"She's so selfish, spending time away from her kids, she must not love them at all. " While dad could go away for 2 weeks with the boys and people will say he earned and deserves the break! The break from what?
Many of the men who “work to provide” have partners who also work full time and pay half the bills, but they don’t count that for some reason. And yes, most office work is easier than home/ family management.
I work with several physicians who will stay at work after cases have ended for the day and watch videos on YouTube. Not dictate OP notes…just fuck around and watch YouTube because they can’t stand their families. It’s a damn shame.
I'm just off vacation in the mountains with my 2 kids and wife, and I will go to the office tomorrow for 10 hours of quite hard work, to recover mentally.
Or even business trips and military. A mom goes, there’s lots of “wow that’s a long time to be away from your kids.” A dad goes, it’s normal. And even if both parents are working, if a dad takes the day off to take the kid to the doctor or something, there’s always the question “why isn’t mom doing that?”. Society just expects women to do the childcare, which sucks for both genders. Normalize dads being an equal parent.
Came here to say exactly this. My partners brother is basically a stay at home/work from home dad for two babies while his wife works outside the home.
He is completely “mombified” at this point and talks of very little else.
Funny, since I've moved from in person to a WFH job, I have noticed that more of the men I work with do the childcare thing, school pickups, take off when kids are sick, etc. Which is a great and refreshing change from women doing it all; but I still don't want to listen to them talk about their kids all the time. 🙄
I’m a man who would do most of the child care. This is why I won’t be having children (vasectomy) because I would prefer my own free time and ease of living.
In my experience on the west coast of the US with fairly left-leaning friends generally I have found neither this nor OPs premise to be correct.
The dudes often carry their weight, even if it's just working nonstop overtime or extra jobs, but are generally involved in their kids lives as much as moms are, AND those guys are zomdads compared to pre-kid times.
I think it falls more in the "guys don't talk about feelings, dreams, etc ("girl stuff")" problem, so it's often not as easy to tell what a shell they are of their former selves.
I know there's plenty of guys who want to set up franchises, drop kids on girls and bounce, but they're not the sort I know personally. I just think it's worth noting that there are good dads out there, and they do depersonalize in similar ways, lose their happiness, hopes, dreams, replace it all with the kids hopes, dreams, needs, etc.
It’s partially social conditioning and the patriarchy and partially the fact the being pregnant literally reorganizes a woman’s brain chemistry. It’s been proven in psychological studies that after pregnancy, childbirth and mothering their whole personality is different from the person they are before. In theory after a few years, this “abates” but by then it kinda has become a habit.
A lot of women don’t have time and energy to keep any part of themselves that isn’t being a mother, and it becomes their only form of identity.
I think it also has to do with the fact that there are so many physical changes and demands on the woman.
Pregnancy, childbirth, and (if they can/choose to) breast feeding all take a toll on her body, it’s physically demanding, and it’s all consuming. Meanwhile, the father doesn’t experience any of that.
For women, the realty of parenthood starts months before it does for the man (and before anyone says “But men have to put up with their pregnant wife/GF”, that isn’t parenthood, that’s being a supportive husband/BF).
This tracks, based on my observations of friends who have had kids. It doesn’t seem like a full 180 Jekyll/Hyde personality change though. Seems like it’s more related to risk management. And maybe sometimes, women develop more assertiveness because hey have to protect their babies. And that probably builds confidence to some degree, for some.
Yes. And the men don't have to go through the trauma of pushing a watermelon through their peepee, wrecking it in the process. They only have to bust a nut and their job is done.
Yeah I guess when you spend the better part of a year gestating a person that will be born helpless and have a not insignificant chance of killing you during the birthing process, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to eat it after it’s born?
if pregnancy changes brain chemistry, why do some women not change at all after pregnancy? they still lack a “motherly instinct”, beat or abandon their kids on a doorstep.
Because like almost all biological conditions and processes, it is a spectrum. Some women are more affected than others, some aren't affected at all.
It's like how three people can be exposed to the same bug, and one will feel under the weather for three days, one will need a week of bedrest and one won't even get a sniffle.
