To be appalled at how most couples share childcare of a newborn?

[lmcc13]

I’m in a same-sex couple with my wife, together for 7 years and married for 2. We were delighted to add to our family four weeks ago when my wife gave birth to our beautiful baby boy. Becoming a parent, I’ve noticed lots of people (friends, colleagues and strangers) sharing anectdotes about their own parenting experiences. The thing that has shocked me most is how unequally caring for a newborn seems to be shared between the couple. We don’t have any other gay parent friends, so I don’t know if this is different in same-sex partnerships, but amongst straight couples it still seems the norm for the stay at home parent (exclusively mums in our social circle) to do the lion’s share of the work; during the day, in the evening and at night. I keep hearing “well of course if she’s breastfeeding, there’s not much you can do to help” and “well, I have to get up and go to work in the morning”. I find both comments infuriating! My wife is exclusively breastfeeding, and I am now back at work, but the list of things I can contribute towards raising our son is long. I clean and tidy the house, get shopping in, load and unload the dishwasher, change 95% of the nappies when I’m home (including all the night nappy changes), sterilise the breast pump when she expresses...etc etc. I’m up in the night every time the baby cries to change the baby, help my wife into the feeding chair, then later burp the baby and settle him back into his cot. And, like most of our friends and colleagues, I have an office job - I might be tired and incoherent at work occasionally during the day, but I’m not solely responsible for a human life! Unless the working parent drives, operates machinery or cares for others (nurses, teachers etc.) I refuse to believe that they can’t share in the exhaustion too. Very long rant, sorry! I think I’m just a very disappointed feminist to realise that parenthood seemingly transports many women back to be 1950’s. Why are women allowing this to happen, and why aren’t men stepping up more?

Good lord woman! Most mothers are not an helpless invalids. I took care off our baby, cleaned the house, cooked, put him in a sling to feed the horses and cows or to garden. My husband, a farmer, never hesitated to change a diaper but wasn’t expected to do it. He made a little bed for our baby so he could take him out in tractors, swathers etc that had room for it. I’d hunt them down to breast feed the baby.

When I fed the baby at night it was lovely, peaceful and tranquil. I never considered it work. I sometimes think many modern day humans don't understand real work anymore.

Whatever about the rest of it; the fact remains that the op is FOUR WEEKS IN.
4 little old weeks. And she’s appalled that the rest of mankind hasn’t worked out how to do it properly.
Like she has. 🤪
I wonder if she’s actually conducted surveys among her friends, as she appears to know the ins and outs of their setups (and have the headspace to give a shit) far more than is strictly usual.
Let’s hope they haven’t been given the benefit of her wisdom like we have.

Sisgal, wow. I'm stunned by that. Disagree 1000%.

LRD op doesn't come across as some poor woman who is now away licking her wounds after the nasty people of mn were mean to her.

Four weeks in to be a parent she felt fabulous enough about how great a spouse she is to come online and explain how appalled she was at how crap other people are. It wasn't even a woman coming in to express how great her partner was compared to others. She had decided that as a gay woman she was clearly doing a much better job. It was rude, presumptuous, offensive, sanctimonious and clearly a fishing trim for compliments. She's disappeared because it didn't go her way

I completely agree with @TheWinter.

OP wrote a judgemental post, basically saying she was a far superior parent because they are a same sex feminist couple, and that other heteo couples pale in comparison because of their "outdated, patriarchal parenting style"

She got what she deserved, a cold harsh wake-up call, to perhaps wind her neck in.

There is no gold standard of parenting. There is no prize for "best perceived parenting strategy". We're all just muddling through best we can, making multiple mistakes along the way and sometimes the odd triumph. Nobody is superior to anyone else, regardless of their sexuality or home set up.

Hmmm, I don’t see the point in both people getting up for the night feed really. I used to do them while OH slept. Although, I would go to bed about 9pm, he would stay up with DD until next feed at about 11/12 then go to bed. He needed to be alert for work and I could stay at home in pjs and nap when baby napped. I did most of the round the house/baby care stuff and he would cook dinner, wash up etc when he was home. Weekends we took it in turns to have a lay in and look after baby/do jobs around the house/pop to supermarket.

