Mums will always be the default parent (except in a few extenuating circumstances) and to try and change that is a detriment to mums, dads and babies.

[StripesOnADonkey]

Aibu to think that no amount of legislation or social conditioning can change the fact that we are mammals and the mother gets pregnant and gives birth to young, which she then feeds from her body. Mums are the default parent and that is not a bad thing, it’s how it should be.

A dad’s role imo (in the early days mostly) is to support the mum and the family unit together. When the mum is supported, she can be a better mother and she supports the dad back when he needs it. And they both support the children in their own ways. (Obviously if individuals vary from this, as long as everyone is supported and happy then that’s their business, I’m talking societal wise)

I believe if we achieve what some people believe to be the key to equality, ie making parenting equal, this will be detrimental to children and mothers especially.

If mum and dad are 100% equal in parenting (or that is the supposed goal) then why can’t men have equal say in abortion? Or equal say in how mums give birth? Rights to be in the birthing room?

If mum and dad are 100% equal in parenting and are not together on birth, why can’t dad have overnights from day 1? If the goal is for both to be default parent, then why would it be considered cruel to take a newborn from the mother and give to the dad overnight?

If mum and dad are 100% equal in parenting then it’s also up to the dad how baby is fed and if he wants to give baby a bottle of formula even though mum wants to breastfeed, then that is his right.

This imo leads us to be constantly working against our instincts and is part of the reason why the current system we now have is not working (both parents HAVING to go to work and putting their now 9mo in childcare)

Mothers are torn between feeling the desire to be there for their young children and financially being pushed back into work.

However returning to the “traditional” model is not necessarily great for women and leaves a woman so vulnerable financially.

And yes obviously I’m aware that many women WANT to return to work, very soon, but they are not the majority.

This also does not mean that I think we should not take steps to create fairness where possible and strive for equality between men and women. However I do not think that pretending we can equalise the deeply evolved differences in being a mum and being a dad will work. Because it’s inherently different.

How on earth do we begin to solve this?

The only thing I know is that the goal of creating parenting 50/50 is unwise and will never work.

What are your thoughts? What could work that protects female equality and also the wellbeing of children and families as a whole?

So do you think if parents of a newborn are separated then it’s in the child’s interest to split overnight stays with dad?

do you think it’s in the child’s interests for the dad to decide to give formula because he wants to feed the child too, even if the mother prefers to breastfeed for all feeds?

I think that might well be better in the long run

Pregnancy takes nine months, breastfeeding can be anything from zero to around four years (but when they start weaning around six months it’s not such a necessity).

Rearing children takes a lifetime. As an adult I feel that my parents were equally responsible parents to me and there wasn’t an overall default. If I have an issue, I will naturally gravitate to the parent who has more experience or knowledge on that issue.

Well then we will never see eye to eye. And I do believe it is your opinion that will harm women and children in the long run.

Why do you keep harking back to that specific scenario?

Yes, if the mother was neglectful, I would think it would be of benefit for the child to be formula fed and get to have some sort of normality for 50% of the time.

Again, I have used a specific scenario. If the parents are loving and want what’s best for the child, I think they will work it out between themselves.

50/50 responsibility can happen even if the mother has more contact due to feeding in the first stages of life.

Agreed, but let’s say you breastfeed for four years. Plus pregnancy that’s nearly 5 years as default parent. Then you have another child. Nearly 10 years.

this is why the vast majority of mums are the default.

instead of focusing on how to change that (which I believe will be a negative to women and children) I would prefer to see if we can find ways to reorganise society or change social attitudes or work situations to work WITH this inherent difference in men and women instead of trying to change how many women want to mother.

(no this doesn’t mean it HAS to be this way)

I think a radical rehaul would be needed to make the workplaces more family friendly. At the moment it's a case of work like you haven't got kids and parent like you don't have a job.

If I could set up the working world form scratch, I would have it more integrated and in synch with natural life cycles. This would include things like:

Building in that younger people especially women will likely need time off to have kids and build in flexibility so that they could still build and progress their careers around the breaks.

I would have really decent, affordable childcare. Including high quality overnight and weekend care for shift workers including doctors and nurses to allow parents and single parents to continue to work and progress their careers.

I would look at how work patterns and locations could be flexible for childcare and elder care, including when they are sick etc. I would have a better plan for the school summer holidays than everyone getting stressed and scrabbling for childcare.

I would try to streamline things so that family life and a career/life were possible in harmony rather than the source of constant conflict they have always been for me!

Because it’s the logical conclusion of mums not being the default.

unfortunately abusive dads will use this and is more common than abusive mums.

Thank you for your comment, totally agree and those could potentially work well. Maybe with more support for thinking outside the box more people will push for change.

I don’t know anyone who has breastfed for four years constantly, every day, without a break or a trip away (I don’t even know anyone who has breastfed for four years anyway). If the parents are separated as a newborn, why would they be having another one with that person?

You are using a very specific scenario to argue your point.

I think it’s best for the child to have parents who take equal responsibility for them. I don’t know why you think this means you have to count it in hours.

Most people have children with a view of how they want to parent. We did. We both work and both parent our children. If that doesn’t work out for some reason and we broke up we would find a way to make it work for the best of the children.

Let’s get rid of the gender pay gap and help women and men choose to parent how works best for them if they break up with their partner in an equal footing.

Clearly a pointless conversation. You have no interest in exploring my position.

you say you want to get rid of the gender pay gap yet don’t want to discuss any actual ideas.