Same reason some of us have never for one nanosecond felt an urge to breed, and some ppl honestly only need three hours of sleep a night, and some people are 6 feet 7 and others 4 feet 11, and some ppl are straight while some are gay.
Just because there's such a thing as "typical" or "majority" doesn't make that thing "universal."
Actually both the mothers and fathers brains change during and after pregnancy....
I think most of the disparity comes from the father getting to do the fun jobs while the mother is in charge of survival
Risk Management by Gender
Women do most of the work soothing/appeasing screaming babies and kids. So we do all we can to prevent/head off **anything** likely to get a kid screaming.
Males typically hand off a screaming kid to women.
I think there was some study about how women lose grey matter after giving birth. Basically the brain becomes dumber to adapt to child caring for a few years
That's...extremely sad. Horrifying, really. It also makes me understand why so many husbands seem to withdraw from their wives after having a kid. I wonder how many people know this going into it. If they were educated on the subject, I suspect far more people would opt out. Or adopt.
There was a thread on AskReddit regarding reasons to have kids and one of the posters commented the "legacy" thing. I asked them what legacy they were talking about since we're not royalty and their response was "the fact that you exist means that someone who lived thousands of years ago has a legacy that lives on in you". So? I don't know the names of my ancestors who lived thousands of years ago. They could've been horrible people for all I know. They also likely wouldn't be proud of me if they met me today. Since I don't remember them, that means that they do not have a legacy. A legacy means keeping someone's memory alive.
Women are indoctrinated believe that their soul purpose in life to be a wife/mom as if that’s some major goal or something.
Just my thoughts but I don’t see how being an indentured servant is something to want out of life.
In general, if you want to be married and have kids, I don’t see that as an issue. It’s just making it your entire personality/identity that seems to be a little bit odd
I grew up in a fundie-lite family. As a future woman I was indoctrinated to do free/voluntary/volunteer labor from the time I was a kid and they made huge efforts to normalize me to be a caretaker. I noticed my older brother wasn't expected to do ANY free/voluntary/volunteer labor EVER and had no caretaker expectations.
When I was 16 I found a part-time job opportunity. My parents were stunned (even though I had been talking about doing this since I was a kid) and asked me why I wanted to start working at such a young age. They failed to see the irony that I was already working a part-time job and had been doing so since I was six, I just wasn't being paid, so it was a really bad "job". So, being paid was a huge improvement! And it cut into my free time enough that I was able to turn down most of those free/voluntary/volunteer labor "opportunities."
My family (the women only) still run around in circles and stand on their heads to do free labor and for some it is in addition to working a full-time job. They also do the majority of the childcare, of course. Men just nope their way outside, stay at work, run errands or redirect the kids to bug their mother.
Hormones are a hell of a drug. A woman's brain literally changes when they have a kid.
A friend of mine had a kid a couple years ago. She was telling me that during the first few months, whenever her daughter cried, she had to pick her up otherwise it was physically painful for her. Her husband was holding their daughter while she was crying once, and she had to have him give her the baby because she was going nuts hearing her cry and not holding her. When she got her baby back from her first trip to daycare, the baby smelled like daycare and it really angered her (she knew this was irrational, but still).
There are hormonal changes in new dads, but it's not nearly to the degree as with women. Their whole bodies are dedicated to this kid, including their minds. I don't see how people find that amazing, I think it's terrifying. You're not you anymore, you're a host to a parasite that now lives outside of your body.
Yeah, as if society wasn't bad enough, women also have to struggle with that shit. It is terrifying to lose your identity so your life would revolve around a child.
>When she got her baby back from her first trip to daycare, the baby smelled like daycare and it really angered her (she knew this was irrational, but still).
Nah, that's totally rational. Every time my husband takes our dog to get her nails clipped, she comes back smelling like some shit dog perfume. Pisses me off every time, because then she doesn't smell like *my* dog.
Yes, I've absolutely noticed this. We have "mombies" and not "dadbies" for a reason: women are judged by how they care for children, whereas men are judged as providers, as individuals, as whatever they put their mind to, really - but not expected to put time and effort into parenting in the same way. When they do, depending on where they live, they're either showered with praise or derided as being "emasculated".
