To be annoyed with this 'Dad's survival guide' stereotypical assumption

[Pinky333777]

The first paragraph in this really got my goat!! (See photo)

It seems to assume us pregnant ladies are ladies of leisure and simply wait home all day for our darling husbands to arrive home from work!

It's my partner who is home all day, as he's lucky enough to have a job where on average he works a few hours of an evening 3 days a week.

I'm the one heading out the door at 7:30am leaving him in bed and arriving home at 6pm if I'm lucky.
Why assume it's only the men who work the long hours??
Really made me mad reading that.
Perhaps it is hormones making me more annoyed or it could be because I'm just a little bit jealous of my partners cushie work!

Ah, us silly wimmin with our hormones, eh? Poor bloke doesn't know what he'll come home to, anything from Eyeore to Hulk Hogan! Just what he needs after a long day at work. Mine is spending a day next week in a Safari Park with the students, the poor, exhausted bastard - I better make sure to make my own wrong-mug tea that day and not put him out by my wild pregnant rages. I'll just quietly make him some dinner (though if he came out with that crap, he would be enjoying a plateful of nothing with a side of fuck off).

Misogynistic nonsense and so unhelpful. Hurtful to think that stuff like this is still being written.
I've never felt like this is any of my pregnancies. Reminds me of the ridiculous stuff I used to see about "time of the month" and how women were deranged for one week in four.

Well one bit of it is accurate. If my DH wrote that shit he would indeed see "someone who looks a little like the woman you left this morning but holding an axe"...

Where did you get this booklet? Please don't tell me it's something being given out by the NHS.

YANBU!! This has really annoyed me in my pregnancy too. DH bought a book on pregnancy aimed at men as he wanted to learn about what my body is going through and how his child is developing. It was bloody awful and had similar language to this. He came downstairs after reading a few chapters and said he couldn't believe how well I was handling it!!
I've had my moments obviously and I am maybe a little more sensitive than usual but definitely not where my DH is concerned. More at other people in my life.

I could rant about this all day. The 'tips' he gets on an app about whether or not to approach me for sex and telling him that I should be the one who chooses what we do and when we do it (on days off etc) are complete crap. Do they think I am incapable of maintaining a loving marriage where I think about my DH and his feelings as much as he thinks of mine just because I'm carrying a child?? Does it actually have to be all about me just because I'm pregnant?? Of course not because I'm having a baby - not a bloody lobotomy and am capable of rational thought still!!!
Fucking patronising wankers. He was looking for actual information on my pregnancy... not patronising relationship advice that he doesn't need!!!

I realise my rant in no way helps to dispel the image of an angry hormonal pregnant woman
Oh the irony...

Good point about the language, Pengggwn. Very revealing.

What I remember most about my own first pregnancy is supporting the family through MILs breast cancer treatment. And working, of course, and planning my career. Hormones may have happened but I didn't have an awful lot of time to notice them.

I found it online following a link from a site called Bounty.
A friend recommended I sign up and mentioned it's also recommended by midwives, but I don't know that for sure myself.

www.newdadssurvivalguide.com/Articles/The-Pregnancy/Hormones-explained.html

Oh, it's ok ladies, we can't help it - we're literally out of control . What a pile of unhelpful shit.

Edmund WHAT?!!!!

Sorry - that should have said "what the actual fuck."

It seems fairly lighthearted, not a scientific biology paper.

"literally out of control". Fuck that! Way to perpetuate the utter nonsense that women are controlled by their hormonal urges.

Just as shitty as saying that men are visual creatures who need porn to survive.

Oh it gets better! More helpful notes on your now apparently completely insane 'good lady':

www.newdadssurvivalguide.com/articles/The-Pregnancy/Avoid-an-argument.html

The other damaging side of this - what if I am actually upset or angry about something during my pregnancy? Should I not say anything because people don't be able to take me seriously as it's "obviously my hormones" ??

Edmund And that's delivered by bounty??

If I behaved the way they think I should be behaving I would expect my DH to tell me to fuck off tbh. There is no excuse for treating your partner that way!

ethelfleda, but but but, we're out of control! We need sympathy and to hear the word 'sorry' 1000 times a day! Only tea-in-the-right-mug and endless apologies with soothe our inner She-Hulk!

ethelfleda exactly. There's already loads of posts on here that start out with "I'm not sure if I'm being unreasonable or if it's my hormones but....". Women already minimise their reactions and this pile of bilge is encouraging their partners to do it, too. How ridiculous that Bounty thinks that men who are motivated to learn how to support their partners need information presented in this facile, "blokey" way. It might be intended as lighthearted but there are other, better ways to take that tone without the lashings of patronising misogyny present here. OP, unsubscribe and complain to Bounty!

It's just another way of getting across the message that women are mad/ irrational/ impossible to understand so don't take anything they say or do seriously, just humour them and tell them what they want to hear🙄

Edmund haha - I like the phrase 'inner she-hulk' I may use that next time I'm attacking my DH with an axe

napme totally agree. I just showed that link to DH and he thought it was hilarious... but I said I do feel sorry for men who take it too literally and think they're doing right by their partners when all they are doing is perpetuating a very outdated and misogynistic stereotype!

This is infuriating.
I would advise not looking at the Guardian story on maternity pay today if you want to retain normal blood pressure...

Christ, that's tedious.

It's not always hormones. Maybe we hate that fucking mug??

Fucking patronising.

And literally out of control? Literally? Even saying figuratively out of control would be offensive, but literally???

Worst thing, if I found the twat who wrote that and harangued them, they'd say I was doing so because of pregnancy hormones rather than because they're wrong.

See, I could take it as 'lighthearted' if it was a couple of throwaway lines in an otherwise informative and helpful article from 'a dad to be' point of view. However there's at least three articles I've now read in that section that is just purely negative stereotyping and of no actual help to either parent to be.

Some of it could actually be quite damaging for a relationship if taken seriously. If my partner basically told me to 'sit down, my pregnant, hormone-crazy love, I'll make a cup of tea and we'll talk nicely' I probably would see red. How fucking patronising to be treated like a toddler having a tantrum.

Are women not allowed to get angry or frustrated during pregnancy? Or are we basically in The Purge for 9 months, where any manner of awful behaviour is allowed, with our partners pathetically mumbling 'sorry' as we throw yet another object at their heads? I'm surprised there isn't an article suggesting the bloke 'goes down the pub and wait for it to blow over' whilst she's giving birth - 'try and conceive between April and September, that way there should be some decent footy on whilst your good lady gets on with labour'.