Annoyed about this birth announcement

Yonic

mrs it's not about being a martyr, it's about the dad taking credit for something he didn't and couldn't have done, it's a physical impossibility for a man to go into labour. It's really fucking disrespectful actually. If your partner had major surgery for example, would you say 'we went into surgery at 9.30... Etc etc'. Well I would hope not, because it's twee bollocks.

Fwiw if my dh hijacked and told people we went into labour, I would give him a taste of what the pain was like

Oh, and, like Lass, DH does 50% or more of the parenting. He's as much a parent as me, just as ST is as much a mother as her partner.

None of that is relevant to the fact that he supported my birth experience but didn't have it. I'd happily have let him if he was be-uterised!

Lost three pints of blood in my first labour.

Got an infection after my second labour and was back in hospital for a week.

Tore and was stitched both times.

That's not martyrhood, it's medical reality. And I had it a lot better than many.

"It has to happen at some point down the line with uterus transplants for women beginning to happen"

Um.

A uterine transplant into a woman who has the internal structures for it and the birth canal, filled with powerful muscles to which it attaches, is light years away from a transplant into a man.

I know. Roll on the development of uterus transplant etc to allow men to be pregnant and indeed changes to attitudes to give men equality in parenting all round. Ultimately, its the only way to have a truly equal society.

It's the mother martyrs who make such a big deal of pregnancy and birth...

She has said she is every bit as much as their mother as their birth mother. Well of course she is. Being a parent is not about being biologically related to a child at all.

But that isn't what this thread is about. This is about a man co-opting a woman's experience as his own.

She has said she is every bit as much as their mother as their birth mother. I don't think she is actually biologically related to them at all.
It's the mother martyrs who make such a big deal of pregnancy and birth which makes me feel sorry for adoptive mothers and mothers in same sex relationships.
The Dad in the post was excited and was there every part of the way with his partner. Your post is mean spirited and unfair to mothers ( and fathers) who have children but don't actually give birth.
Yes, I am a mum but I don't want it to make me a mother martyr with my children and husband.

mrsmuddle, it is not about equality in parenting. It is about the very specific act of giving birth and labour. I don't think he should get any credit for 'going through it' or take that experience for himself. He certainly doesn't sound like he's into equality for women if you look at the OPs other reasons for being irritated by him. I'm sure Sandt Tosvig has not talked about when 'we went into labour' and I'm sure if she did, she would be belittled for talking utter tosh. (Except she is not so stupid to do so).

I personally do not like 'we are pregnant' but this defo ranks higher on the cringeworthy scales.

almond Sorry, I was not including your post in the mean spirited ones.

Bizarre thing to be bothered by if I'm honest. I will happily say we were pregnant. I didn't do it by myself... He had to put up with all my moaning, do the things I couldn't and pander to my unreasonable pregnancy tantrums. Poor bloke probably had it harder than I did.
As for labour we went into labour, last time what did I do bar bounce about to music with the kids and have a lovely day at home with my family that ended up with me birthing a baby in a pool HE filled with midwives HE was happy to provide tea and biscuits for in a space that HE made sure was beautiful and serene.

Give the poor guy a break, he's just excited!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37600771
I wonder if Sandt Tosvig, feminist founder of the female equality party considers herself less of a mother because she didn't give birth to her children. I have heard her talk about her children many, many times and yet she has never been belittled for not have given birth in the way some of you belittle fathers. Double standards at work I think.

I wonder how many women who endure a pregnancy and give birth would be prepared to surrender this role to men.It has to happen at some point down the line with uterus transplants for women beginning to happen. A married male friend of mine in a same sex marriage has used a surrogate to enable he and his husband to have children and they are such wonderfully relaxed parents without the huge glory martyrdom that some women go in for.
A large national survey recently found that most women in the UK are very happy to be women, far greater percentage than the number of men happy to be men. Yet some women are so determined to exclude and belittle men in their role of parents. Then they moan about men not parenting equally.
Some of you are building up future problems in your desire to take all the credit for raising children. Embrace the desire from men to parent equally and avoid the competitive martyrdom of the sainted motherhood that some of you want to constantly bang on about.

I can't imagine any man seriously saying 'we were in labour for eight hours'. It's just a blatant lie isn't it? Women carry children and go through childbirth. Men, regardless whether they are supportive and lovely or totally useless do not.

The whole notion that the shared experience of birth is intrinsically more intense than the shared experience of the death of a loved one is surely highly subjective.

I found caring for a loved one as they died to be a very similar experience in terms of the emotional demands. The physical demands and exhaustion were far greater when caring for someone who was dying given the time scales involved.

It's not mean spirited to draw such comparisons.

Even when caring for someone who with a serious illness, frequently what keeps that person alive is the participation of a loved one. It does require another person for the ill person to survive.

I am genuinely asking how we describe caring and supporting as a role. I'm not trying to be flippant.

None of those are the same as the intense shared experience of a birth and none of them require the participation of another person for them to happen.

I can imagine a man saying "we were in labour for 8 hours" and what he's actually saying is "we were in the labour ward for 8 hours"

I think there are some very mean-spirited comments on here.

I wonder if there are people who do this for other situations.

When we had cancer...

When we died...

When we were taking our final breaths...

When we had our period...

When we went through the menopause...

Its between him and his wife, really. If she's happy for him to say 'we went into labour' then it's not really up to anyone else.
Some couples do like to act as if they are one person. A few months ago there was a thread on AIBU about betraying a friends secrets by sharing them with their husband/wife and a lot of posters didn't seem to see anything wrong with this, because they saw their partner as an extension of themselves.
I can see why it's irritating, but just be glad you're not married to him.

You know lots of men who do 50% of parenting ? Like the nights feeds , taking time off work when your child is sick, being a SAHP and losing your career or going part time? cleaning up the vomit?

My husband definitely did, probably more than 50%.

Once I gave up breastfeeding at 3 months everything was shared. Neither of us gave up our career. I had just over 3 months maternity leave- he had the standard at the time one week paternal leave.

We took week about at school run in the morning, the nanny did school collection. We both turned up at school events, neither of us helped out in the classroom. He definitely did all the awful Saturday morning rugby games.

Emergencies/ sickness (not that there were many) were done by whichever us could be spared from work.

I doubt he was glory seeking...I think he meant it as him and his wife shared it together. Your reading too much into it...

I agree. "We are pregnant" is awful but I also think the person who has the rigjt to object to this sort of talk , if she wants too,is the female half of the "we".

Hmmm, maybe it was one of those hospitals where they name everything after donors. The particular room they were going into was the bequest of the famed Victorian philanthropist Cornelius Labour.

Just a theory.

Ugh, the worst.
My (dickhead) BIL came to pick up our children when I was in labour last time and said, with a serious face to my DP "oh I remember when Louise and I were in labour with this little one" whilst pointing at his daughter. I screamed at him to fuck off.