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But having to be the incubator means I am saddle with the full brunt of the responsibility and expectation once the baby is born. I go from woman to mother. And with it comes judgement and duties, and goes freedom and care-free living.
I want to be a father so I can raise a kid, provide, teach and impart to a little slice of my own genes. And be praised whenever a diaper is changed or I fetch the little one from school.
But alas I was born with a womb, a sexual attraction to men, and the drive for a high-impact career. The three seem incompatible.
Being a father comes with its own responsibilities and subjection to judgment by the community. The phrase "deadbeat dad" is in the common vernacular, but you rarely hear about "deadbeat moms" (trust me, they exist).
> full brunt of the responsibility and expectation once the baby is born
This is simply not true. If this were true, child support laws and requirements would not exist.
You actually don't have full responsibility once the child is born. Even then, you can give the child up for adoption.
You do have something that men don't have, which is full control over whether a birth happens in the first place. Men don't have this.
I think a broader problem is that women assume that as men do not have the problems women do, we are better off and lack the empathy to realise men have different problems. Its pretty evident in things such as the higher suicide rate for young men in many countries.
Both parents have the same responsibility to their kids, to do the absolute best for them, and we should fight back against outdated cultural norms that assume that mothers are the default parent, and that fathers "babysit" their own children.
This can be resolved by choosing a better man as a partner, one that is supportive and willing to be an equal partner. I understand finding someone that fulfills that as well as this person also being someone you're attracted to and compatible with socially is challenging, but I have seen relationships like this before so I know it's possible.
And then there's the fact of life that other stuff needs to be taken care of. Trash still needs to be taken out, groceries bought, etc further pushing you towards the stuff outside of parenting.
This can hardly be resolved with money. We could hire nannies, get the top nursery, whatever. It would even be cost-efficient if it let mom work. However, the kid doesn't want to be without his mom and much more so she doesn't want to be away from him for a longer time! Even with me 4-6 hours is about it.
Your child might want the mother, but this is no true of every child. Different kids in the same family can be different in this way too.
I am sure children benefit from having several parents and role models, but I am not so sure that the shape of the genitals matter as much as whether the parent(s) is/are emotionally in tune with the child. The classical father of yore was simply not much of a parent. Today's can choose either.
Her carefree living has gone, but she can still go to work parties while I stay home and look after our daughter. She's never told me she experienced any overt judgement about being the sole breadwinner (there was a male manager who asked her after mat leave how her vacation was. I wonder how much he was involved in the early years of raising his kids‽). I will admit I do get more praise than I should be for doing my role, but really that praise is pretty empty, the bar is so low for men. The praise I do get mainly comes from women older than us. I've only once gotten a "Mr. Mom" comment and that was from an older American acquaintance.
She took about 4 months off if I recall correctly for mat leave after our daughter was born. She was going crazy at home.
She has some limitations for sure, she feels like she's as far as she'll get at least while our daughter is young, in terms of the promo-game. But she and the company are content with where she's at, though she is a bit envious at times about how some of her colleagues have been promoted to higher levels despite starting at the same time or after her.
She's very involved and a great mom.
I hope that didn't come off as a brag (I'm terrible at keeping the place clean and tidy, we hire help for that), my point is that you probably can have a high-impact career, be sexually attracted to men, and have a womb, and have a child. The freedom and care-free living will go regardless of one's gender, that's just part of being a good parent. There are plenty of men out there up for a majority parenting role.
For some context I'm around 40, and in my age group there's a lot more involved fathers (we see lone fathers with children at the park all the time, including with solely presenting-female children) and working mothers than when I was a child. Living in a major city in Ontario, Canada.
Does it, or is is a complaint about the patriarchy? I don't see any part of the OP comment that seems misandrist or reducing the role that engaged fathers play.
I am a father of two wonderful kids. I do more drop offs than my wife, I changed just as many diapers / handled sick care, I handle more of the nighttime routines and give each kid a 10 minute back rub every night while my wife lays in bed (9 years and counting for my eldest) and cook more than my wife. She does clean more than me, folds more laundry, prepare their lunches, organizes their after care and play dates and babysitters more. She also worked harder when the kids were 0-6 months than I did for sure.
