Men changing diapers and the denigration of Fatherhood
Fatherhood in the Age of the Mother from the perspective of a new mother
The unique thing about human babies compared to all other species of babies on earth is the sheer amount of investment required by both parents in order for the child to thrive. In the days of old (50 years ago) around the world, men and women had rigidly segregated “childcare” roles, in which, feminists would like us to believe, the men did “nothing” while the women took on all the burden. Today, we are far more “advanced” in the equality between men and women, mothers and fathers as commercial after advertisement is the media wagging its moral finger at us that “good dads change the diapers too, good dads carry the baby on the hip while they do the laundry and fold the socks!” The mainstream tells us that a father, in essence, is only good when he is taking on the role of the mother. (And in fact a man is only acceptable when he is behaving like a woman).
But is this all parenting is? Let us limit ourselves to the stage when children require the most hands-on care, the stage from age 0-6 when they need help for everything from diaper changes to eating to burping to putting on their clothes. Babies are needy! As a new mother, I am well aware of the twenty-four seven attention that infants require and in fact I am typing this as my daughter sleeps peacefully on my chest and have written this in the stolen 15 minutes here and there that I can get. I have changed countless diapers, and cleaned up throw up, and breastfed and spent many countless nights soothing and burping and bathing the baby. It is a lot of work…but the reason I am able to do this work, is that I don’t have to do other work. I don’t have to wake up at 7am after a sleepless night of infant care and be at the office to make money.
I don’t have to mother on top of doing another job. This is because my husband is providing for us. He is taking on the cost of me being able to stay home and give all the care the baby needs from her mother right now. Why isn’t this a respected version of fatherhood? Why is a father only respected when he’s taking on a woman’s role?
In fact, if I were to go out and make money while I left my husband with pumped milk and a confused infant searching for her mother’s scent with no maternal instincts to help him…I would be considered “stunning and brave” by the matriarchy that holds modern society in her fist.
Fatherhood is a more invisible form of childcare because it is indirect. When a man
works day and night, putting his whims and his desires to the side in order to provide for his family, he is a good father. When a man takes on the stresses of dealing with the world and forms a shield around the mother and the child, he is a good father. Why are these things inferior to changing diapers and wearing an apron to do the dishes? Why is this version of fatherhood not celebrated? Because our society is run by solipsistic women who do not love the men in their lives—if to love someone is to appreciate someone’s sacrifices and efforts. They only see the women’s tasks in childcare because these tasks are direct. They do not see what makes it possible for a woman to complete these duties in a safe and secure environment.
The basic tenet of the transgender agenda (a natural outgrowth of feminism) is that men and women are interchangeable and there are no differences between them. Feminists believe that the only way that men and women can be of equal value is if they are exactly the same. Feminists are the geniuses among us who cannot understand that two beings can be of equal value even as they are fundamentally different. The fact of the matter is, a mother is not a father and vice versa. A woman cannot fulfil a father’s role and a father cannot fulfil a mother’s. A man may be able to change diapers and burp a baby and feed him milk from a bottle, but a man cannot be a mother. A man does not have the in born instincts that a mother’s biology precisely equips her with to look after an infant.
It is true that the nuclear family living away from extended family is the norm today. Grandmothers, aunts, sisters and cousins are not available to most parents to help where they would have been in more traditional settings. This is referred to as “the village” which made childcare far more manageable in traditional societies and probably why people also had better social skills and mothers and fathers were happier. I am very fortunate to have this village. In the first months of my baby’s life I had my mom, my sisters and cousins to help me with everything so that I could learn what to do. Motherhood is also something that is learned on the job. In the absence of this village, it makes sense that a couple would work together to figure out how to look after a small child. I do not begrudge this at all. I am merely pointing out that it is not the ideal situation.
However, should we be glorifying this unideal situation? Should we use this unfortunate reality to diminish the other roles of the father? In fact, if the father is the sole provider, isn’t it unfair if he also has to do “50%” of the domestic chores as well? This is a great example of “Girl Math”. It goes the other way as well. Most couples today cannot survive on one income and both the mother and father must earn money. In these situations, the woman usually ends up doing the majority of childcare, domestic work and earns money, leaving her understandably exhausted. I believe it is a sympathy for the woman in this situation that lead to the feminist campaign to illustrate the “Good Dad” as the one who changes diapers and cooks dinner etc.
