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Men Who Support Pregnant Partners Risk Becoming Bad Dads
Here’s a theory that turns modern conventional wisdom on its head: men who are attentive and supportive to their partners during pregnancy are damaging their fathering skills.
Huh?
Dr Jonathan Ives, head of the Centre for Biomedical Ethics at the University of Birmingham, claims, and I’m paraphrasing here, that pregnancy and childbirth emasculate men.
Since there’s not a whole lot for men to do by way of gestating — or pushing the little bugger out or submitting to surgery — men have some kind of existential crisis, wonder what life is all about, hate themselves in the morning and all that after the baby is born. So they turn into crappy dads.
A quote:
“Having begun the fathering role already feeling a failure may destroy his confidence,” Ives said. “It can then be very difficult for him to regain faith in himself once the baby is born and move from that passive state to being a proactive father. His role in the family is no longer clear to him. He effectively becomes deskilled as a parent and this can lead to problems bonding with the child.”
Sure, I suppose. If said father happens to be a big baby!
Ives, along with Dr. Heather Draper from Birmingham’s primary care clinical sciences unit, believes that men are being set up to fail as fathers, what with expectations that they’ll join in on the prenatal classes, show up for the birth, hold hands, wipe sweat and, oh, I don’t know, get to be one of the first to sniff and snuggle and count toes. But whatever! Horrible stuff, these supportive partnerships!
Ives and Draper think society needs to be more realistic about what they expect men to do during pregnancy and birth. (Now who’s piling the pressure on Dad?)
Let me take a stab at realistic: I think most kids today would pick their modern fathers over the cigar-smoking in the waiting room ones. Because weren’t those also the ones who worked too late, drank too much, never made dinner and only said “I love you” once during a child’s whole life?
I think dads, by and large, are actually relieved that they don’t have to pass a newborn child through a normally rather small orifice and that giving baths and changing diapers and reading and shoulder-rides, etc., more than make up for their inability to carry a human fetus to term.
I’ve written before that dads should get a pass on being their for the birth if that’s what they and their partners want. But let’s not force all of man-kind to choose between showering love on the babies’ mothers and showering love on the babies themselves. It’s not a job, Dr. Ives, just love.
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Photo: guardian.co.uk
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[...] very easily alienate him from the process, make him feel like all this baby stuff is a mystery. As Madeline Holler points out over on Strollerderby, this could truly kick in other elements of the Mad Men era, dad starts out in [...]
Should Dads Attend Births? | Being Pregnant commented on Jun 03 10 at 2:05 pm[...] today is more complex than it was a generation or two ago, but Strollerderby blogger Madeline said it best when she said, “I think most kids today would pick their modern fathers over the [...]
Being Pregnant: How Much Should Dad Be Involved? | Strollerderby commented on Jun 04 10 at 2:01 pmJen commented on Jun 02 10 at 9:53 amI think this is a doctor who doesn’t like dad’s being around to stand up for their wives during a time when she has little control over what is happening to her. It’s kinda hard to cut through the BS when you are in pain, dad is probably in a better position at that point to “hear” what is going on.
Or maybe he is making excuses for being a bad dad himself?
Crystal H. commented on Jun 02 10 at 10:35 amEeeew. Really? Men are so weak & amorphous that their partner’s pregnancy will simply shatter their egos & identity? What is the end point of this? That dudes shouldn’t get their women in the family way at all?
Nancy commented on Jun 02 10 at 8:18 pmThere comes a time when we need to stop overthinking, step away from the news wire and do something constructive like engage in conversation or read a book. This is that time.
Marj commented on Jun 02 10 at 10:16 pmLame. My husband was very supportive while I carried our twins, and he’s an amazing father. I didn’t even change a single diaper for two weeks while recovering from my c-section and he had to show me how to swaddle them.
Nathaniel Slipper commented on Jun 04 10 at 1:44 pmJen, big fan of your comment. Great idea to question the researcher’s parenting skills. I presume you know him? Otherwise a comment like that is a little bit nasty.
Also not sure that the researchers are claiming that fatherly involvement during pregnancy is always bad. Just that it can or could be bad in some cases. That’s quite a different claim, isn’t it?
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