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?

Congrats on your Little Boy. My hubby worked long shifts in manual work but he did his fair share. He did night feeds on his late shift but if he was up early I did everything as In his job he needed to be alert and not half asleep. Couldn’t have done it without my hubby as we have five children but in saying that he did need prompting 😂

Their partners need to be as equally accepting of stereotyped societal norms for that to work?
I knew someone who whinged on about how her dh was deliberately useless with the kids (to the extent of leaving an hour earlier than he needed to for his commute - to have a leisurely breakfast in a cafe to avoid helping out in the mornings!)
He also volunteered for overtime during the Christmas holidays as he felt so suffocated by family life.
She had four children, two of them at least born after he’d shown her exactly how their lives were going to be.

I have to say i did everything my partner works really long hours... my daughter is now 3 i run the house he runs the businesss works 4 us x

I don’t really think it’s anyone else’s business how a couple share parenting, if they’re happy with it, then why would anyone else be concerned as long as baby is happy & healthy?

I don't see the point of my partner waking in the night when I'm getting up. I'd rather he sleep well so he can do his job safely and enjoy his time with me. I also do 80% of cleaning and cooking because I'm off all day with the 3 month old and he's working. When I'm back to work we'll do half and half again.

A lot of men are lazy twats, it's not their wives' faults for "allowing them get away with it" though. It's their fault

It's both. If you lie down like a door mat you get walked on. Plus you picked the lazy twat to procreate with in the first place, bad call.

You right irishbookworm...

My partner and I shared care equally. I did the night feeds as I was ebf but he did other stuff. He also did all of the cooking and cleaning. He would take the baby for a couple of hours so I could get a big nap in early evening. 8 years later and with two children he is still as involved as ever. He knows what is going on with the kids as well as me and co parents fairly.
I think you have to arrange things with what works for you. Good luck with your new baby.

OP, you sound wonderful. I wish I had a wife.

I loved the night time feeds with both of my DS. Just the two of us, snuggling together while they fed, not having to share them with anyone. Bliss.
DH worked 6am-10pm and came home for an hour at lunchtime (we lived at his workplace) most days when DS1 was newborn. I had bags of time to do housework and sleep during the day while he was working.
We had a relatively ‘traditional’ set up where I looked after our babies and the house and DH went to work and kept a roof over our heads. I didn’t go back to work til DS1 was 4... I think I got off pretty lightly really. I didn’t see it as any hardship that I was doing the ‘majority of the newborn care’... if it wasn’t for DH working his arse off in a stressful career, I wouldn’t have had nearly as much time to enjoy raising my boys in the early days.
There is no rule book for raising newborns, we’re all just winging it. If it works for you then that’s ace, and what works for other people is ace too. It’s all about maintaining sanity 😁
Congratulations to your new little family, enjoy your newborn, you’ll have a teenager before you know it 😊

I was on maternity leave when I had both my kids. My husband slept in the spare room for the first 6/8 weeks until they went into their nursery. I breastfed one and mixed fed the other why should my husband need to be exhausted too?! I wasn’t at work the next day , he was and he was doing exams too. I think that it’s unreasonable to expect both parents to be exhausted just to be equal.

Our little girl is 17 weeks. I was exhausted after a failed induction & ended up with a forceps delivery with an episiotomy. My husband was great with cleaning shopping etc but tbh with breastfeeding especially as a newborn, she was permanently either on me or asleep. During the night I tried & still try not to wake him, there’s not often a need but if he does wake or I need him he’s there. No point in us both being exhausted. Plus he’s a self employed painter & decorator so up early & works long physical days. In the early days he was also very nervous, which I think a lot of men are. He’s finding his feet more & more. I think like everything in a relationship you find your own balance & what works for you. It’s not a generational thing though, my Grandad was a very active & involved parent & I know much younger fathers who are hopeless.