That’s unfair. You haven’t listened to my point either. I think it’s worth exploring things, but you’re looking for a one fits all solution and families are not like that. What works for one won’t work for others. Your argument reverts back to a specific example of a woman who wants to breastfeed and has broken up with the father at the newborn stage (and the father wants 50/50). There are avenues to explore to address this obviously, but that specific scenario isn’t the most common, so why are you hinging things around that?

Breastfeeding a one year old or two year old is nothing like breastfeeding a newborn though is it? For most people who breastfeed toddlers plus it ends up being a night feed and a morning one. There’s no reason for that to limit daytime responsibilities for a father.

Your false dichotomy is weird - there is absolutely no logical contradiction in supporting mothers in their very biological role early in a child’s life, and also doing what we can to make it possible for men and women with older children to be equally responsible for that child, and try to reduce the impact on women’s careers and autonomy of being forced into the role of only port of call. In fact for many families with more than one child you could argue there’s an inevitable move to the dad taking on more responsibility for an older child when a new baby comes along and requires all of the mother’s time and energy.

For what is worth, my ideas would be for both parents to have equal paid leave after the birth of the child on a use it or lose it basis (not lessening the leave the mother gets at the moment). To be taken how best suits them in terms of blocks of time. At the moment men don’t have that and that is a driving factor of women becoming the default parent. We did shared parental and had to fund a lot of my partners leave ourselves. Not everyone is in a position to do that and I think that’s a shame. We both experienced being the sole parent, having to do everything whilst the other was at work. It gave us a greater appreciation of each other and how we parent. It’s led to no resentment, and what we feel is a solid family set up.

I think that would be a good step, agree. Fundamentally I think we need to change a lot in society to work with building families instead of against.

I agree with this. Especially not taking leave away from women and on a use it or lose it basis.

Men stepping up and actually really knowing what it's like to look after a baby all day as far too many don't.

Maybe then we can also get rid of ''hands on dad'' and fathers 'helping' with their own babies which may be little things compared to other drastic changes suggested but language matters and it adds the expectation to society that mums are the default parent and a man is a hero if he changes a nappy or has his own baby alone for a few hours.

Absolutely fine by me

I'm not from the uk, but most dads i know (in the past 15 years) have taken 6-12 months parental leave. There are 2 dads in the office now on parental leave. I think it is month 3 now. Only one i can think of that haven't started working part time so he is woth the kids 2.5 days a week and his wife is the other 2.5 days.

We are 50/50 parenting but I think I’m the default/ultimate parent because I’m actually the one who makes the main parenting decisions - my word is the last one.

I think let's see if we can achieve actual equality in every area, from the pay and pensions gap to split of work in the home to what happens regarding child arrangements after divorce (around £2bn unpaid child support in the UK) before worrying things have somehow gone "too far".

I’m wondering if we can think of ways to do that that makes allowances for motherhood as this will uplift many women.

as it is right now it’s working a bit but vastly not enough.

I don’t think anything has gone too far.

I think by granting fathers equal status/access at birth it will not necessarily be a good thing due to potential windows for women and children being controlled by men. (Ie enforced overnight stays for split up parents could easily become arguable, which I don’t believe is in the babies interest)

Just a thought I've had but it occurs to me that often when men insist on something parenting related being equal or 50:50 it's for selfish or ego driven reasons. Things like insisting on 50:50 to get out of maintenance rather than because they actually want to spend the time with their kids or insisting that their parents have equal visiting opportunities with a newborn regardless of the mothers postnatal health because "equal grandparents".

I'm all for men being genuinely more equal when it comes to childrearing and I think many mothers are in unfair and unsustainable situations. I can't help but be cynical looking at how so many men behave though.

Once I was past the thick of it, I remember my mum mentioning in passing that my cousin's husband had been very supportive of her, among other things, "The way he moved out of their bed and camped in the spare room for a few years."
Something inside me broke to hear it. My husband and I worked bloody hard to do every ounce of parenting exactly the same. It's like in my mind there had been 2 choices: either dad goes from work to the pub every day and mum is effectively on her own, or mum and dad are 100% fungible.
Truth is I don't know, but I was very sleep deprived for a very long time, which has fed into other health problems (mental and physical), maybe it's just fantasy that it could have been different: him building a nest around me and bub, allowing us to thrive as a mother-baby dyad.
Instead there was the relentless dictum of All Things Must Be Equal And Exactly The Same Or You're A Victim Of The Patriarchy.
So I'm with you, @StripesOnADonkey , I'd love to know if there's a different way that works better with our carnality, with the raw physical truth of what it means to mother.

I struggle a lot with these threads as our situation is very different. I have a 7 year old DSS who we have 5/6 days out of 7 - my DP very much is the default parent and is my DSS’s favourite person in the whole world, he idolises him. My DP’s ex had two more children who are very full on and my DSS doesn’t cope well there hence us having him most of the time. Appreciate you said in your post OP there are exceptions and we’re one - there’s no way at all it would be best for my DSS for him to be with his mum most of the time - he’d suffer. There are many dads out there who do an amazing job, it’s just the shit ones (like mine!) who let them down.

also just edited to add we had him nearly 50/50 even before his mum had more kids so that wasn’t the driver - the driver was my DP wanted to spend more time with his son, AND he always paid maintenance.

It wouldn't make any sense for women to hunt, if you listen to male fulled fantasies, rather than looking at all other preditors in nature of course.

Apparently we're the only species where the females are too pathetic to be able to hunt and feed their own young.