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?

Im surprised at the amount of people who are shocked at two people helping /waking in the night. There’s plenty of ways to help a bf mother in the night.

My babies always slept in my bed when they were little, so I guess we did both wake, though as I said in a previous post my boyfriend would do the lions share of it (changing /settling) and I’d just feed.

Almost all my early breastfeeding memories involve me half asleep feeding baby lying down and him holding me from the other side while we all fell asleep again.

Older babies are more exhausting to settle and we split it more later on.

I remember those times very fondly despite how tired we both were.

Sometimes after baby finishing /unlatched wed wiggle to the other side of the bed for a cuddle or more. He never wanted to sleep in another room and managed fine on the sleep. I mean we were all mainly lying down. Wed have both been bloody lonely if he’d moved out at night.

With second child there was a bit more musical beds but when toddler was sleeping well we did this.

It’s 6 years later and those memories are lovely and I think being in it together helped us massively through some rocky relationship patches later on.

I find it really funny that there is so many women on this thread saying yes but the man has to go to work all day! Ermm is the mum not working all day looking after the baby?.. this is the kind of attitude a lot of men have and it's not surprising they do if a lot of women are playing down the role of sahm when your job is 24/7 while your body is recovering and emotions are all over the place. 'But he should sleep because he has work' think this is exactly what op is on about!
Not sure if maybe the ones saying this had very easy babys that slept a lot but me personally think the one staying at home has the harder job not the one 'going to work'

But a woman at home with a baby can sleep and rest.

The partner working can hardly sleep at their desk.

Looking after a baby is nit 24/7.

Noy

This was my exs attitude.
As I say maybe people saying this had easy babys that slept.
My baby hardly slept and never for long and she is still the same, not once have I slept during the day and that is no exaggeration. Maybe you were very lucky if that was the case for you.

Desk jobs are much easier than looking after (some) newborns.

My babies would sleep only on me.

They were not particularly easy babies.

It’s a very different dynamic with a 2 woman parenting set up I think

I think the non birth Mother wants to feel part of it in a way that maybe a male wouldnt

Women also tend to pick up the
Domestic slack naturally more

It’s not a bad thing - I saw a new mum recently and she was absaloutly beaming and so was her female partner . No PND there !

@squidkid totally agree.

I actually consider my desk job a piece of p** now.

Okay so your not working 24/7 but you're on call 24/7 if you have little or no support, and have very little if any downtime unless you gave an easy baby

I gave up my career to become a SAHM.

I think I got the best deal

OH worked long hours to support us, didn't see much of our children in the early years, and as they grew I had lots of free time.
When they started school I had lots of time and freedom to explore other options in life.
That was an amazing opportunity that I don't think would have happened if I had stayed on the treadmill.

oh god yeah, I'd love to be off work NOW, when they're at school and nursery, that must make up for all the hard work in the baby years!!! Sadly I went back to working mental hospital shifts like an idiot

As long as you get a copy of Gina Ford and ignore all the attachment parenting nonsense, you can share the parenting 50/50 and both stay sane.

Maybe this is what you needed @Hiphopfrog but it's a huge negative generalisation. Many (myself and a fair few friends included) ebf and co-sleep yet also still feel we are supported and sharing the work and childcare. And re. staying sane - those all night cuddles are exactly what do keep me sane!! (and there's a lot of anthropological science to that rather than following a person without children's method that has been scientifically proven to be potentially damaging so should always be considered very carefully rather than flippantly advised to all).

Working part time suits me perfectly.

Lol @squidkid that made me laugh!

danigrace

I agree.

It's all about what is fair.

OH and put in equal effort into making sure our home and family function.

That does not need to mean every task is shared 50/50, including childcare.
He ( like me) has a job that entails a lot of travel, long sporadic hours.

It wasn't possible for him to care for our young children as much as I did.
He was too busy putting a roof over our heads and earning money so his children were cared for at home by me, their mother.

We were all happy with the situation,

danigrace but if you can work out how to work part time and have kids at school- why not?

