Dads and babies

[BlingLoving]

This is kind of a thread about a thread, so sorry about that.

I see a lot of threads commenting on the mother's right to make ultimate decisions for her DC, particularly when they're babies. Lots of comments about "you are his mother, you know best" or "mothers' instincts are the best source of decision making" (I'm paraphrasing obviously).

I am still waiting for DC1 to arrive, so am interested to see how I feel after that, but this doesn't seem fair to me. Clearly, in the very beginning of course I can see how that is naturally going to happen on the basis that the mother tends to be with baby 24/7 - especially if she's breastfeeding - plus she has all those hormones washing around from pregnancy and birth and so on.

But surely there comes a point, fairly early on, where, assuming that DH/DP is involved and engaged, his opinions and ability to look after his child are pretty much equal to the mother's?

I am getting clearer and clearer in my own head that feminism has to be a two way process - that for it to work, both men and women also have to stop seeing men as less competant at certain tasks and that both sexes have to step up and take on responsibilities that were traditionally allocated to one or the other. And this seems like an obvious addition to that thought process. What are other thoughts?

[ecobatty]

OK, I'll spell it out.

Excluding men from childcare is more likely to make them become absent fathers.

Having absent fathers harms children.

Therefore excluding men from childcare harms children.

Clearly, that is the simplified version....;)

And, before anyone jumps down my throat, if you want my more sophisticated view (including my own early experience with my babies and dh) please refer to my earlier posting. :)

[MrIC]

I'm aware the discussion has moved on but I just wanted to say that I agree completely with inmaculadaconcepcion

This is of course my role as the hands-on, supportive and yet deferential DH that she's espoused, but happily it also happens to my position on the matter too!

[HerBeX]

Women make the majority of decisions on childcare even where men are not absent fathers.

So it doesn't tally that women making the majority of decisions on childcare is harmful to children.

Also can we please remember that the main reason why outcomes are worse for children where men aren't around, is generally beacuse they take their income with them.

Where women are on their own with a good income, the outcomes for their children are exactly the same as they are for those children with both mother and father around.

[SardineQueen]

IME quite a lot of men are quite cheerful to be excluded from childcare. Men openly saying they stay late at the office so that they miss the frantic bit and just roll in for the nice bit of bedtime, that sort of thing.

Just a thought.

Also, do couples with a very traditional set-up - mum doing the children and dad doing the earning - really split up more than couples with more "modern" ideas? I would have thought that couples with traditional values would be more likely to stay together especially while the children are young.

IC aw so I'm not just special then Thank you for that, I have been scratching my head over it lately! They have both had phases of preferring one or the other, but never as extreme as this.

[Hereforlife]

If woman are taking the majority of the decisions about childcare etc.
Why are there so many twattish men around? What is influencing them?

Something isn't working.

[SardineQueen]

TBH if I could find a way of only doing the nice bits of childcare I'd be on it like a shot. But there isn't a way, as I'm the one who gets the mat leave and has ended up going part-time etc. If I could have a 1950s setup with a nice wife to come home to, dinner on the table, and some clean happy children ready for a quick story and sleep I'd be on it like a shot...

My point about some men being quite pleased to be absented from childcare duties wasn't to have a go at them, it's quite understandable IMO. Looking after small children is bloody hard work.

[HerBeX]

Good point hereforlife, it's one I wanted to discuss before bieng distracted by the baybees need menz too issue. Women are influenced by the patriarchy aren't they, in child rearing as in everythign else. I'm going to get shouted at there, but I always instinctively felt that all that bollocks about feeding babies on a schedule, putting them out at the end of the garden so that they could get fresh air and you couldnt' hear them cry, was all about the aptriarchy alienating women from their babies, seeing them as an inconvenient distraction rather than a symbiotic relationship. And what they are distracting from of course, si the most important person in the house - the man.

[MrIC]

Yes I think you've got a point there Herbex (and you called it right - that kind of advice is bollocks!)

[HerBeX]

oh and meant to say that that's what has happened, when men in a patriarachy have got to have too much say in child-rearing. Men in an equal society otoh, would hopefully be as focussed on the needs of children as women are because they wouldn't have been conditioned to believe that they are the most important person in the household.

Caveat: this is not to imply that all men everywhere are raging narcisssists who see themselves as more important than babies for all the loons who want to point and say : "see - you all hate men!" Just that that whole philosophy of babies being deeply inconvenient creatures who have to be tamed and trained, can only come from a really bizarre culture. And for a while, most people, men and women believed in all that crap and many still do.

[HerBeX]

In other words, we need to make sure that men and women are equal and that the default psychological assumption isn't that men are the most important person in the household, before we hand over "power" (although as Dittany says, it's a moot point as to whether it's power) about childrearing to them.

Which isn't to say that in some households adn in some relationships, that can't happen already and in many it is happening. Where you know and trust that a man has already evolved beyond the limits of patriarchal assumptions, it works. But currently, too many haven't.

[SardineQueen]

Enjoying your posts on this thread HerB

[HerBeX]

Sorry realised how WASP-centric my post sounds. By "most peopel" I mean most people in western cultures. Different practices in other cultures, but still in most places trammelled and controlled by patriarchal notions.

[HerBeX]

Thanks SQ.

[Treats]

I still think - to come back to the OPs original question - that men need to share equal responsibility for childcare and this goes hand in hand with being able to make decisions about them.

I totally see that this can be a way of controlling the woman and I agree with what Dittany said about Truby King and those kinds of methods. But I think we need to recognise that being too controlling about how our children are raised can create a situation where the men are able to abdicate responsibility. Like most things, there's a balance to be struck.

I am talking about the period after the baby is about 6 months. There's a physical input from the mother in those early months that can't be substituted by the father.

[MrIC]

IC was telling me how about in 18th-19th France, upper and middle class babies would be sent out to milk farms in the countryside, bundled on the back of carts and donkeys, so they wouldn't upset the (male run) household.



to get back to blingloving's query somewhat, I agree that men have to be involved and to adopt characteristics and take on responsibilities that were previously viewed as feminine. Hopefully this will help us (men) gain a greater understanding of women, and the issues confronting them/you, and thus be more supportive. Of course it has the added benefit that if men are devoting their time to childcare and other so-called "feminine" tasks, it leave more time and "space" for women to move into more traditionally male roles and spaces, should they/you choose to.

So this to happen then yes men have to be given a degree of say over childcare e.g. to be able to make autonomous decisions (re: what clothes to put on the child, whether they need a nappy change) or to be able to negotiate from a position of equality on others (e.g. nap time, bath time, etc). Where I think the woman must retain complete control is those issues that affect her physically, namely breastfeeding, but also potentially sleeping arrangements and so on.

Is that fair?

[snowmama]

Interesting discussion and has gone the complete opposite way than I expected when I clicked on the link. I don't think that excluding men from childcare is damaging to children ...but think is pretty oppressive against women as a default position.

Breast feeding is in the grand scheme of life, is a short phase, my ex was pretty controlling in several ways, but when it came to childcare was perfectly capable of handling bed time hour, nursery drop offs , bringing baby to bed...and sharing those roles...and it easy a pretty AP non-routine approach..I had a pretty short maternity leave though, so maybe that had an impact.

[MrIC]

Oh, I agree with Treats too