. You cannot control normal day to day life stresses regardless of how they sway, those things are out of your hands and worrying about how they sway does nothing but aggravate the situation. What you CAN control is sitting down for 5 hours to write up a detailed message for atomic. I will tell everyone right now, life stress is unavoidable, both boy and girl moms experience it on a daily basis, and what you should be concerned about for your sway, is the sitting down and writing it all out and desiring a quick fix (atomic’s reassurance) part. You are asking me something I simply cannot answer without a crystal ball ("Will my sway succeed") and doing it in such a way that you actually lower your odds of success.

    Doing things you enjoy is great provided that they are not super detail oriented in nature. I would avoid things of a competitive nature such as video games, Pictionary, and entering the Pillsbury Bake Off; distractions that require large amounts of attention to detail like jigsaw puzzles, quilting/sewing, or crosswords, and limit watching/doing sports as much as is feasible (NO kickboxing, Taebo, karate!!!). Above all else, now is not the time to start big detail oriented swaying projects like temping/charting and obsessing over pH levels.

    IF you really can’t let go of control, may I humbly suggest a Custom Plan? You will have me to take care of all the details for you.

    In closing, here are a couple of poems/prayers, one secular, one religious, that I think are good for TTC a girl.

    Letting go doesn't mean we don't care. Letting go doesn't mean we shut down.
    Letting go means we stop trying to force outcomes and make people behave.
    It means we give up resistance to the way things are, for the moment.
    It means we stop trying to do the impossible--controlling that which
    we cannot--and instead, focus on what is possible--which usually means
    taking care of ourselves. And we do this in gentleness, kindness,
    and love, as much as possible.
    Melody Beattie

    I surrender my anxiety and my sense of urgency. I allow God to guide me
    in the pacing of my life. I open my heart to God's timing. I release my deadlines,
    agendas, and stridency to the gentle yet often swift pacing of God. As I open
    my heart to God's unfoldings, my heart attains peace. As I relax into God's timing,
    my heart contains comfort. As I allow God to set the tone and schedule of my days,
    I find myself in the right time and place, open and available to God's opportunities.

    Julia Cameron
    Last edited by atomic sagebrush; December 16th, 2017 at 08:11 AM.
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  10. #8
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    The Monkey's Paw(s)

    Taking a ride in the Wayback Machine to the year 2008, when I was trying to make sense of my own gender disappointment with my 3rd son and wrote these sister essays which fit in pretty well with the overall theme of this thread. While technically I was writing about letting go of the dream of a desired gender, they are equally applicable to letting go of other things - like the idea of having a "perfect" sway.


    The Monkey's Paw, Part One

    A surprisingly simple method is used to trap monkeys. Hunters take a hollow coconut and chain it to the ground, cutting a small hole in the top barely larger than a monkey's paw. Then they fill the coconut with delicious goodies and wait.

    Before too long, a hapless monkey comes along. Once she discovers the yummy treats inside the coconut, the monkey reaches her little paw in and grabs the biggest handful she can. Her mouth is watering at the fragrance, her mind is filled with the anticipation of how wonderful her meal is about to be. But when she tries to pull her hand free from the coconut the monkey finds that she's trapped! The handful of goodies she's grabbed is too big and she can no longer get her paw free. It isn't long before the hunters return. But even then, faced with certain capture, the monkey still holds tight to her treasure. The hunters simply pick up the monkey, pop her into a cage, and carry her away from her life in the jungle forever.

    To an onlooker, the solution is obvious. Why doesn't the monkey simply let go of the handful of food she's grabbed and run away? But the monkey has become so focused on hanging onto whatever is inside that coconut that she forgets all about the fruit in the trees nearby. She forgets the other monkeys, her friends and family, passing by, calling to her to join them. She forgets all the other delicious and wonderful things in the world, she forgets the joys of freedom and even forgets the potential danger until it's too late and everything is stripped away forever. All she can think about is how good life will be if only she can get that food to her lips.

    Humans are a lot like monkeys. Sometimes we cling to something so tightly that it almost traps us. We turn our backs on everything good in the world, ignoring things that are ours for the asking, in favor of one elusive dream that we clutch at. We are so hungry for our treasure that we become stuck, trapped and desperate, while life moves on without us.

    There are so many fantastic and lovely things in the world that we can have. There are relationships to forge, accomplishments to tackle, amazing things to see, read, and experience; a bellybusting smorgasbord of marvels and joy. But in order to reach for new dreams we must let go of the old dreams so our hands and heart are free to be filled with something new. It may hurt to unclench our fist when it's been in the same position for so long, but the pain grows less over time. Once we begin to use our muscles in a new way, the agony will diminish and we may even find ourselves stronger than we were before.

