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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

"Dads having miscarriages"

53 replies

QuentinWinters · 15/10/2018 10:26

Debate on radio 5 at the moment. Man whose wife has had repeated miscarriages complaining that he can't get time off work and that society doesn't discuss dad's who have miscarriages.

I've had to turn it off. Miscarriage is a huge taboo for women (hence the whole wait for 12 weeks to announce thing) and many of us have miscarriages and little or no time off work. But yet we have to talk about the men.
And what is it with the appropriative language? Sorry Dad. You haven't had a miscarriage, your wife has.
I wonder if women should start talking about how they don't get any support when wives get erectile dysfunction.

Makes me so cross.

OP posts:

MamaLovesMango · 15/10/2018 11:16

@YetAnotherSparticus

Yes, it should’ve done but it’s harrowingly common for leave to not be granted for either party. Or at least, for time off to be made very difficult. A lot of people don’t understand what’s involved and that’s the major problem.

Thesnobbymiddleclassone · 15/10/2018 11:17

Wow!! How blinded if you OP.

These babies unfortunately lost are loved and wanted by both the mum and dad. Dads also go through a lot when their wife is pregnant from anxiety about their health to a physical strain from helping.

If I had a miscarriage it would certainly be just as harsh on my husband and he would be devastated.

Pregnancy is something a couple goes through together and the joy, stress, pain and if so, loss is felt by both.

OvaHere · 15/10/2018 11:17

that probably should say wife or partner (I do realise not everyone is married!)

Randomusername01 · 15/10/2018 11:20

@bus I also disagree with you. Can't count how many times on mn women have been admonished for revealing their pregnancy before the 12 week mark. And the reason given is what if you miscarry? What is so shameful and wrong if a woman miscarries after telling people she was pregnant? Some people may choose to wait till the 12 week mark freely but it's as if society shames some women into keeping quiet until the "appropriate" time.

buscaution · 15/10/2018 11:23

I just think it's woman's choice whether they tell or not. There is no hard and fast rule. I told everyone with my first and I miscarried. Second time I didn't tell and I miscarried again.

Randomusername01 · 15/10/2018 11:24

I can't really get worked up about we had a miscarriage. Same goes for we are pregnant. Anyone with an ounce of common sense understands what the father means.

YetAnotherSpartacus · 15/10/2018 11:25

Mama - I get that. I care for adults in my family and the reactions I get range from complete lack of understanding (going home to Mum's cooked dinners then love, ) to outright hostility. Hell I've even been told (basically) to get over it when I've been bereaved. Overall we need more compassion in our workplaces but don't put that on AIBU.

adulthumanandtired · 15/10/2018 11:27

We lost our baby at 11 weeks - just before the 12 week scan. If my husband hadn’t had compassionate leave I would have been home alone and he wouldn’t have found me unconscious and haemorrhaging. So - if only to support the mother - men should also be treated with compassion and care when suffering the loss of a baby. But he also lost his child, and needed to grieve.

I’d respectfully suggest the OP could find other battles to fight, where men are legitimately trying to take something from us.

MamaLovesMango · 15/10/2018 11:27

@bus it absolutely be personal choice but you can’t deny that it’s universally acknowledged that one choice is percercieved as ‘better’ than the other. That’s not really allowing a choice.

I always tell early because if I miscarry, I’ll be wanting support from those around me. Plenty of people have thought it strange and even attention seeking

adulthumanandtired · 15/10/2018 11:28

legitimately probably the wrong word

AngryAttackKittens · 15/10/2018 11:31

This is even sillier than "we're pregnant".

Which is not to say that compassionate leave shouldn't be an option, it's just that no, you were no pregnant and therefore no, you did not have a miscarriage. Phrasing it as if the father was pregnant too seems to me like a dodge of the fact that no, dads don't get pregnant or give birth and no, that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be attached emotionally to the baby or that they don't have responsibilities to both baby and mother.

We need to reframe fatherhood in a way that doesn't erase the parts of motherhood that men can't share in.

pennydrew · 15/10/2018 11:33

There really is two separate points here.

I don’t think the OP or anyone here doesn’t think Dads should be able to get compassionate leave, whatever is an appropriate time for the circumstance. My husband couldn’t get any and I found that difficult, he did too but in many ways work was a way to take his mind off it for a few hours. I couldn’t do that due to the physical impact.

The other separate point is the language around this. Men don’t suffer miscarriage, that’s a factual statement. But both parents experience loss of a child, which is why compassionate leave should be granted IMO. There’s a difference in language I think is important.

Like I read this article about a man who said he suffered endometriosis, because his wife did. I read it and he sounded like a supportive partner, who did indeed experience a lot of distress watching his partner in pain. But he does not experience endometriosis and as someone with it, my husband would definitively get an earful if he ever said he did. Not that he would. It’s weird really. I have multiple chronic illness & would find it offensive appropriation if my husband declared he did too just because, as my partner, he brings me food and medication when I’m ill.

