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?

[nooka]

Oh I agree Lenin, the structural stuff is really important too. After all it doesn't really matter if a parent (man or woman) wants to step on the childcare front by (for example) working flexibly if the workplace doesn't allow it.

In any case I think the article is about the impact of both how things are structured (maternity leave etc) and the biological stuff. I had a very equal relationship with my dh, we'd been together for almost ten years, knew each other very well and were probably about as in love as we've ever been. And having children drove a coach and horses through a lot of that. Because you can't share being pregnant, giving birth or breastfeeding and maternity leave is very much built on the assumption that women do the whole baby thing, while men provide support to a greater or lesser degree. I can remember really resenting that and the real equality didn't come back (in my mind at least) for a few years.

[BlingLoving]

Of course it's a systemic problem and of course we are knackered of trying to make others (men) do things they don't want to isnot how it should be but let's be realistic, many men won't fight because they don't want change. The fight has to be led by those of us who want change.

[madwomanintheattic]

you can live it and talk about it noodle - they are not mutually exclusive. some would say it's better to do both, rather than just live it and assume because you are able to, so is every other woman.

[AdelaofBlois]

This has gone all over the place, and I'm wordy anyway, so please forgive.

I'm a man who has been lucky enough to share childcare in various combinations. My partner was able to express milk, so we fed jointly during the early years; we have both spent months as sole carer of our children; we have both had times when we are working but 'responsible'. Now we have arrived at a situation where she is responsible during the working week (but at work), I do after-school and holidays, she does weekends. A lot of different patterns, and a lot of different negotiations, in other words.

We haven't always handled this spectacularly well in terms of our relationship, but we have always adopted basic unstated rules that (a) we don't criticise each other for what each does when sole or main carer and (b) we try to distinguish between what we feel is right for us and what we feel is good for the children. The flashpoints have come when we forget the last-when she attacks me for allowing our son into our bed because she thinks it bad for him, for example. And behind that is the basic fact that our kids have hurtful preferences, which place strain-what are you doing to make them dislike me-when the other is simply parenting. We negotiated and muddled through, but it wasn't easy, and I think both of us have at times wished to be able to resort to general stereotypes (Dads are like this, Mums like this) and felt the fact we can't strains rather than improves our relationship. I hope that in some ways addresses the OP's point-that it is indeed possible to think in terms of 'if x does this, then x has control' and not to say 'mothers know best', but equally to note that that is not as easy as it seems, and that the key is that doing stuff brings the right to comment, otherwise it is nasty manipulative control (my BIL very guilty of this).

The thread seems to have become a more general 'who is responsible for men not doing enough' and on that I would say that we are very, very lucky to have been able to do what we have done, and I really do not feel the options are available to all. Ultimately I tend to judge couples' decisions not on 'man' 'woman' but simply on whether they at the outset started from a point of shared care, and then moved from it pragmatically. There are many SAHPs who want equal care, but can't have it; and equally many who assume that equal care is unnecessary at the outset. If you are trying to blame men or women, you have to acknowledge that what you do is far less important than the process by which you get to it.

But the idea of father's rights or of general ceding of ground is nauseous-it is basically a rather tragic men's rights agenda which says 'we can't do this stuff, so we don't, but because we can't that shouldn't be held against us and we should have equal say'. As long as it is generally true that mothers continue to do the majority childcare, the generalisation that mother should have power must remain sacrosanct, both in individual relationships and in law.

[AdelaofBlois]

Sod it, misread march for may, contributed to a dead thread in the most tedious way. Please shoot me quickly.