I begrudge her for none of what I do “more”. It’s hard work but I love being with my kids and my wife works her tail off running her business. We have a great balance and I feel lucky. And yet life isn’t perfect and, it being hard work, it’s easy to point fingers instead of focusing on gratitude and real world trade offs (two things the paper and feminism generally lack).
I think it comes down to ambitions. Do you have ambitions to be financially successful, to have a wonderful career or marriage or to be a great parent? Although feminists are loathe to talk of hierarchies for obvious reasons, they nevertheless have their use. So let me hierarchize: I truly have greater ambitions around being a parent than anything else. We also happen to be financially successful (more so because of my wife) but she has greater ambitions around that than I do.
So anyway, I think we are the counter example to your last statement and show that it can be compatible. And many of my friends are similar.
I believe procreation is the highest impact a human can achieve.
The result of 14 billion years of cosmic evolution, a thermodynamic miracle, the waking universe looking back on itself.
Imagine what we can achieve when robots can do the laundry and dishes.
First, you mean like clothes washers and dishwashers, which already exist?
Second, my imagination of what we can achieve by procreation seems limited to "more humans". A trillion humans? A quadrillion humans? Enlighten me.
I don't know why you couldn't be a great father. In the sense you're talking about. I know it would come with the physical baggage (or not, if you adopt?)
A friend I love dearly is raising a 3 year old little girl... she never expected to get pregnant at 42... and she is as much a father as a mother. She lets the girl play in mud puddles while other parents stare, and collect bugs, and go look at art in museums. Absolutely unconcerned with how the world thinks a mom with a 3 year old should behave.
[edit] it did slow my friend's career over the past few years, but, didn't kill it. And she's back to it now. But more importantly... I've never seen anyone love anything as much, even when she says she's frustrated out of her mind. And me, not having kids, I'm a little jealous of that feeling.
[edit2] I'm an uncle, so maybe that's more my speed ... just jumping in for the easy fun parts and teaching the kids new things and being the visiting fireman. But that's not what being a father is, at least as far as my brother's day to day driving them to and from school and taking care of them.
And if it’s not too prying to ask what are your ideal expectations for your partner? How important is their career? What is their ideal role in childrearing?
I may be calling names now, but maybe this is an unnecessary "oldschool" meme that should already be forgotten. In my country (Estonia), I don't see dads actually being praised for every small childcare chore they courageously complete. Nobody does that, really. It's more like a meme that e.g. feminists love to bring about and keep alive in Facebook or elsewehere, thus showing an ongoing conflict between men and women (or -- being a man vs being a woman, with women actually as the superior sex or side). Let it fade away finally, for god's sake, and let dads quietly do their thing.
Source: first-hand experience as a primary caregiver for our children for several years, while the mom was working full time. It was not really an optimal scenario in terms of sharing economical responsibility within a family (it did raise conflicts at times), but I liked "doing stuff" with both children, and never expected any direct admiration from society, etc. Luckily, I also didn't get almost any of this. :) I just did my thing as a dad, got children to kindergarten and then back home, etc, and those were some beautiful times in this sense.
They praise dads for being involved because they don't see it as normal and as they don't see it as normal, they always think that the mother is somehow the person to contact in emergencies. I'd much rather not be praised for every little thing and for people here to trust in a father's competence.
Is some of that a "take it or leave it" attitude? Yes, but both people have that in every relationship, or else they should.
I think if you're in a relationship that's primarily defined by what you don't want to do, you should get out of it as quickly as possible.
If I ever find myself writing extended essays about why I'd love to have a wife like me, and I truly hated making her breakfast, I would bail.
Biblical and Hebrew texts all encourage punishment of both man and woman in instances of adultery.
As a man I don’t like promiscuous men because they’re competition. I don’t want to introduce my female friends to them because they’re not relationship material, and I don’t find them trustworthy as a wingman. Call it jealousy, but I think the same dynamic applies to the other gender.
We're heavy in the diminishing returns here - if it hasn't even inverted already.
New tools and approaches will have to be found to further push these goals.
This - evidently - worked and works, but there are trade-offs to it.
Specifically, it is zero-sum, which eventually led to the gender war we have now. Since the defenses have been (for the most part) broken down, a modern pivot would likely move towards more unification again, I guess.
The one at the beginning was far more interesting.