I don't think anyone will be able to change my mind on this.. mums love VS dads love

[footballinterferingagain]

I honestly don't see how a dad can feel the same about a child as a mum..

You carry that child for 9 months, push them out, breast feed them, spend 24 hrs a day with them..

How can a dad possibly feel the same intensity of love for a child

(I know there are exceptions to the above and not all mums bond/ breastfeeding/ stay at home etc etc, I just mean generally) and also, my kids do have a loving dad.

Does anyone agree with me, or am I alone?

Totally not true! Both my dad and my husband love their kids just as much as my mum and myself.

Dad would have weekly daddy daughter nights when I was growing up (and even though I'm 26, married and have a newborn myself and he lives in France, we still have daddy daughter days when he comes back for a holiday!) we talk literally everyday via Facebook messenger and at least twice a week we FaceTime.

My husband has the strongest bond with our newborn daughter too! Watching movies has become a task as any movie where a child loses a parent or visa versa upsets him as he envisions that with her and it breaks his heart. And this is a man that I've seen cry 4 times in our 5.5 year relationship! (Twice at a family members death, once at our wedding and the other when DD was born).

Don't tell me dads don't

OP, do you think it’s different if a couple adopt, would you expect them to be more equal in their love as the mother (if there is one) didn’t experience pregnancy and birth, or do you think the mother would still love the child more than the father does?

I hate posts like this. It implies that if you don't experience the sudden rush of love, you're a bad mother. Not everyone experiences this. I certainly didn't. After a 28 hour labour, I was exhausted and too scared to hold my baby because I was shaking so much. DP was instantly besotted and did a lot of the initial care.

Now that DS is 9 months old, I would say that we love him equally. I probably know how to settle him better, but that's because I spend more time with him, not because I love him more.

What an insulting post

@wagtailred

Alltneteabagshavegone - i think it causes offence because it can be manipulated to 'this is what women are for' and you end up being pushed not to return to a job you love and becoming economically dependant on your partner and your partner can claim he cant help with bottles and nappies because he's not attuned to the baby like you are! Thats a scary prospect for a lot of us.

Which I totally get. Women are forced in to the trap of being the home keeper/children raiser. I stupidly went down that route myself. But that falls in to a responsibility issue not a biological one. When a child is born both parents have a responsibility to take on equal share of the upbringing but we shouldn’t ignore or hide the importance of the unique relationship most new mothers and babies have just so the men can’t shirk the responsibility

My DH has raised his four children on his own, ever since his ex-wife left them all for another man when his DD was 6 months (she's now 5).

He's a wonderful father, full of love and compassion for his children.

Their birth mother has no interest in them. She hasn't spoken to them since January. She never wishes them happy birthday or asked how they are over lockdown etc.

I think it's quite complicated. I think fathers can love children just as much as mothers but I'm not sure fathers are so focused on nutrition, development, how clean the home is, etc & most of the home education over lockdown has fallen on women in my experience. However is this because women are judged more & society expects them to do it?

Having said that I do know men who have left their wives & children & don't seem particularly bothered by the fact they barely see their kids.

Societal expectations play a huge part in how the role of a mother is perceived- we need to challenge these expectations

In your weird love top trumps, who loves their baby most? A woman whose own biological embryo was carried by a surrogate, then the baby came to her at birth? A woman who has an egg donation, but she carries and grows the baby? A mother who adopts a 2 week old baby? A mother who gives her baby up for adoption, then rebuilds a relationship with her later through patient, reliable contact? A lesbian woman who induces breastfeeding to feed the baby carried by her wife? The wife, who gives birth but then does less care afterwards?

I get what you're saying, and I think you are really referring to oxytocin and bonding hormones. On average, a woman giving birth surely has more of those than a dad (though as the studies mentioned above show, he builds it slowly).

The key thing is, you can induce the oxytocin rise with diligence and patience.

My own story is that my babies were born through surrogacy with our great friend helping us to carry them. I had no natural oxytocin, you might think. I got up every 2 hours for 5 months before each child arrived, with a breast pump, inducing lactation, to build milk supply I had to look at scan photos, vividly imagine babies, thinking my way into hormone and milk production. I built the bloody neural pathways myself through sheer hard work.

Love is more than naturally occurring hormones. Love is a behaviour. Where your choice to love leads, your body can follow. Love is praxis.

Societal expectations play a huge part in how the role of a mother is perceived- we need to challenge these expectations

Yes! My dh is very hands on largely I think because he had a SAHF. He gets so much praise for things that are completely normal for mothers to do. It's weird.

@gonshite

I think it's quite complicated. I think fathers can love children just as much as mothers but I'm not sure fathers are so focused on nutrition, development, how clean the home is, etc & most of the home education over lockdown has fallen on women in my experience. However is this because women are judged more & society expects them to do it?

Having said that I do know men who have left their wives & children & don't seem particularly bothered by the fact they barely see their kids.

Good parents care about a child's health a nutrition. That's not exclusive to mothers. Don't perpetuate the gender stereotypes!

footballinterferingagain

I'm not silly, it's an opinion and I'm asking for other people's views.”

My view: nonsense.

