Soccer Star Proud He Hasn’t Changed a Diaper
Wayne Rooney may be one of the England’s most celebrated soccer stars. He’s still a bit of a jerk.
Rooney told Sky News this week that he’s proud to be a dad, but ten days into the life of baby Kai, he still hasn’t changed one diaper.
Sky gives him an out: he’s been busy playing football since the baby was born. Then again, Rooney specifically asked manager Sir Alex Ferguson to play him in a Manchester United match just twenty-four hours after his wife gave birth to the baby boy. So no one was forcing him away from those nappies.
This is one of those issues I find particularly perplexing. My husband changed his first diaper in the hospital after my daughter was born. I hadn’t changed one since my brother (now in his twenties) was an infant. For all intents and purposes, we were on the same playing field. My gender gave me no better insight into the mysteries of Pampers vs. Huggies, waistbands and pull tabs.
Still, I’ve yet to meet a woman who has opted out on diaper changing. And I’ve met plenty of men who have proudly proclaimed they have avoided them all or at least the poopy ones. One man is a state trooper who shows up at grisly accident scenes but is still too disgusted to touch a diaper full of diarrhea.
It doesn’t seem to fall down gender lines in terms of fathers and sons or fathers and daughters either. I’ll admit a slight advantage over my husband in that we had a daughter - and I have a bit more familiarity with that particular set of genitalia. But Rooney has a boy - he’s got the leg up on that one.
In general, things are getting better. As I said in a Babble essay at Mother’s Day, my husband isn’t a saint because of what he does for our daughter, he’s a parent. And he would prefer the latter term to the former.
And when I asked him - the soccer nut who blogs for an English football team - what he thought of Rooney, his answer was fast and relatively furious: “he’s a jerk.”
Image: Magic of Football
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Tags: athletes, celebrity dad, celebrity parents, changing a diaper, diaper, diaper changing, Jeanne Sager, Manchester United, soccer, Wayne Rooney
7 Comments
Sherry commented on Nov 16 09 at 8:14 amRooney has long been the crybaby of English football; since a baby can’t possibly change another baby’s diaper, how can we blame him?
Manjari commented on Nov 16 09 at 8:28 amYou aren’t a real parent if you can pick and choose which parenting tasks you’ll do.
Amy commented on Nov 16 09 at 10:01 amI’ve never rotated the tires on my car, does that make me not a “real” car owner? I’ve never snaked my clogged kitchen sink, does this make me not a “real” home owner? We all pick and choose the tasks in our lives that we are willing to do or not do, don’t we? Is this really any different?
jenny tries too hard commented on Nov 16 09 at 10:31 amAre we really supposed to get worked up about how other couples divide labor? And we are talking about a ten-day-old baby, right? Don’t worry, folks, I feel pretty certain that if this guy lives in the same house as his kid, he will change a diaper in the next two years.
Laure68 commented on Nov 16 09 at 10:53 amI didn’t change a diaper until at least 2 weeks. I had a C-section, plus my baby and I had an extremely difficult time with breastfeeding. All I did was try to get him to latch on and eat something. I was fortunate that my husband stayed home from work for 4 weeks, so he did the diaper changing, bathing, etc.
If this guy is doing absolutely nothing, that is wrong. However, sometimes parents do have to separate tasks, especially in difficult times.
e commented on Nov 16 09 at 1:09 pmWe also had pretty firmly divided roles in the beginning. As the parent who was breastfeeding, we decided that as long as we were both off work with our little one, I would be in charge of “input” and she would be in charge of “output.” It worked beautifully
marj commented on Nov 17 09 at 1:34 pmI didn’t change a diaper for about that long. I, too,was recovering from a c-section.