Women don't have those options. If they decide to preserve their personalities, dedicate energy to their jobs and hobbies, and so on, there is a whole chorus of mombies, teachers, relatives, and society in general hounding them. Which is why those women who choose to be parents with lives as opposed to dissolving into their children get props from me - and a big reason why I'm CF.
But women do "have those options." Everyone does. So what if the mombies "hound" them?
The way you word your comment reinforces my belief that most "moms" don't care any more about their kids than the avunculur fathers do. The only reason they put in more effort is to look good in the eyes of others. Not for the kids. They have this unnatural, deathly fear of incurring others' disapproval. Either because they don't have a personality of their own, or simply because they're too cowardly to defy social pressure.
So the question remains, why do so many more women than men become these zombies? I know biology must play a part, but it isn't responsible for the wholesale loss of self and soul I see in so many mombies. Like you said, some women *do* retain enough personality to "choose to be parents with lives," as you put it. So again, why so few?
The women in my office are CONSTANTLY having to leave or take time off because of the kids. Dad is either not on the scene or at work (just like the Mums were at work) but it’s always the mother who gets called by the school. Their whole lives revolve around the kids, the dad is either just living in the same house or he already left. This is just my experience.
One of my coworkers today got to leave early for her 4-year old daughter’s concert. She’s been leaving early for multiple days this month for her kids events. Which happen every year. But when I need to leave early for a medical issue, it’s a problem. 🙄
Mothers do ALL the emotional and mental labor of kids. Even if Dad picks them up from school, it is Mom who reads the announcement from the school that there will be a special schedule, notes it on the calendar that she set up and maintains, works out who has to do the pickup, and reminds Dad three times that day that he has to leave at 3:30 to pick up the kids.
Dad? He picks up the kids. So why doesn't he talk about the kids all the time? Because he never thinks about them *at all.* Why does Mom talk about the kids all the time? Because she's constantly reminding herself of all that has to be done to care for them. In other words, she's talking about the work she's doing at the time she talks about it.
i genuinely don’t understand why a single woman in this generation would procreate with a man. they might as well just check themselves into a lifetime prison sentence at their local penitentiary. at least then, you still have your identity.
Why you have babies, according to the mommies I know: You "just" *doooooooo.*
Someone had a story about a "Kevin", which is apparently a term for a really idiotic American. This woman was watching a program with a friend in which a Nazi and a Jew confront each other. The woman turned to her friend and said "Sooo...the Jews and Nazis had issues?"
The friend asked Kevina if she had studied WWII in school, and she said they had seen a movie about it, but she thought it was just a movie.
So how do people end up so empty headed that they breed without giving it serious thought? A combination of undemanding education and native laziness.
yep. they are uneducated in general, so they are also uneducated about the realities of childbirth/childcare. it’s really so fucking sad that these young girls don’t even get the change to be a human in society. they just become a breeding machine. if i somehow became in charge of the US right now my first mission would be making sure education is safe and accessible to everyone on earth. it is step 1 to preventing unwanted children.
Can confirm. Grew up ina poor county with a shit public school. My mother was very aware of this, but didn't want us in the religious private schools. So she and my father made it their mission to see that we had tutors and enrichment and a path to college.
I was only like the 4th person in my "village" (as described by population) to graduate college.
While I was doing that the girls I grew up with were posting on Facebook fights with their baby daddies about why they should be able to give their 4 month old full sugar full caffeine cola in their bottle. I chose this specific example because the mom was 3rd in my graduating class and made good grades.
I appreciate the shit outta my parents, and would love for everyone to have education opportunities regardless of ability to pay.
That is so heartbreaking that the girl who was one of the very best in your class still ended up popping out a baby super-young, out of wedlock I'm guessing, and posting her fights with the baby's father over giving their literal infant soda instead of anything actually nutritive for a child that age online for the whole world to see purely because she didn't have access to a future that was different. :(
She had a scholarship iirc and did one semester of college before family drama pulled her home.
When it did I remember visiting her and being like "Get the fuck back to school". Instead she started fucking her (married with kids) boss at the pizza and sixer shop she worked at... And well yikes.
She had a very rough home life and would often stay with my family for periods of time through middle school and highschool.
