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?

Well, in this society at least one person has to earn some money. So if women want to retain the role of main child-carer the man has to go to work.

And that seems to be what we've got now.

I guess I'm being influenced by some of the threads I read where the mother seems fixated on things being done a certain way and it creates friction with the husband or partner. And I usually think two things; firstly, that relationships are about compromise - in parenting as much as anything; and secondly, that she's disadvantaging herself in identifying so strongly with home and family. It closes down her opportunities to do other things.

Tbh it wouldn't have occurred to me before reading this thread that it would be a feminist position to argue for women to take on MORE childcare than they already do. I can appreciate the arguments and it's certainly making me think, but I still believe that parenting should be shared equally and that we should do what we have to do in our own families to make that happen.

Agree Engelbert. Whenever a dad starts bleating in public about how unfair the custody system is for men, you know he's a total knob who doesn't really know his children. He's all about control and 'winning'. Louis de Bernieres, for example, springs to mind.

"Where equal parenting ought to be happening, it already is"

Amen Engelbert.

There's a whole load of excuses about "someone needs to earn the money" and yes, up to a point I sympathise and agree with that.

But in the end, it is about the choices people make and OK we all make choices in circumstances which are not of our own choosing. But a man who is determined to be fully and fairly involved with hsi children, will move mountains to do that - he will take part time work, he will negotiate flexibility, he will downshift, he will move industry to achieve it - just like women do all the time.

In the end, a man who won't do that, who is content to make excuses about the patriarchy stopping him, is a man who isn't prepared to go to enough effort to do it. I'm not condemning such a man as evil or wicked or anything - I do have massive sympathy with couples who start out intending everything to be 50 50 after the first few months and then fall into the trap of finding that a few months down the line, she is doing the lion's share - the "how the hell did we get here?" phenomenon - but I would argue that there is absolutely no reason that a man who doesn't do 50 50 childcare during a relationship, should get 50 50 custody on the ending of that relationship. There are far too many handmaidens out there who think that 50 50 should be the default position on custody, but not on childcare, housework and career sacrifice.

I think if women are doing the majority of the care then they know the children best and if they are able to they should have the final say esp re childirth and breastfeeding. However sometimes women abuse this position, deny the father access to the dcs when they split to the detriment of their children (emotional abuse in other words) persist with parenting decisions that are adversely affecting the whole family because of their own unmet emotional needs etc. Women can and do make a lot of bad decisions about childcare and if around the childs father has a right to challenge these decisions.

Women are also sometimes their own worst enemies when it comes to childcare, they moan about their male partners not pulling their weight but totally infantalise them by not letting them partake in decision making and mocking their attempts at childcare. This is because they like to have the control and to feel superior in some way, I hear this time and time again. I certainly don't think it's a one way street, some men are quite happy to be infantalised but I do think it goes both ways and as a result these men are hapless and inept when left alone with the baby and "can't cope".

And I do think excluding men from childcare is damaging, particularly for boys. This is based on professional experience.

But minxofmancunia, why is the solution to the fact that there are mad women out there who make bad parenting decisions, to let men make bad parenting decisions instead?

Why assume that because a mother makes shit parenting decisions, the father will make less shit ones? Look at Britney Spears - i don't know the ins and outs of the case because I don't read Heat magazine, but as far as I'm aware, she made some shit parenting decisions. So they handed her children over to their father, who, er... made some shit parenting decisions. But were his parenting decisions less shit than her's? (Genuine question, I don't know, I jsut got the impression that he was as flaky as she was, but being male, not challenged so much on his flakiness. I'm prepared to be told I'm wrong in this case, but it is an example of what is more and more the attitude of professionals - the assumption that if mothers make bad decisions, the men they're with will necessarily make good ones. Which may be true in some cases, but it's a mistake to take it as a default position IMO.)

Funny isn't it, I don't know any women who won't allow their partners a say in parenting decisions. I have seen it said on here but before I came on here I had no idea that people behaved like that in real life.

Is it really the case that children with a male parent who is not doing much primary childcare are damaged? I know some men who work long hours and I just don't know about that. Is it the same if the mother works long hours out of the home and the father is at home more - does this also damage children?

Given how our society is structured - a lot of people working a lot of hours to get by - that leads to an awful lot of damaged children.

I'm not sure I buy it TBH.

Is there really a serious argument that if mum always decides what the children have for tea and what clothes they wear and how they have their hair done, the children will be irreparably damaged by this?

I mean, really?

I've just realised that while we share the work out equally, I tend to make most final decisions, including to do with the children. That is the dynamic of our relationship - I am more decisive than DH. It has not occurred to me before that this might be damaging the children

LOL SQ.

Everyone born in the nineteen fifities is irreperably damaged then.

Oh well actually....

