Reply to husband as "junior partner" in childrearing

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm so confused by posts like these. Was there really no inkling that your husband was going to be like this?   [/quote]

I think what happens a lot is that women also have no real idea what parenting is going to be like, so they don't fully vet partners for these behaviors. If you are 28 and also like being pretty carefree and independent, you are fine with a partner who doesn't always wash the dishes before bed or is sometimes lax about schedules because it doesn't impact you negatively. You can be laid back.

But what I see happen a lot is that when kids come along, women lock it down. Even the most previously carefree, laid back moms I know get their $hit together when they have kids, at least enough to handle the basics like bedtimes, feeding the kids, lining up childcare. This is bare minimum stuff but even with just one kid, if you have two working parents, it takes some planning, effort, and research. And most of the women I know just sort of naturally segued into that when they had kids. Maybe a few bumps early on as they realized exactly how much more planning/accommodating is required, but they get on board pretty quick.

Men don't. They don't experience pregnancy, I think often kids don't really feel real to them until they show up, then they panic, then they shirk responsibility because they are freaked out, and then if their partner starts handling a lot of that stuff on her own, they just kind of pretend it's not happening and think "oh we're 50/50" even though deep down, both partners know they aren't.

[b]There's this whole dynamic where women step up to the plate because, as the one who actually gives birth, you kind of have to. And men, even men who are relatively equal partners pre-kids, sometimes freak out and step back because they feel overwhelmed and are afraid to mess up. And this leads to a situation where the woman does all the things and the man avoids, shirks, and defers. It's not really something that is discussed, and the only way to stop it is to address it directly. But some men are receptive to that conversation and some aren't.[/b]

All of which is to say, I don't think these guys are always total layabouts before kids (the kids freak them out and cause them to start shirking) and I don't think these women always had it all together pre-kids (the kids inspire them to get it together because they quickly understand the gravity of the situation). And culturally, [b]we reinforce these responses by having very high expectations for moms and very low expectations for dads.[/b] We even blame women when men don't step up, that's how lopsided these expectations are.[/quote]

well thought out response, esp the bold[/quote]

No it's a terrible response, especially the bolded. The men are not "afraid to mess up" they are told over and over and over and over... they are messing up... when in actuality, they are not. They are just doing it differently. But they give up because it causes a fight, then you step in to be a martyr.

Now that is a well thought out response. [/quote]

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