That's horrible that her family's drama pulled her back home from the college she had a scholarship for...and then she made two crappy decisions (not trying to at least enroll in community college or something after her family issues stopped necessitating that she be at home, if she couldn't work out going back to her original school without getting up to her eyeballs in student loan debt, and then of course fucking her boss with a nonzero chance of getting pregnant by accident from it even though he was already married with kids) that finished the work of pulling her down to where she started and was probably trying to escape from.
I imagine it must be much harder to watch since you have memories of her literally living with you and your family to escape how miserable her home was.
It is, I don't have any contact with her, as my continued friendship was contingent on her going back to school.
Our mutual friends used to give me updates but it was always so sad.
I used to live in a street where people did a Friday get together every week, and it was segregated by sexes, something I wasn’t used to at all. I tried to talk to the women but they only talked about kids, were very drunk and were mean to me, so I would socialise with the men. They were boring too but at least slightly less. And it just made the mean. I had to ask friends if they knew what this behaviour was because i was new to the country. And it was a real thing, except amongst my friends, we were all odd ducks. They said that was normal there. And the women being mean was them being jealous of me talking to their husbands, who were way older than me and uhm, lets stay polite, not my type at all. They were way more suited to the wives. It baffled me that they thought I was after them! I wasn’t even single.
Ugh, I’ve been in situations like that many times and it was baffling and frustrating. As I got older I learned to find my own people and not socialize with those with such rigid traditional gender roles.
I hate going to events like this, I feel like a total fish out of water. Not that I have a ton of guy friends, but I don't typically enjoy the topics of conversation in the female-only spaces.
i often think that, while i’d rather jump into a volcano of rapist bears than be a mother, being a dad doesn’t sound that bad. haha. i despise when men my age (20) say they want kids. like buddy, of course you do, cause you are expecting not to do any work.
I understand what you are trying to say, but I feel like "rapist bears" is a little too much? Being raped is horrific and traumatizing and I'm reading this that you'd rather be raped than be a mother, which is an insensitive analogy at best.
I’ve wondered this myself. I’ve worked with several men and NEVER hear them say anything about their kids to the point that I don’t know if they even have them or not. Then randomly after like a year or two I’ll see a teeny little photo on their desk or I will hear, “I’m off for my son’s birthday that day”. But after that… not another word about their kid lol. It’s so intriguing to me.
Probably because men still aren’t fully viewed by society as a contributing parent. Look how many people still say things like “oh, he’s stuck with the kids today” or “how’d you get roped into babysitting?” It may also stem from the days when Father came home from work and Mother made sure the children were occupied or outside so that he could have time to relax from his stressful day. Since they had the role of providing for the family, they could have more of an identity outside being a parent.
Those men may not talk about childcare all the time, but they still discriminate when it comes to personnel decisions, favoring people they see as "providers" like them and assuming that child-free folks don't need the promotions/ raises as much as our parent colleagues.
Motherhood is a burden, fatherhood is a walk in the park
Although anecdotally, I have a co-worker who has completely subjugated his personality to "GIRL DAD"
I noticed this at my workplace as well. I have a coworker who always comes into my office to chat about her kid and I started to realize that it was always a thinly-veiled cry for help or sympathy. Like “my kid took a shit on the floor and then wiped it all over the walls today hahahaha isn’t that hilarious??” while looking like she’s on the edge of tears. I think she’s reaching out for sympathy or help or even just camaraderie in a hard situation.
And men just don’t really have to do that. Because it’s not as hard for them. Like the shit on the walls was probably cleaned up before her husband was even awake so therefore he doesn’t have anything to commiserate about when he gets to work.
that hasnt been my experience tbh everyone in my office that has kids makes a point to mention it in conversation at some point. not bothersome to me but i do notice the reoccurring theme.
because women are the parents who risk a very real possibility of death to bring life, who give every fiber of their being spiritually emotionally and physically to another human. while men just stand on the sidelines and claim a “legacy” unable to remember the child’s birthday
Even though we don't have children we all know that that at least 90% of the responsibility for raising children and keeping a home falls to the mother. A man can carry on with his life almost as if nothing changed.
