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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Those of you with resentment toward your husbands for not staying with you, by the hospital bed, after childbirth -- do you do the same for him when he is hospitalized? Or is he expected to "be a man" and deal with it?[/quote]

Jesus people... this is why there are issues with PPD.  A woman who gives birth just went through a HUGE hormonal/personal/physical/etc change and ESPECIALLY with the first child--- how is it out of the ordinary to expect that the father would just stay with you for the first night?  And yes, if my DH was in the hospital I would absolutely do everything I could to support him.[/quote]

NP.  Don't get it either.  It is the father's child.  His wife just delivered a baby, and may have even had a routine, but still serious, medical procedure.

And even if YOU didn't need your husband's help, someone else still may want/need their husband around.  How hard is it to understand? [/quote]

I don't think anyone's saying they don't care if their DH is there at ALL - he's there during the birth, during the waking hours, bringing you extra food, getting water, listening to what the doctors/nurses are saying, etc. But [b]what some women are saying is there isn't much of a point for the DH to stay overnight in a crappy chair and probably not get any rest, thus possibly making him tired/cranky the next day, etc. The new mom probably isn't getting much sleep in the hospital either, but it doesn't make a lot of sense for both parents to be exhausted.[/b] [/quote]

This kind of sexism makes me crazy, and it doesn't make it any less sexist just because you couch it in terms of "what some women are saying."

This kind of attitude -- "well, she has to do it, so why should I also have to do it?  Doing it comes at a cost (of lack of rest) and at least one of us should feel well-rested" -- is ridiculous logic that, when extended through the life of raising kids means that the woman does the lion's share of parenting and suffers the lion's share of the negative damage from it (sleep, career prospects, double shift, etc.)

DH should stay overnight in a crappy chair, because the child that was just born is 50% his, so he should do 50% of the child-rearing from the start.  Yes, DH might get a crappy night's sleep, but he might also be able to rise in the middle of the night to change a diaper or get me the baby, thus making my middle of the night a little less crappy.  DH might also get to bond with the new baby and better learn the new baby's rythm.

Also, it is not my responsibility to insulate DH from anything that might make him tired/cranky the next day.  He needs to suck it up when he is tired just like I do. [/quote]

That kind of attitude makes me feel thankful I've never wanted children.  I'm pretty sure I would blow a gasket if DH wanted me to carry *our* child for nine or however many months in my body, shoot it out of my vagina, then complain that [b]he's [/b][i]not well-rested. [/quote]

Okay well, if we're trying to make it "fair", you're fighting a losing battle because it's already unfair that women are the only ones who can give birth. So the women are the only ones who have to recover physically. And then, if you choose, they are the only ones who can breastfeed. Unfortunately, in those early days, DH physically cannot do 50%. So your solution - to make it more fair - is to make sure that your DH is miserable? Because that helps how exactly? I don't see how you could say to yourself "Man I am exhausted, but good, DH is too, that makes me feel more rested!"

You're not giving any credit to the women who sent their husbands home. Maybe that meant that those mother's got to rest their entire first day at home from the hospital because their DH decided to take over since mom didn't get a chance to sleep while in the hospital. Maybe DH could have thrown in a load of laundry before going to sleep that night. Maybe their DH snores or asks too many questions to the nurses in the middle of the night. Maybe they have an older child who DH could occupy that first day home while mom takes care of the newborn. The motivation is not only "oh poor DH is tired, let him get some sleep." Maybe those women preferred [i]those [/i]things to what you said you wanted - which was having DH hand you the baby in the middle of the night, or changing a diaper. I personally wanted DH around all the time my first day home from the hospital, while I was trying to figure out nursing and I was feeling overwhelmed because we were "on our own." I would have been upset if he had announced he was going to take a nap. And then while I dozed, either with the baby or while the baby napped, he wasn't napping too, he was getting us dinner, finishing laundry, etc. etc.  That doesn't make either of us wrong. Having your DH miss one, maybe two nights does not lead to the women doing all the work.

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