Joe Wicks and his breastfeeding journey

It's nothing to do with him navel gazing and joining in or having a special journey - it's all about money! It's quite obvious. His special journey is all the way to the bank!

He has (they have) seen a way to make a few quid and are rubbing their hands together a la Bloody ... whats his name ... the naked bloke ... Jamie bleedin' Oliver!

We'll have Joe Wicks' kids clothing line next, mark my words.

Men can't breastfeed but can help (with food, holding the baby who wants a human mattress, nappies etc) but they can't do, however much they want to.

It's tough watching someone suffer (poor latch, mastitis, sleep deprivation) when you know you can't actually take over and change anything and if the woman is anything like me, telling you to "stop interfering you don't understand" or "at least 1 of us needs some sleep, go to the spare room".

Plus the whole bonding thing - DH found DC2 tougher to bind with until 6 months when DC2s personality developed - as DC1 was new and exciting first time around...

I'm not being "poor men" but I think reality Vs expectations can be an issue and lead to men being pushed away/withdrawing from parenting "accidentally" and thus becoming "useless" at parenting.

I'm still a bit guilty of this - DC2 is now 2 and I get cross when DH doesn't instantly know what uniform DC1 should be wearing every day for school (Covid means we have a weekly timetable of PE clothes, old clothes for forest school) or interferes with sleep routines/allows too much TV...

Doesn't surprise me at all.

I cannot abide that smug little man at the best of times.

I normally find this sort of thing toe-curling and as many of you point out it wasn't his "breastfeeding journey".

On the other hand I supposed credit is due to him for actually trying to understand it.

My ex was totally unsympathetic about the challenges I had with breastfeeding and couldn't get us onto formula fast enough so I suppose there's progress of a sort in his outlook.

@PeggyPorschen ... but, but ... of course people are pretending men can 'join in'. You've said it. Joe Wicks has said it. It's, like, all over this thread?

If you suddenly decided you're wrong, feel free to say so, but otherwise, I can't follow your post.

But it's not healthy and it's not right to pretend that feeding the baby is the mother's problem, so fathers can completely disappear and wash their hand of the whole thing.

Is there not a middle ground between pretending that men have their own journey through breastfeeding and expecting them to disappear? Can men not be supportive unless they're told that it's all about them?

It's the opposite of making them "special", it's all about making normal and standard for the father to be involved.

It should be so normal for mothers and fathers to be involved equally that we wouldn't have ridiculous debates like this one.

And we KNOW that fathers cannot breastfeed

She's probably too busy breastfeeding and pumping to write the book herself!

Fucking hate Joe Wicks and his poodle hair. How annoying when his wife and him both cook something and at the end go 'and that right there is wean in 15'. Do fuck off you patronising little twats.
Rant over.

But it's not healthy and it's not right to pretend that feeding the baby is the mother's problem, so fathers can completely disappear and wash their hand of the whole thing.

It's not even like breastfeeding is such a walk in the park for many mothers. Mocking parents who need education, or at least guidance, is insulting to both parents and disgusting when you see how many mothers are struggling and making themselves sick because they feel they are failing.

Nobody is trying to keep men away from parenthood at all but we have to not indulge this nonsense that men are special for being a dad and doing what they are supposed to do.Joe wicks and his breast feeding journeys is the modern version of dad's "babysitting" their own kids as I'd they are the Messiah it's ridiculous !

I am sick and tired about women trying to keep men away and clinging onto what they pretend belongs to them.

My tits belong to me and if DH had spoken about them as if they were his during the seven and a half bastard years I spent feeding our children he would not have liked the response, I don't think

@SarahAndQuack I wish, if I had a sister there would be someone to share my eye rolling at the constant praise and awe at everything the brother does!

You need to read some of the other bits of that book OP, there's a delightful section where he berates his mum for not breastfeeding him and for feed him things like (shock horror) pasta in tomato sauce. He says it makes him laugh that she was so clueless. Gave me the rage.