    We only have a limited amount of time before our days on this planet end and we are carried away from this life forever. We can choose to let go and spend that time swinging free in the trees, discovering new wonders, having adventures with friends and family. Or we can choose to stay rooted in one spot, struggling after the unattainable, drowning in the dissatisfaction of lacking the one thing we cannot have. Just like the monkey, the idea that we may need to let go of the thing we don't have so we can be free to enjoy the things we do, is something that is easy for onlookers to realize but not so easy to accomplish.

    I wish everyone wisdom and strength as we navigate life's jungles.

    The Monkey's Paw, Part 2

    If you've never read the chilling tale The Monkey's Paw by WW Jacobs, it's here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1212...-h/12122-h.htm

    There is a spooky old story about an enchanted monkey's paw with the ability to grant three wishes for whoever possesses it. The magic works, the wishes do come true, but at a horrible cost to the wisher.

    This story has been told and retold countless times in several different forms, it's become such a part of our cultural heritage that it's even been spoofed on The Simpsons and Family Guy. Somehow we remember this old story when many others have been lost to the ages. It resonates so deeply with us because at its very core we realize there is something inherently true and universal about the tale; by dramatizing part of the human experience it makes us stop to consider that all of our wishes may have unforeseen consequences should they become reality.

    It is natural and normal for people to have dreams, and it is natural and normal for us to strive to achieve those dreams. One of the most wonderful aspects of being young is that you still have every possibility spread out before you. But as the years pass by, we begin to realize that it is simply impossible for us to accomplish every goal we've ever had. There just isn't time for them all. So we begin to select the dreams that are the most realistic for us, that we are the best suited for and the most likely to achieve, and focus our energies upon them. If those dreams of being an Olympic athlete or Miss America are not really attainable for us, we turn to success in the workplace, in raising our families, and our other personal goals.

    Just as with the Monkey's Paw, our wishes carry a price. In order to have the time to achieve the achievable, we must oftentimes give up on other things we really wanted. Some women may choose to accomplish less than they'd like in the workplace to have more time to raise a family. Others might have wanted more children but decide instead to focus more of their energy on their career. All mothers are familiar with buying things for yourself off the discount rack (or not at all) so you have more money for school clothes. A sensible haircut may not feel as sexy but it gives you more time to spend with your children before school. You may have always dreamed of seeing Paris, but your next vacation will be spent at Disneyland instead. This year, and next year, and the year after that as well. We cannot have, do, or be everything.

    Accomplishing our dreams of having a child of a certain gender means we must give up something else. If we keep trying until we succeed, we may end up with more children than we wanted. If we go high tech, we are using money we may have preferred to spend on other things. If we adopt, we will have to spend a lot of time, emotional energy, and money on the process. For those of us who desperately want a child of a particular gender, even if we do get our dream child in the end, we WILL be missing out on something. Whether it's a same sex sibling for your child, experiencing the unique magic of a large, all-one-gender family, or having extra money and time for your children and yourself, these scenarios will cease to exist. If you have a girl, you won't have a boy, and vice versa. One dream may come true, but the other will disappear forever.

    It hurts to give up on things we wanted even if what we get in exchange is something we believe we will value even more. This pain doesn't mean you shouldn't at least consider it.

    No wish comes without consequences, both positive and negative. For us, for our lives, for our husbands, and for the children we already have, sometimes the best and wisest wish we might make on our monkey's paw is that we find acceptance and peace of mind with our families as they are here and now. It may be that the final stage of moving past Martha means that pink swayers eventually let go not only of their quest for a perfect sway, but even the idea of having another child altogether. And it may be that for blue swayers, moving past Mary may involve making a decision that you are going to put yourself first and do what is best for you personally, not your family or your culture. Giving up the dream doesn't make us quitters and it doesn't mean that we didn't "want it" as much as another person, who, in a different set of circumstances, made a different decision.

    At some point, the dream of having a child of our desired gender is no longer worth the price that we ourselves and our family will have to pay to achieve it. If this is where your journey ends up and you end up moving on with your family as it is, this is just as valid and beautiful a decision as those who decide to continue trying. We celebrate and salute your choices.
    Last edited by atomic sagebrush; January 1st, 2018 at 03:53 PM.
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  12. #9
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    Wow, atomic awesome essay!!! Tanks for sharing
    DS1 DS2 DS3

  13. #10
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    Just fabulous, as always Atomic
    I need to work on being a little bit more Mary than Martha
    Thanks so much for taking the time to write this x

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