I will never work full time again.

@speakout I'm with you totally. And if I wasn't able to work as and when I choose then just hand over an invoice then I'd be doing exactly the same as you, but it's a role I enjoy and I get that that isn't the case for everyone

OP, congratulations. You sound like a lovely caring parent & I hope you are enjoying DS. From my experience, I think you make a very valid point: my DD is 3 and DS is 8 weeks old. DH does very very little: puts the bins out once a week but that is about it. I do try to challenge him on this & not be a doormat but it doesn’t necessarily improve matters. Some men are better than DH though.

If the domestic labour is not shared equally, it makes it very hard for the woman to progress in her career with a slow creep that the man becomes the main breadwinner. Inequality at home exacerbates inequality in the workplace.

I am bewildered that the OP has come in for criticism here. She's completely right. I had thought equality was 'in progress' until I had a baby and the patriarchal conditioning kicked in big time. The same was true for all but one of my friends. The way that maternity leave is structured in this country very much makes the house and childcare women's job from the start, and 8 years on, my female friends are still struggling to right the balance. Some men manage to turn it around in time and with enough push back from their wives, but most dont. Men failing to grow up and do their fair share of the work is the no 1 cause of marriages failing that I can see.

Also, the whole concept of 'sleep when the baby sleeps' only works if you have a baby who er....sleeps. Mine slept for 20 minute bouts and only when being pushed in a pram. 45 mins to an hour screaming each side (reflux). 5 freaking times a day. Oh my God that was tough.

I would imagine that two women looking after a baby is a totally different dynamic than in most heterosexual couples. The non- BF mum is probably tripping over herself to have an equal role. This is why I’m afraid I find this thread a bit sanctimonious and naive, if I’m absolutely honest. OP, you are not in a relationship with a man, so how can you presume to tell women who are what they should be doing? Or men for that matter?

DH and I fell into quite “traditional” roles after DC came along because, quite simply, that was what came naturally to us. It’s not backward or sexist, if that’s your natural instinct. I didn’t need DH to help me in the night or whatever just for the sake of “equality” . I just went with the baby’s rhythm and he took care of other things - eg. all the financial responsibility / admin and he’s never expected me to return to work unless I wanted to, for instance. You can have different roles and still support each other. What is the problem with that? Just because you don’t understand something, doesn’t make it wrong.

Ermm is the mum not working all day looking after the baby?

Not really TBH. U less you have a piss-easy job with no decisions to make and you can slob around in your PJs watching Netflix.

It’s hard being at home with a new born because you feel isolated. Not because it’s mentally taxing.

I am prepared to be shot down in flames here but your approach is a little ott. You are clearly thrilled and want to be involved as much as possible. There is a chance this might just be inflenced by the fact you are a same sex couple. Unfashionable I know. But you are a woman and may be more biologically nurturing to the newborn. Yes I know men can do this too but it would be naive to not acknowledge there is a difference. It can be seen in little girls who are brought up gender equal to their brothers

I agree with the previous few posters.

I had intended taking 3 months off work when I had my kids.

I loved my job, it was fulfilling and exciting.

Nothing prepared me for the nurturing feelings I had when my first baby came along.

All my plans about day care went out of the window.

My OH was happy to go along whichever set up I preferred and I ditched my career to become a SAHM.

Two full time working parents sounds very stressful- two part time working parents would suit many I am sure, but the workplace does not favour part time workers.

So that leaves one working parent and one SAHP.

My desire was greater than my OHs to be the SAHP.

Biological? Partly- I breastfed for an unfashionably long time. I felt a greater urge than my OH to be close to my babies.

We didn't really over think that.

@serbska clearly had a baby that slept.

All babys are different and just because you got to sit around slobbing watching Netflix doesn't mean this is the case for everybody. Some babys cry, a lot.
Think some people on here have had very easy babys and maybe need to open their mind slightly that they may have been lucky and maybe if they have another it might not be so easy the next time around