I feel kind of sad that people could doubt their husband's love for their child just because he didn't carry the baby.

My husband probably doesn't have the same overwhelming anxiety that I have (or used to when the baby was first born) - I don't think he jolts awake worrying the baby has somehow escaped or pictures the baby falling out a window or whatever. I do kind of think that those things come from a maternal instinct that comes from the baby growing inside us. But anxiety is not love. It's anxiety. And just because you are anxious about something doesn't mean it is more important to you than others.

He does everything for the baby, just as I do. Feeding, playing, nappies, clothes, buying stuff, making him sleep. I've never doubted he loves the baby just the same as me.

I can't comment on adoptive parents as I don't have any experience of this.

Maybe I am just unable to measure love, as a lot of posters have said.

"I think at the start that rush of hormones a woman gets is beyond replication and cannot be felt by the dad. It's pure bliss and love, beyond explanation."

I didn't feel that. Not at birth and not any time since. I love him completely but I have never experienced any kind of euphoria.

@ItWasNotOK you have got a great point there

My mother once confided that she was a bit jealous of how my Dad felt about me and my siblings. She said she knew he loved her, but the look in his eyes when he held us and played with us was so much stronger. He was just in awe of how amazing we all were as kids and would do anything for us. She knew he'd save us first before her, if we all fell into a river. Whereas she would save my Dad first every time, because she'd have him long after we'd all left home!

I probably felt similarly to you, OP, when my children were tiny babies. But that part of their life gives way very quickly to a stage where there's no reason fathers shouldn't do just as must for their DC as mothers do, and feel just the same. I know some amazing fathers. I also know plenty crap ones, and ones who just walked away and now tell people their crazy ex won't let them see the kids any more. I know some shocking mothers. So it depends and you can't really generalise by sex.

@SueEllenMishke I'm not saying fathers only feed their children junk or food or never clean houses. But in my experience men in general don't do the bulk of home cooking from scratch & baking or cleaning of the homes. I used to work in a supermarket head office, you learn so much about the way people shop & how to market to the specific audience.

[quote gonshite]@SueEllenMishke I'm not saying fathers only feed their children junk or food or never clean houses. But in my experience men in general don't do the bulk of home cooking from scratch & baking or cleaning of the homes. I used to work in a supermarket head office, you learn so much about the way people shop & how to market to the specific audience. [/quote]
But so much of this is down to societal expectations and isn't a way of measuring love.

Most of the dads I know do cook from scratch - my DH included. Then men I know are active and involved parents.

I only know one dad who isn't really involved with his kids and my male friends are disgusted by his behaviour.

Utter nonsense, my DH and I adopted our children, we would both walk over hot coals for them. On a day to day basis we might connect differently with them but our love for them is constant. Speaking to my friends I don’t think I love my children less than they do, despite them going through pregnancy, birth, breast feeding etc that I didn’t. My DCs birth mother couldn’t care for them or keep them safe, no “greater love” happening there.

And my own mum was an utter witch - no “greater love” going on there.

You do women no favours with this “no love like a (birth) mother’s love” bollocks.

I do kind of think that those things come from a maternal instinct that comes from the baby growing inside us.

Interesting that you therefore think mums who adopt don’t have maternal instinct given it “comes from baby growing inside us”.

@SueEllenMishke did you miss the part of my post that said the below?

However is this because women are judged more & society expects them to do it?

I know plenty of active & involved male parents but I'm not talking about my anecdotal experience. Women have taken on the bulk of home learning during Covid & women are more likely to loose their jobs. I've not made that up.

Men are more likely to leave their children, why do so many men not pay child maintenance?

@Jellycatspyjamas I am sorry if I offended you, I am talking about birth mothers and fathers relationships. Not adoptive parents as I have no experience of this

I see what you're saying but I know 3 men who are bringing up / have brought up children alone after the mothers left or lost custody due to what might be termed lifestyle choices. These men might rightly have an argument against what you are saying. I think I disagree.

@AnneLovesGilbert

OP, do you think it’s different if a couple adopt, would you expect them to be more equal in their love as the mother (if there is one) didn’t experience pregnancy and birth, or do you think the mother would still love the child more than the father does?

Rebecca Love wrote a book called Baby Love. It caused quite a lot of controversy about parents who adopt but also have bio kids. You should read it

To be honest, I think that some men are detached parents and immerse themselves in work etc at the expense of bonding with their family in a way that fewer women are, but that is partly about the structure and culture of the society we live in. It isn't inherent to being a father

Yes- the fact that an absent parent is most often the father is usually down to societal structure and expectation, within marriage the mother gives up work and takes on the bulk of child rearing, so often has the better bond.

So after divorce the mother subsequently retains resident parent status, partly because she has assumed the role of caregiver, and also because society judges women who leave their kids.

Then when you only see your kids EOW, often don’t have secure housing due to finances not stretching to two family homes, that bond weakens further. If you want to see the kids more it’s because you are trying to avoid paying. I can kind of understand in a way.

My brothers son wanted to live with him for a’levels as the college was closer. The accusations of “taking my child away” and point blank refusing to pay to have that child taken away was telling. That and what will people think.