It's nothing to do with 'having it both ways' though, is it?

It's about respecting men as human beings, rather than treating them as fools.

Fathers can't 'join in' with breastfeeding. There is no sensible reason to pretend they can with language about 'our breastfeeding journey'.

Perhaps he's currently working on 'From First Twinge To Out It Pops - Joe's Journey Through Giving Birth'?

That would be massively helpful to women too.

Well you can't have it both ways

you cannot insist on making all the baby issues YOURS and yours only, and be miffed offended or precious because the father gets involved.
I am sick and tired about women trying to keep men away and clinging onto what they pretend belongs to them.
Even my local Facebook Mums group is banning fathers - instead of being a parenting group. No one is putting their boobs out on facebook, no valid reason whatsoever to keep it "female only, absolutely none.

My own DH was tutted at baby clinic because his male presence was bothering other mothers - it's a clinic to check the weight of your baby! How is that remotely a female thing??!?

I want fathers to be just as involved, know it's absolutely normal to be involved, it's not a female thing, know that breastfeeding might be natural but it's not easy, it's challenging and can be painful and mentally difficult at time.

Women win nothing at all by pretending men need to be kept out.
Now if YOU are more comfortable and don't want YOUR partner around when you breastfed and want to keep it YOURS, that's absolutely fine and nobody's business.
But we cannot stop fathers to join in.

@unmarkedbythat I laughed out loud at your post. Are you my sister?!

It is seriously weird. I always assumed I'd have a baby with a man and I was on MN for years listening to women talk about this stuff, and I thought I knew it all.

Then I had a baby with a woman and I ended up with the men doing NCT and so on, and it still had the capacity to absolutely stun me. The men in our NCT group were mostly nice, some of them were lovely, and not one of them was what you'd call abusive or a bad father or anything like that.

But the sheer level of expectations floored me. There is so much pandering to men as if they're stupid and incompetent and need praise all the time. It is incredibly embarrassing. I don't see why intelligent women would defend it. It's not good for men or women.

My brother is a bit like this. He talked about when they were pregnant and when they were going in to labour and the problems they had breastfeeding. My mum gave me shit for pulling him up on it and wittered on about how his wife appreciated his caring and 'being so involved' and then his wife said actually no I fucking hate him talking like that, it's embarrassing. You can be very, very involved and very, very supportive whilst still recognising that you are not the one pregnant, giving birth or lactating and you just sound a bit of a tit if you speak as if you are. (Mind you if my brother took a shit in his garden our mum would wax lyrical about how great he is to naturally fertilise the plants and how lucky his wife must feel to have a husband who does that so...)

I don't know who Joe Wicks is but you said it yourself: your rage is irrational.

I can't imagine a world where this bothers me. Loads of celebrities write dumb stuff in dumb books. Just ignore it and carry on with your life.

FWIW on the "we" thing, I've never even heard it in real life. Or never been bothered by it enough to pick up on it if I have. Seems to be one of those harmless and irrelevant things that mumsnetters love to get angry about.

That is correct, he does not have any qualifications in nutrition, he co-wrote the book with a qualified child nutritionist (but you don’t find that out until the very last page of the book where she gets a very small mention)

No such thing as a “qualified nutritionist”. It isn’t a protected title and anyone with a certificate from the University of Fictional science can call themselves a qualified nutritionist.

I think until we stop treating fathers as if they were rather dim Labradors we need to train up to be slightly more than useless, we're never going to get equality, because they'll always think they're doing wonderfully well when they're doing very little.

Brilliantly put! It's so grim and depressing watching DH get praised as amazing for being 'such a hands on dad', while I get judgement - even though actually we probably have about a 60-40 split with me doing the 60. For instance, we both work four days a week, and it would appear from people's reactions that he's The World's Best Dad for looking after a toddler alone one day a week, while I'm a cold bitch for spending four days away from my child...