Shush everyone, man talking...

[Marygoesround]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-66779460

Man talking about how difficult parenting is. Of course men should be encouraged to talk about parenting experience, but headline news wtf - do the BBC know that women have been doing this for thousands of years with not as much a nod. But, stand aside ladies, here's a man who has used a woman's body as a surrogate, removed the children from the mother they'll never know and we all have to marvel at how he's coped with sleepless night. Yeah, ok.

Yes. That's telling. A spoiled brat of a man.

you and your baby and the fact of parenthood are completely inseparable

Yep. It's a whole human, utterly dependent on you, eating, pissing, shitting, vomiting, crying, waking, feeling, moving, breathing, growing along with you. It's not a pick n mix.

Exactly, @ArabellaScott . It's an entire human system, in which making clear distinctions between processes in the two bodies becomes difficult (including well after birth). I know this approach also risks emphasising differences between different biological mothers, to some extent, on the basis of (e.g.) whether or not they can or choose to breast feed. And ultimately, you could argue similar principles about all of existence (we're all part of the same set of systems).
But the differences of this man's experience from those of any biological mother are very stark.
And the 6 months age gap emphasises the relatively disembodied nature of the experience he's describing - this time frame's basically impossible for a biological mother.

I am genuinely appalled they have two babies four months apart.

Do they think it will be like having twins or getting the baby stage over with?

Is it because they can't share one baby, they have to have one each?

Massive head fuck for those poor kids. Not twins, not older sibling/younger sibling just babies whose Dads rented their Mums womb before cutting her out of their lives for ever.

It is horrific.

I'll give him credit for being very good at one thing: spectacularly missing the point with respect to just about everything from gestating and giving birth to what's entailed with care of infants.

Aside from that he's a selfish and thoughtless git whose ego takes up far too much space in the world. My heart breaks for the mothers of the children he's purchased.

Just checking:

We are talking about the Adam Kay who wrote the songs

Menstrual Rag
Northern Birds
Your Baby?

Not some other Adam Kay?

He’s always been a nasty misogyny and I feel extremely sorry those children.

She can say what she likes. Who are you to say she can’t? This is a discussion forum.

As you say, a woman saying this would hardly make the news.

Yep

I concur 😁👍

And he has an “every other night” full night’s sleep most of us women did not get to enjoy.

I. also. do so conclude.

I mean, he could have just come on MN --while his handmaid was pregant like we all did. I remember people telling me to take a jug to the hospital with me to pour cooling water over my nether regions to take the sting out of that first post birth wee and that was very good, and very real!, advice.

Do you really think there should be no discussion of anything unless it's extreme hate ?

That may have been the best and most welcome piece of advice I ever got. Forgotten about it until I read that!

Of course, having two babies four months apart would not be possible without surrogacy, except perhaps very rarely where a lesbian couple are both trying to get pregnant using a sperm donor.

And even then I suspect most lesbians would be far too sensible to do this.

I know, why would you do that? He was a doctor as well so surely done a rotation on a labour ward at least. Perhaps he didnt notice all the women not getting much sleep and screaming there?

I feel so sorry for all these kids being deliberately created to never know a mother's love. So so sad.

Maybe it’s possible for people to be wrong or problematic without being ‘hateful’?

Ever considered that it’s perfectly fine for women to question and even be openly critical of the behaviour and attitudes of men?

I got great advice from MN before my third C section - peppermint tablets to help ease the post-op trapped wind.

CS is major surgery. And as soon as the catheter's out, you get dispatched to take a shower and remove the wound dressing. Then inject yourself in the stomach every day for weeks. Then have the stitches out. And this all happens around the exhaustion of have made, carried and made milk to feed a child.

I begged for more oral morphine after my third CS. I was told no because I might become dependent on it.

How many men are refused pain relief on request after surgery?

A man's experience of newborn care is not fucking comparable. How could it be?

How many men are not only refused childcare but left incapacitated, recovering from surgery, and expected to care for a tiny, extremely vulnerable human who can do absolutely nothing for themselves?

How many men are told off for being sleepy while holding a newborn baby they physically cannot put down (because they’ve had a spinal anaesthetic that hasn’t worn off and major abdominal
surgery so they cannot get up an put the baby in the plastic box next to their bed)?

No man has ever experienced what being a woman who has just given birth and is caring for that child.

But some men are determined to present themselves as having the hardest time possible in any situation. Sadly, society tends to not just pander to this white, but actively celebrates it and gaslights us into feeling bad that we aren’t sympathetic enough to poor fathers who might have their sleep disrupted.

Misogynistic cockwombling from a misogynistic cockwomble 🙄

But those poor babies 💔

I agree. The choice to buy/procure two babies born within 4 months of each other is absolutely shocking.

Let’s not feel sorry for the men who made that choice. Or who were allowed to do it.

No one thinking about the children’s needs would do that.

I know that surrogacy is the only way for two gay men to have a baby of their own so this disproportionately affects them, but I can't help but feel that from the baby's point of view it is worse when gay men do it than when heterosexual couples do it, because the baby is raised without a mother from birth.

The only other circumstances where babies are raised without a mother from birth are necessarily tragic, for example, where the mother dies in childbirth. I think even babies removed from their birth mothers for safeguarding reasons are placed with foster families including a foster mother, aren't they? Maybe I'm attaching too much importance to the woman's role, maybe it doesn't make any difference to a baby born via surrogacy if they are raised by two men or a woman and a man, but I can't help but feel that the absence of a mother is a terrible loss for a baby. And as they grow older they will probably meet quite a few children who have never met their father, but they will most likely be the only one they know who has never had a mother.

Surrogacy is not the only way for gay men to have children.

They could form an unconventional family that involves a child’s mother in various ways.

It’s important to remember this. There are other ways. It’s just that they want to buy an infant that doesn’t come with anything as inconvenient as a mother.