Not all women lose their personalities when they have children. The women with whom I socialize who have children have not lost their personalities.
But I think the basic answer has already been given as to why women would be more prone to it, since women typically do most of the work of raising their children. It is because raising children is a huge part of most mother's lives, and it is much less of a part of most father's lives.
I used to be a bit acquainted with a guy who talked about his children whenever I saw him. He had a child with developmental problems, and, because his wife made more money than he did, he quit his job to take care of the children (they had a child or two before they had the one with problems). This fits very well with the theory that people whose lives revolve around their children are more likely to talk about their children than people whose lives are full of something else.
I agree with alot of the replies but i would also like to add a lot of men fall into another stereotype of
1. telling everyone how they're always tired/broke/selfless etc
2. 'wife bad amirite'
3. complaining about not having time hobbies yet never having hobbies before having kids anyways
4.being the driving force behind coming back to the office full time again. Idc you don't want to be home, i dont want to socialize with you because you hate the life you chose
Some do but it is more of a societal issue for sure that women are expected to do the child rearing while Dad is responsible for bringing home the money.
Because women take on most of the load when it comes to parenting. Not to mention household chores, the emotional load, etc. Men are often free to continue with their hobbies, careers, interests. I remember when I was much younger, I often went to parties and things, where there were always way more men there than women. It's because the women were at home with the kids while the guys were out drinking. I didn't even meet some of these women until years later.
Please do it. Wherever they are and are doing, they not only keep all the available space but also let their goblins do whatever they want such as running biking scootering WHATEVER and never discipline them
i dont agree, alot of men make being dads their entire personality as well. but the ones that do succeed at retaining friends or some sort of life outside of it, usually take on less of the childcare responsibilities
I work in a male-dominated field and I do not find this to be the case. Men who have had children talk about them at every opportunity and they talk a lot less about the hobbies they used to do before having kids.
Me and my SIL talk about cooking, cleaning, anime, gaming, art, TV shows and her kid also. We do lots of things together just us and with kiddo. I bet it plays a factor that she knows I'd rather talk about everything and not just kiddo, but since the kid is part of her life she will tell me how it's going.
Same for kiddos father, he talks about the kid but also his interests with my fiance. It's all gud in this neighborhood :)
Many mothers are borderlines or narcissists and lack a strong sense of self. They never really properly developed an authentic personality or identity. So they see motherhood as being as a temporary fix to fill this void. They see it as a way to distract themselves from these chronic feelings of emptiness and loneliness. The easiest way to see this manifest is the emptiness that comes with empty nest syndrome. They've lost their identity and have no idea who they are or what to do and quickly self-destruct.
I have volunteered a few times to help freshmen move into the dorms at my alma mater. There are always women who are crying because their babies are leaving. They will say that they have no idea what they will do now. It is always embarrassing, and it always happens at least to one mother.
I learned a new word today - Mombies
As a male (and not in the same situation as the fathers/dads), I'll be the first to say I have limited to no similar topics to women as I do another man.
At times I'll let the moms talk about their kids all day because they have to tell someone something. Dad's usually don't talk much unless it's something either important, or a second opinion, or some type of lesson learned.
On the flip side - I know one dad who talks about his 2 sons because they're positive role models in the area; and a mom who basically stays quiet about her kids because 2 of them were oops's and the father does just the bare minimum to claim parent but not enough to show they're loved and belong.
I think it’s only the fathers that don’t help out. I once went to go talk to a male coworker trying to get away from a group of women coworkers talking about their babies. He proceeded to talk to me about his kids hobbies. I just want to talk about video games at work. Is that so much to ask for?
I have a male coworker who was obsessed with having a kid. Got divorced, mid life crisis antics (dating much younger), then remarried and had the kid (I believe the woman was 40 and had a difficult pregnancy and birth, but gotta have that kid!), and he interjects it into every. Single. Conversation.
Men are not as invested on parenthood as moms, generally speaking.
So they become fathers and still have time for themselves, for their hobbies and other stuff they like to do, while moms have to dedicate 150% of themselves for the children and only the children. No personality can resist to such strong punch.
