I was reminded this week of a common stereotype about men in parenting circles which portrays fathers as mindless beasts that women need to learn how to handle correctly.
I was watching Bringing up Baby and a woman who was encouraging co-sleeping was attacked by the other “baby experts” on the grounds that the baby could be squished in the bed by parents rolling over them.
They claimed it was unsafe because “the man” might come home drunk and jump into bed oblivious to the little one. You see apparently men such as myself have no conscious control of own behaviour, I’m apparently just a gelatinous bag of beer and football who might spontaneously fall into a bar and roll home three sheets to the wind through no fault of my own.
As any co-sleeper knows you can’t drink alcohol or take drugs, and if you do have the occasional social function to attend you drink very little and make sure to sleep in another room or on the floor by the door. Of course as a man I’m incapable taking on such a responsibility.
Another issue is that of sex. You see a problem with co-sleeping is that “the man” can’t “get his sex”. Yep thats right because as we all know if I don’t get sex I’ll go wild and sleep with prostitutes and become violent and wreck my relationship and leave home.
Now there is the possibility that I might be sensitive enough to give my partner some time after the birth and that I might have had some idea how our new circumstances would impact our sex life and have actually accepted this as part of my new parental responsibilities. There’s also the chance that as I’m so busy both working and doing my half of the parenting, that I’m too bloody tired to even think about sex as well. But of course this would be too much much ask of such an ignorant sex-mad savage as myself.
Then of course there’s breastfeeding. You would think a man would be overjoyed that his child was getting the best start in life possible, but you’d be quite wrong there. You see men such as myself are prone to getting jealous of our child’s on demand access to boobies, and we’re so infantile ourselves that seeing our partner breastfeeding might de-sexualize them in our eyes forever which of course leads to prostitutes, violence etc as before.
Imagine a world where a man could be emotionally involved with his children and was willing to make some sacrifices to help nurture them. Imagine a world were a man actually loved co-sleeping with his family in their huge eight foot futon bed and thought watching his toddler being fed and then playing there with her every morning before work and every night before bed was the most contented place he’d ever been. Imagine a world where a man who professed to be co sleeping wasn’t immediatly questioned about his sex life by people who should mind their own business, and didn’t have to invent witty retorts to scandalize them into silence such as “well we were never really into sex in bed anyway, we were always the outdoors type!”
Well unfortunately according to most parenting “experts” this man doesn’t exist, so women please don’t co-sleep or your wild drunken sex starved Neanderthal husband might just squash your children in an alcoholic sex frenzy.
July 18, 2008 at 1:10 am
I loved your post, and found it very funny; perhaps you are a tiny exception to the rule.
I am not a parent (hopefully yet) but I have been married to a wonderful man for almost 6 years now. and while he hates the taste of beer, gets cranky when I make him use the grill, barely knows the difference between a screwdriver and a wrench, oh yeah and couldn’t care less about any sports; he is in every other sense of the word a “man”… because you see through a woman’s eyes the word “man” doesn’t always conjure up visions of srewdriver holding, beer guzzling, football enamored males.
married women often view the opposite sex as thoughtless, insensitive, and self-centered.
I am 27 years old and many of my aquaintances are in their late 20s-mid 30s. I don’t know too many people (because I am a shy/private person) but of the few people I do know; I personally know of 2 seperate cases in which*relatively* newly-wed men with children less then 4 years of age have wrecked their home lives. one of the men (a friend of my husband), a well to do Engineer with a beautiful wife and 2 kids ( a boy age 4, and a girl age 2) contracted Herpes last August from his 22 year old female co-worker (who quit soon after the incident) his marriage was on the rocks, but is still surviving one year later.
the other case is that of my co-worker a 30 year old man who married his girlfriend of 8 years, and they had a child after about a year of marriage. we all saw how nervous he was to marry, but he was a wreck when he found out that he was going to be a father. already skinny he lost a lot of weight and looked almost deathly thin. he went to the doctor and was perscribed a sleeping aid because he couldn’t sleep leading up to the birth of his son. you’d think that his world was crashing down around him. his work performance slipped and he was demoted sideways (keeping his pay, but having less responsibility and a new title) after the birth of his son he spent about a year being “fatherly” but not long after that he started to drink, and go out to the bars with the guys after work. then he started gloating about his conquests to anyone who would listen. soon he started to actively try to date a couple of the women in the office who amused him with lunch outings but nothing more, but then oneday I saw him kissing a little red head on the lips after work when he thought he was the only one still there. and it wasn’t his pretty blonde haired wife whose name I will leave anonymous. a couple of weeks later he took a lot of time off for depression because his wife left him.
so, I know that these instances are probably just flukes or something, but like I said I don’t know a lot of people in my life, and to know of two guys who wrecked their marriages after having children?… all I know is that it is common sense amoung women that men are not typically as enthused about having children as women usually are. it is an inpersonable experience for men they are there for the conception, they may be there for the ultrasounds, and they might be there for the labor, but they don’t physically go through the change and therefore it is difficult for a lot of men to right away change their lives for a baby unlike women who stare at that mirror everyday for 9 months with a growing kicking belly, and then the automatic love and joy for a baby that they delivered into this world through blood, pain, and hard work. besides every cautionary tale usually stems from an actual event.