I think the difficulty I am having is trying to visualise a situation where the dad is gagging to get stuck in and the mum basically tells him to piss off and won't let him so much as puree a carrot or purchase a baby wipe.

I've just never met anyone like that.

um. i don't think we actually made any decisions as such, either of us, when dd1 was born. we sort of worked it all out as we went along. dh rescued me a few times before i broke her, i bfed because it worked. i expressed and he fed her ebm. we didn't ever once sit down and discuss how it was going to work out, who was going to do what, who was in charge.

we just got on with it.

eleven years and three kids later - still happens. not sure we've ever sat down and made a child-rearing decision in our lives. he gets up half an hour before me and makes all the packed lunches, wakes the kids up and gets their breakfast, then goes off to work. i get them to school, then go to work. we share the after school activities driving, and like as not he cooks dinner.

they all seem to be doing ok. our marriage is intact, and there isn't really a 'masc' or 'fem' role in the house.

the only time we've ever pondered aloud was when dd2 was born brain damaged, then we had a brief peiod where dh buried his head in the sand, and i researched and physioed and feeding therapied like a loon, but that was more to do with how we dealt with potential life long disability/ grief than any sort of power struggle. and not really gender-based.

who should make childcare decisions? parents. but they are my boobs. even if it wasn't something i really thought about much at the time.

HerBeX I can see what you're saying, there are lots of parents of both sexes unfortunately who aren't able or won't care for their children properly. Re Britney Spears, I think very sadly (and this is just my opinion) she's pretty ill, not mentally unstable or a bit flaky but suffering from a mental disorder that was exacerbated by having her children and the resultant meltdwon rendered her unable to care for them.

I just don't always think women have the monopoly when it comes to making decisions re childcare, nor should they. The mothers I know (for the most part) who choose not to work do it because they want to, in some cases their husbands would like them to work but they are adamant they won't. In some cases they are panicking about their youngest starting school as this may force the issue a bit. Their husbands want to take a more active role but by their own actions they are blocking it.

I've seen plenty of men acting as if they've lost all their mental faculties when it comes to things like nappy-changing or dressing a child. Those men are somehow capable of holding down quite important jobs too, like those involving complex decision making about things like building bridges and skyscrapers. Either they are really dangerous in their paid work and should resign right now, or else they are taking the piss. I wonder which it is.

i've never accepted any of that nonsense. women who do make me want to shake them.

"Their husbands want to take a more active role but by their own actions they are blocking it." minxofmancunia, do you mean the women are blocking it or that the men are?

I've seen those men too ayerobot it does seem like a piss take and undoubtedly sometimes it is but sometimes they have controlling, perfectionist domineering wives who from day one have dictated how absolutely everything should be done.

Re excluding from childcare I didn't mean not deciding what goes in the sandwiches etc I meant not being attached/bonded/nurturing towards the child due to lack of involvement/ambivalence/ being absent.

Exactly ...loads of men take the piss and voluntarily step away from childcare...I don't see why we should accept this as it is natural for women to be the primary childcarer so it is not a problem...I do think that men and boys should be raised to understand the importance of taking responsibility for childcare and that they should want and expect to do it....that may be a bit rambly...but is very late for me...

dittany sometimes your views about mental illness are so one dimensional you infuriate me! Are you blaming patriarchy solely for Britney Spears having what seems to be hideous bi-polar disorder? Or do you know things the rest of us don't about her life and the aetiology of her difficulties?

I do not deny for one minute that the relationships Britney had in her life were damaging, she seem to have been surrounded by toxicity from day one poor woman but her Mother was just equally part of that toxicity, she wrote some horrible book in order to promote her own celebrity.

minx - mm, but that can sort of be seen in the same light as dittany's 'retention of what miniscule amount of power you have left' discourse, which i sort of agree with. but still want to shake the women and say 'hand the damn baby over and let him change the nappy. and go for a walk in the park/ drink a hot cup of tea for five minutes. he is an adult.'

With the not wanting to go back to work thing that you mention minx.

I think it is complicated.

Many women are absolutely shit scared of going back to work after even a short time out raising children, it's quite a well-recognised problem. Their skills get out of date, they get out of the loop, they are distanced from the "world of work" and it scares the pants off them. I'm not sure what that has to do with this TBH.

I also think (and this really is just a theory) that many women suffer from various problems when they have children due to the huge lifestyle changes, a lot of low-level depression, they don't feel as confident with how they look and so on. There is also the issue that if they do go back to work many will have to continue bearing the brunt of the work at home as well. So when they won't do it maybe for some it's because they are knackered already and just feel they don't have any more in the tank.

I am sure that some women behave in peculiar ways, as do men. I just find it all a bit generalising. This idea that women commonly push their DPs away (and often out the door), won't accept any help, take the piss out of their DPs and are swinging the lead refusing to work (childcare is work anyway). It's not a picture that I recognise.