RiverTam · 15/10/2018 11:39

We need to reframe fatherhood in a way that doesn't erase the parts of motherhood that men can't share in.

^^this is it, perfectly put.

Mama I never told people I was pregnant, I didn't want other people's sympathy, I found that almost unbearable. There was nothing they could do, so why make them a part of it? I don't think it's attention-seeking but I do find it baffling.

AngelsWithSilverWings · 15/10/2018 11:41

The only time I've seen my husband shed a tear was when I k

Original poster

QuentinWinters · 15/10/2018 11:43

I can't really get worked up about we had a miscarriage
Except it wasn't "we had a miscarriage", it was "Dad's who have miscarriages"
Pedantry possibly though

OP posts:

AngelsWithSilverWings · 15/10/2018 11:45

Sorry pressed post too soon.

The only time I've seen my husband shed a tear was when I lost the baby we had been trying 7 years to conceive. It was just one little tear but it broke my heart to see it.

I needed him to have time off of work. I needed him to be supported at work so that he could support me. I was in hospital for a week because of it and without his boss allowing him to have time off to visit me and get over his own grief I'm not sure if we would have coped.

RiverTam · 15/10/2018 11:46

Pedantry my arse.

Language matters. JFC, if DH got prostate cancer I wouldn't start whanging on about how 'we' had cancer. FFS!

OllyBJolly · 15/10/2018 11:55

I do think it's different for men and women. It was a physical as well as emotional loss for me. I think there should be some sort of statutory compassionate leave for partners. However, that always brings to mind a colleague who had 6 weeks off work when his DP miscarried, and I later found out the DP had gone back to work after a week.

My three miscarriages were at 13 weeks. I remember pleading with XH not to go into work after the first one. I'd been discharged from hospital the previous evening and didn't want to be alone. The world of work was less family friendly then and it just wasn't possible.

We need to reframe fatherhood in a way that doesn't erase the parts of motherhood that men can't share in Yes, we do.

greendale17 · 15/10/2018 12:13

**Miscarriage is a huge taboo for women (hence the whole wait for 12 weeks to announce thing)

Not really. People CHOOSE to not tell because they want to deal privately with a miscarriage if it happens. It's not taboo.**

^This. Miscarriage has never been a taboo

RiverTam · 15/10/2018 12:15

I think it is, in a way, in that so many people have no idea how to react.

NopeNi · 15/10/2018 12:22

My dh wasn't able to help me through one of my miscarriages, he was through the rest. The first was the loneliest, most painful experience of my life, exacerbated by him not being around. He was grieving too and also frantically worried about me. So I gently disagree too - even though I see the points about language creep.

I think that the more men discuss and get used to this stuff, the more we can all feel like it's less of a taboo? And I think it really is a taboo topic. People reacted very weirdly when I mentioned them sometimes, one pregnant woman stopped talking to me completely. Only some women knew "how" to react well.

Iggi999 · 15/10/2018 12:39

No one ever asked dh how he felt while I went through 4 miscarriages. Some people asked him how I was, but never him. It was worse for me, emotionally and physically. But it was still bloody awful for him.

thatwhichwecallarose · 15/10/2018 12:44

If I had a miscarriage it would certainly be just as harsh on my husband and he would be devastated

No it certainly wouldn’t be just as harsh. Would he have to go through a series of intimate examinations? Would he have to pass the child he desperately wanted? Did they have that frightening moment when they first spotted the blood?

We absolutely mustn’t minimise what people go through when their partner miscarries but equally we mustn’t equate it to what the pregnant person must go through.

Sandsnake · 15/10/2018 12:49

You’re being unfair. Baby loss and miscarriage are obviously something that primarily affects women. However, it’s not hard to separate that fact from the fact that most men will also feel loss and a need to support their partners. I do agree that the language that men ‘have miscarriages’ is incorrect though. Your comparison to erectile distinction is exceptionally crass and unkind.

MagicMix · 15/10/2018 12:59

We need to reframe fatherhood in a way that doesn't erase the parts of motherhood that men can't share in.

Spot on.

I once had an argument with a man who thought that men and women deserved an equal say as to whether a woman had an abortion because to say it was only the woman's choice privileged the physical impact on a woman of taking a pregnancy to term over the emotional impact of losing a foetus on a man.

Ever since that I have been extremely wary of any discourse that seeks to present a man's role in the reproductive process as in any way equal to a woman's. There is no sex equality in mammalian reproductive biology, and that's just the way it is.

Men should certainly be able to discuss the emotional impact of a woman who was pregnant by them having a miscarriage. In some cases compassionate leave sounds very fair. But men must not say that they have had a miscarriage or that their experience is equivalent to that of the woman who actually did have a miscarriage.

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