But let us look at this situation from another perspective. Are the woman taking on the extra burden of childcare and domestic work in this situation because they all have horrible, unhelpful husbands? No. In reality, it is because of the biological reality, at least as it pertains to direct childcare, that women are far better equipped to do this. A better solution could be to make hired help such as cleaners and cooks more accessible and affordable to women who don’t live near extended family to help them.
We may find other such imbalances in other parts of the relationship. More often than not, the man ends up taking on more of the roles related to administration and paperwork, making sure each of the bills is paid on time, that the taps work, that the car’s oil is changed, that the security cameras on the house are working, and a thousand other unglamorous aspects of running a household that have nothing to do with making sure the floors are clean and dinner is cooked.
My own father was very hands off when it came to childcare. He has never changed a diaper and he does not know how to clean a baby bottle. But I don’t forget the fact that while my mom was looking after us as babies, my dad was working very hard so that we would be able to move to Canada (hey it was really good in the 2000s!!), and live in a society that had a good school district, clean and safe streets for his children to play in when they grew up. While my mom did have a job, it was my dad who was taking on the majority of the mental burden to figure out how to invest and organize our money so that we could buy a house in the right neighbourhood and how to save up so that his children could afford to go to university later on. My dad didn’t put on an apron and wash the dishes, but he did a lot for us that cringey feminist media will never show appreciation for. This is because we live in a world where men are largely invisible unless they are behaving like women.
The roles of both the mother and the father are valuable, but it seems like the man’s roles are always invisible to us.
“How can a father bond with a child if he doesn’t take on childcare roles?” This is the response that the ideologically captured feminists put forward to argue for their “good dad” role that the media tells us about. Direct childcare is not the only way to bond with a child. Spending time reading together, playing together, and just being present are lots of ways that parents can bond with children. American parenting seems to assert the idea that the parents always need to be in their children’s’ faces in order to have a good relationship with them. Anyone raised with lots of siblings in a traditional household will know that children usually play with each other away from the adults and the adults bond with the children because they are always there to go to when there is trouble, and to have discussions with at the end of the day.
It is another unideal situation if a woman must work in addition to her husband when her children are little and need their mother directly far more than their father. And this is a fact of life: in the first 0-6 years of life, a child needs its mother for direct care far more than its father. The father is most helpful insofar as he permits the child to be near his mother as much as he can. This is fatherhood in the early years: making sure the mother can be close to her baby. Fatherhood looks different after this and takes on many other forms, which is a discussion for another day.
A father doesn’t need to take on the roles of a mother in order to be a good father. Let us remember all those things fathers do that are invisible to the gynocentric culture. I, for one, am glad that I can sit here with a sleeping baby on my chest, and can stay up all night soothing her, rather than worry about when the electricity bill needs to get paid or whether we are living in a good school district.
To begin with, congratulations on your newborn. Children are very much a blessing. My wife left her job as a nurse and has been a stay at home mom for over a decade now, and we both homeschool our girls. I have heard so many of these attacks, both against me as well as my wife. It is a shame.
With that being said, this is a well written piece which highlights the plight that many go through. The nuclear family is the cornerstone of civilization, evidenced by anthropology dating deep into antiquity all the way back to the emergence of our species. It is quite simply, in our DNA. The male and female pneuma, while very distinct, are equally important in raising a child. Prioritizing this important faucet of our existence was not a priority, nor is it currently, of the progenitors of our modern technocratic civilization. In fact it had to be destroyed and replaced.The rise of modern public education system at the turn of the 19th century was designed to function as an "occupational daycare" so both parents could engage workforce training for the "capitalists" to operate the machines of mass production, leaving the children to be conditioned into the same apparatus at an early age. While this became a self-fullfilling system, the technology of culture had to be maniupulated by propaganda and social engineers to cause us to acquiece to this new mass formation, which at times will attack the role of the woman, at at other times the role of the man evidenced by a century of evolution. Your essay highlights some of these attacks, as the sexes are now pitted against each other as though they should be combatants instead of synergistic pieces. Now, what was once considered a "strong man" is demonized. That is because society is operated by weak men, so naturally systems designed by them would seek to undermine the foundation of strong men, one such pillar being the nuclear family.
Now, social constructs are conflated with natural ones. Ignorance becomes wisdom. Vulgarity becomes beauty. And apathy and distraction polices the populace.
Great article, generous spirit!