I’m amazed, yet not really amazed at how horrid some people feel they can be on mumsnet.
OP unfortunately when you look at the majority of stay at home parents, they are still women. When your son goes to school the majority dropping off and picking up are women. This often leads to the gender stereotyped roles in the home.
Shared maternity/paternity leave is changing the viewpoint but it is an incredibly slow process.
You will encounter far more gender based challenges as a parent and you will try to change people’s minds about stereotypes but some people genuinely think blue for boys and pink for girls. It’s hard work to keep your mouth shut sometimes. Good luck. Hopefully you are not too inundated with blue clothes and car based toys yet.

Congratulations! Is all I want to say

My DH never got up in the night to help with any of my children or helped round the house, reason being he has a full time job 12+ hrs a day 6 days a week running his business he was shattered when came home from work. I didn’t have any help from family of friends but at the end of the day you just get up & get on with it I had no choice!

What would actually help people properly share care would be much longer paternity/parental leave for men that doesn't require the mother to give up part of her maternity leave, as shared parental leave currently does. Until men are able to take significantly longer leave then little will change.

@lmcc13 you sound like an amazing support to your wife!
I have a 6 month old and wish her dad had been half as helpful as you sound ( he left after 4 weeks) he actually didn't think I was doing enough round the house whilst he was at work or hadn't made the tea.
I was ebf and he was just awful about it all.
I think you're right and a lot if people do have a 1950s view on it. Sickens me this only became apparent after dd was born.
Don't understand why people are acting like you shouldn't get up in the night, I myself would of loved the emotional support at that time.
Congrats on your ds

@DiagramAlly me too!

I understand your point but personally found that it didn’t help anyone if my DH got up at night too (I was exclusively breastfeeding). Far better for one of us to get a good nights sleep and have energy to function at work plus do household jobs and deal with a colicky evening baby. Sometimes the division of labour has to be smarter than both of you doing everything.

Thanks for your lovely words ☺️ And I’m so sorry to hear you’re having to go it alone. I think it’s one of those situations in life that isn’t talked about in detail in advance, and people often default to how their parents did things. Though our NCT instructor did drill it into us that you shouldn’t expect to come home to dinner on the table! Your little one is very lucky to have you. I was raised by a single mum and as a result grew up knowing that there was nothing a woman wasn’t capable of 😊

You're 4 weeks in, come back and tell us how it all went in 12 months. Seriously you've got barely any experience yet, wait till the sleep regressions happen and see if you can carry on functioning. As it happens I have twins and managed that on my own overnight as I didn't want my husband to get sacked for crap performance or crash due to lack of sleep.

AhCheeses

I strongly relate to this!! I LOVE doing the feeds and childcare - I really miss it at the weekends when DH takes on the bulk of it! It’s quite hard to hand over to him really. Especially at the moment when DS still thinks he’s part of me, I feel sorry for DH that he does not know what being a mother or giving birth or breastfeeding feels like. They have bonded very well but it’s just not the same as a mother and their child.

We split things fairly evenly but try not to duplicate tasks. In general I do night feeds but any wakings after 5am DH gets up so I can get a block of sleep before he leaves for work. In the early days he’d go to bed early so that if he had an early start he was still well rested. I’ve always said to him I’d rather he slept well so that he is more able to help and be on hand when needed. Luckily this baby has been a better sleeper than DC1.

I think I have felt the need to ‘justify’ being at home even though I know my mat leave is for childcare, but even then DH is not one to shirk responsibility and still does his fair share of household tasks and parenting.

I am sometimes surprised when friends say their husbands/partners don’t share responsibility more equally as I think DH finds it really rewarding to spend time with his children.

Winter spend some time on FWR and maybe educate yourself a little on inequality. My dh was a sahp for a time, I find equality in parenting to be something subject to ongoing negotiation not a one time thing. But if there is so much equity already, why do so many women's careers nosedive after they have children? Why do they accept jobs that fit in better with childcare, while men's careers are free to flourish? That can't all be down to my "unequal relationship"!

Yawn