Just Do It! The Good, The Bad and The Smelly
Posted by Laurie
I just finished reading the book “Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood” by Michael Lewis. It’s a frighteningly honest and hilarious depiction of fatherhood and all its ups and downs. What I liked best about the book was that the author, who admits to not really wanting to do the dirty work of raising kids, still does it with an open mind and, he’s pretty darn good at it (even though he doesn’t think so).
His “just do it!” attitude resounded with me because I’m so sick and tired of hearing that men can take a backseat to parenting because woman are just naturally better than men at dealing with babies. No we’re not. After a woman gives birth, God does not suddenly send her a brain download with files on how to change a diaper, hold a baby or detect when it’s sick and how to treat it. She doesn’t know any more than Dad does. Research shows that a third of parents with infants know surprisingly little about infant development
I was a bit afraid of my baby (fear of babies is not specific to men). What if I did something wrong? I didn’t know what my baby needed and if my husband asked, “do you think he pooped?” my first thought was, “you can smell his butt as well as I can.” To me, parenting is an “on the job” learning experience for both of us.
Thankfully, even though Michael Lewis thinks his wife is a better parent, his own education through trial and error in dealing with the good, the bad and the smelly shows us that yes, men can be great parents too. He watches his children’s births, supports his wife through emotional difficulties, changes diapers, cleans up messes, settles family fights, takes his kids camping, has “morning duty” for the baby and drives car pool. For more about how to be a better parent, read this article from parents.com
I believe there is no maternal instinct. Of course there is the innate parental desire to love, care and protect a baby, but as to how to do that and deal with every problem, I was clueless. And if men think we instinctually know how to detect an ear infection or persuade our baby to eat solid food just because we had that nine month bond with our baby prior to its birth, they are dead wrong. The big reveal is that we mothers would like to believe the same thing. But we can’t because immediately after the birth of our baby we are overwhelmed with questions that beg for answers.
The truth is that we all bungle our way through parenthood. There is no maternal instinct and no paternal instinct, instead there are simply learned parenting skills that emerge because of our instinctive parental desire to love, nurture and protect our offspring.
What do you think? Is there a maternal instinct or a parental one? Is one parent automatically better than the other?
This entry was posted on Monday, July 20th, 2009 at 6:33 pm and is filed under Baby Prep, Balance & Fairness, Roles & Responsibilities. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response.
Well said! I was terrified for the first month that my son was born! Am i going to drop him? What do I do to make him stop crying? It was insane! Luckily my husband was right there every step of the way. I hate to admit it, but at certain things my husband is actually much better at dealing with the baby than I am!