Can you believe that I actually registered just to respond to this cause of a half-awake conversation I had with Marc while driving to work this morning? But I started bringing up some points that he wished he had made earlier, and so here I am.
It's hard to say that definitively men or women have it easy(-ier).
Certainly there are points on both sides; women have the physcal pain of actual delivery and subsequent hormonal readjustment, men have the emotional and mental pain of having to stand by and watch, knowing that this is a result of a) their willing and eager participation (in case of a planned pregnancy) or b) not taking precautions/ failure of precautions (in case of unplanned pregnancy). Obviously I'm simplifying that part a bit, there are oodles and oodles of variations on these broad points. Unless the man is a sadist or sociopath, he will generally feel a certain amount of responsibility for her pain.
I personally feel that we've lost sight of how risky childbirth actually is, in this age of modern medicine. Before current hygiene standards were in place we women could be infected and die from the afterbirth. Or if the baby was too big, or placed wrongly, or any number of a bunch of things. That's the reason why a lot of babies weren't named until they were a year old and why parents didn't get emotionally attached to their children until the kids were five or six, and old enough that they would *probably* live to their teen years and beyond. If you (father or mother) lose 5 infants in a row, it doesn't matter what side you're on - it's devastating. My great-aunt lost three babies in three years to crib death, what is now SIDS. She lost the will to live, and her husband not only coped with the loss of his children but the slow and painful wasting away of his wife in an age before psychiatry and antidepressants. The only reason she lived is because her sister had a baby the next year and literally gave him to her. That baby lived. He saved my aunt's life and possibly her husband's sanity.
um. Where was I? Oh yes. It's way too easy to say women have it worse because they have the physical pain and that's the visible and often bloody part. At the same time we're protected against a great deal of the emotional pains of delivery, because of all those nifty hormones and biochemical do-dads in our bodies that evolved specifically to protect us by making us forget.
I did a bunch of writing in the day after the BorgMonkey was born. Then, mercifully, it all blurred. Now I'd do it all again in a heartbeat; this is because I've forgotten just how close to dying I came, how uncertain the survival of our daughter was (and if she would have long-term damage), and to a large degree how suicidal I was in the week leading up to her birth. I don't know if Marc has ever brought it up, but I had the pre-partum version of the post-partum psychosis that usually leads to feature stories on the 6 o'clock news. And I don't bring that up to get pity or pats for either of us, it's just to supply context. I credit TriCare with actually caring, and my large team of specialists who outstubborned me at the end, with my recovery from all of this without ending up forcibly committed to a psychiatric institution and/or as a lead story on C-span. Of course, that would probably lead to a book deal, and we could use the money.
That's the stuff that men deal with. That's why it's neither worse or better, just different. I don't think that they forget any of the psycho stuff their partners go through in the labor process.
It's hard to say that definitively men or women have it easy(-ier).
Certainly there are points on both sides; women have the physcal pain of actual delivery and subsequent hormonal readjustment, men have the emotional and mental pain of having to stand by and watch, knowing that this is a result of a) their willing and eager participation (in case of a planned pregnancy) or b) not taking precautions/ failure of precautions (in case of unplanned pregnancy). Obviously I'm simplifying that part a bit, there are oodles and oodles of variations on these broad points. Unless the man is a sadist or sociopath, he will generally feel a certain amount of responsibility for her pain.
I personally feel that we've lost sight of how risky childbirth actually is, in this age of modern medicine. Before current hygiene standards were in place we women could be infected and die from the afterbirth. Or if the baby was too big, or placed wrongly, or any number of a bunch of things. That's the reason why a lot of babies weren't named until they were a year old and why parents didn't get emotionally attached to their children until the kids were five or six, and old enough that they would *probably* live to their teen years and beyond. If you (father or mother) lose 5 infants in a row, it doesn't matter what side you're on - it's devastating. My great-aunt lost three babies in three years to crib death, what is now SIDS. She lost the will to live, and her husband not only coped with the loss of his children but the slow and painful wasting away of his wife in an age before psychiatry and antidepressants. The only reason she lived is because her sister had a baby the next year and literally gave him to her. That baby lived. He saved my aunt's life and possibly her husband's sanity.
um. Where was I? Oh yes. It's way too easy to say women have it worse because they have the physical pain and that's the visible and often bloody part. At the same time we're protected against a great deal of the emotional pains of delivery, because of all those nifty hormones and biochemical do-dads in our bodies that evolved specifically to protect us by making us forget.
I did a bunch of writing in the day after the BorgMonkey was born. Then, mercifully, it all blurred. Now I'd do it all again in a heartbeat; this is because I've forgotten just how close to dying I came, how uncertain the survival of our daughter was (and if she would have long-term damage), and to a large degree how suicidal I was in the week leading up to her birth. I don't know if Marc has ever brought it up, but I had the pre-partum version of the post-partum psychosis that usually leads to feature stories on the 6 o'clock news. And I don't bring that up to get pity or pats for either of us, it's just to supply context. I credit TriCare with actually caring, and my large team of specialists who outstubborned me at the end, with my recovery from all of this without ending up forcibly committed to a psychiatric institution and/or as a lead story on C-span. Of course, that would probably lead to a book deal, and we could use the money.
That's the stuff that men deal with. That's why it's neither worse or better, just different. I don't think that they forget any of the psycho stuff their partners go through in the labor process.