There are ways to split things without both being shattered. Everyone does things differently. Whatever works for your guess! But, it’s early days... you will soon be arguing over who has had more sleep etc!

I’ve only given birth by (emergency) CS and I have been walking and taking care of baby same day and 2 days later up and about as if nothing happened.

Don't need you to agree. It's my opinion

The helping her into chair made the ops wife seem like some sort of delicate flower or even worse a goddess that needed faffed over Ithink the majority of posters were cringing for her I know I was

*Whatever about the rest of it; the fact remains that the op is FOUR WEEKS IN.
4 little old weeks. *

Yes.

Remember how difficult those first few weeks are?

30hours I believe that sisgal is saying that a woman who has adopted is a “mum” and not a mum too.

Sisal, are you saying that a same sex couple can't be parents? Or more precisely, that they are only a parent if they give birth?

Charolais I realise my post sounded like I was bed-bound for weeks, I didn't mean that. I meant I struggled to get up from a bed. Once I was up, I could walk around, but getting up and down were really painful.

(It was a c-section with complications that required additional surgery.)

With DD we were on the financial bones of our arse, DP was in a new job so no security. The LAST thing I wanted was him tired and fucking up at work. Y'know - because we had two kids needed to pay the mortgage.

user, I do disagree a bit. I know it's personal interpretation, but to me, she does come across these ways.

@sisgal you’ll be destroyed for the comment saying that OP isn’t a mum... but many would agree. Adoption is very different from just... being there when another woman has a baby with someone else.

But the OP wasn't just there when another woman has a baby with someone else? Unless I have missed something?

I would assume based on what she writes in her OP, that she is the legal mother of this baby.

Gosh, there's a lot of people on here who have gone out and ridden a horse and milked the cows and done the ploughing a week after giving birth, including by C-section.

And there's a lot of men who "don't hear" or "are heavy sleepers".

And heaven forbid that anyone should think about caring for a newborn as hard work that might need your full attention. Let alone those that also have a toddler/are doing the school run/need to be able to drive safely.

Agree some responses are harsh but OP is the one who suggested basically that she was superior because she was a gay woman rather than a heterosexual man. That's bullshit. If she's doing a good job as a supportive partner (and continues to do so longer than 4 weeks) it's because she is a good partner and a good parent. Just like if a man does the right thing. If they don't it's because they're lazy, not because they are a man or because they are heterosexual

Totally agree with OP. It's infuriating that so many mothers are so widely screwed over by the lazy, selfish fathers of their dc.

Having said that I totally understand why those women minimise the problem - that's their life! You can't go to the not fair police in a patriarchy

I was boiling with rage when my dsis was forced to do all the work (hid it from both of them in order to avoid problems)

Being very honest here, is it is AIBU after all

sisgal what the?
By that token DH and I were "just there" for our babies, oh wait, we and the OP and LRD are their legal parents even if we aren't their biological parents. See how that works?

Formatting went haywire there, but I was replying to 30hours.

Being a non-biological, non-adoptive parent isn't 'just being there' while your partner 'has a baby with someone else'.

YY dr.

And, sorry, I keep harping on about this but I do think it matters.

The OP is, by virtue of her situation, isolated from a whole lot of the normal parenting conversation and support people get. She may sound sanctimonious or provocative or as if she thinks she's solved it all, but I really don't think she is, and I certainly don't think the level of unpleasantness in some replies is fair.

Nothing better than a brand new parent telling everyone how they should be doing it.

@Belina,
people who said op is coming across like she is superior because she is female and not a man are right. The post stinks of shade and gay couples always trying to promote how much better they are then straights but if straights say anything its "homophobic"

Sorry, but your post stinks of homophobia. "Gay couples always trying to promote how much better they are then straights"?