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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Had a kid recently and people are impressed I know how to make a bottle saying a lot of fathers don’t. Seems wild. [/quote]

It's changing, I think.  But in general: yes.

When we had our first I remember the first time we went out to brunch I was babywearing her, when she got fussy I took her out of the restaurant, I fed her, I got her to fall sleep, and then I handed her over to her dad to hold her so I could eat.  The moment, the literal minute, that he sat down with her in his arms a waitress from another table came over and told him he was the Father of the Year.  For holding a sleeping child.  The same child I had been wrangling with no recognition for the better part of an hour.  Luckily all the people at our table were parents and the moms and dads all had the same "the bar is in Hell" reaction, because if he had been receptive to that level of praise for that level of effort I probably would have resented it deeply.[/quote]

I had the same experience! I was taking care of the baby for an extended period of time, which is NORMAL, and within 10 minutes of my husband just holding her while she looked around calmly an older lady came by and gushed over how amazing he was. For holding his own child. I don’t think men realize how unbelievably low the bar is most of the time but that time my husband was dumbstruck. [/quote]

We have a family we are good friends with who has a kid near in age to ours, and we discovered by accident when the girls were really little that if we sent the dads somewhere to wait in line with the girls, people would fall all over themselves trying to help them and in this way we'd get faster service, free food, the best table, etc. when we went out. If the other mom and I had the girls, people would ignore us. If the two dads had them, it was like a celebrity had arrived.

I think for a lot of people it's just an instinctual response, because the expectation is that men won't care about kids or participate in parenting at all, and they can't help but fawn over them when they do. It's depressing but I guess at least it reflects a desire to see men caring for kids? There's no excuse for the way moms are treated like garbage a lot of the time, though. Especially when other mothers do it. I'm like "you know! you know how it is, and you still pull this crap." [/quote]

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