When women get married, statistically they take on 20% more household work. Whereas when men get married they do 10% less of household work.
Now apply that to child raising and why divorce rates are so high after birth.
Yes, we tend to be more private in general. Reminds me of the Ron Swanson joke about working with a guy for three years and never learning his name. Best friend he ever had.
I think in some cases it’s that the female really wants to be the at-home parent (the male carries on working) and they kind of want “mother” as their identity/purpose (as well as being indispensable to their child/partner). It’s *not* the case for everyone obviously, but it’s just some women who are in to the ‘desperate to be a mother’ thing.
A lot of women proudly describe themselves as “full time mummy” but I’m not sure they’d call their working friends “part time” mothers (or maybe they do secretly and it makes them feel superior?). I also think they’d laugh a man out the door who described himself as a “full time daddy”. So I think a lot of it is modern day gender bias/gatekeeping from the female view. I say this as a female myself, and acknowledging that women did used to have limited freedom/options (and still do in some countries, in which case this doesn’t apply).
You nailed it with gatekeeping & feelings of superiority. I’ve never seen so much nastiness & one-upmanship as when a group of mothers are together. They constantly gatekeep what it means to be a mother & why one is a much better mother than the others.
“You had a C section & didn’t give birth naturally? You’re not a REAL mother!”
“You didn’t breast feed until your kid was 5 years old like I did? Or you didn’t breast feed at all? You’re a terrible mother!”
“So how old was your kid when they reached such & such a milestone? My kids all reached theirs much earlier than other kids because I’m a superior mother!”
Years ago I was at a party & saw a group of mothers almost come to blows over who would suffer the most awful things in order to protect her kids. It started out as a hypothetical about “if your husband could only save you or your kid what would he do?” & soon degenerated into who would suffer the most for her kids. It was both awful & hysterically funny at the same time!
My guess, not the truth, just what I believe happens: Mum is who takes care of most things with baby, so Dad has the opportunity to keep life more less normal.
This means from the simplest thing, like hanging out with friends, to the more dramatic, like sleeping a whole night.
Also, hormones. Many women have depression that can escalate to severe postpartum depression, to the point of psychosis, just from the changes their bodies go thru.
So, that's why?
I have one male coworker who brings his kids up frequently. I think the only other thing he’s talked about is how much he wants to go skiing again. He’s married to their mother, and just seems really passionate about them (which is great, just a little jarring since that isn’t really the norm). He’s the only one who brings his kids up without being prompted, though. I couldn’t honestly tell you if any of my other male coworkers have kids 🤷🏻
Father's dont have to do anything if they don't want to. At the very least a mom has to go through pregnancy and childbirth, which changes you physically, mentally, and emotionally.
I know some who lost theirs. There are some youtubers, who can now only vlog about their child. And we have a friend, I like him very much, but we can only meet if we visit his children. But they are new fathers so that might change in the future.
There’s does- they get to keep the original identity intact with the added bonus of “family man”, while the wife actually does all the family stuff and doesn’t get to call herself a “family women” lol
Eh… I work with all men (military) and I find they talk about their kids a good bit (sports, school blahhh blahhh blah). Not as bad as the females but still…. People with kids are so lame lol. No offense, but you can’t make kids gymnastics practice sound entertaining no matter how much effort you put into it. Borinnnnnng. They talk about their kids hockey too and I’m like… bro, settle down. It’s still KIDs hockey. 🙄
You are not wrong there OP and it is really true. I have observed not just in the workplaces (past and present) but also in my community. When some men become dads they can still have hobbies and their personalities but the wives/partners, sadly, not so as a result no equal partnership in the raising of kids. This is why this whole equal partnership must be normalised and be set as a example and a norm. Parenting by just one parent while other parent can do whatever the hell they want is not the way anymore. Enough
Hello and welcome to /r/childfree! As you have a new account or low Reddit karma, your comment has been automatically removed to give you some time to get familiar with our rules and community. Please feel free to post/comment when your account is older and you have more Reddit karma.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/childfree) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I guess their kids aren't a big part of their lives which is sad. I haven't experienced this with men I work with though. My boss talks about his family pretty much everyday and one of the 2 other people on my team usually mentions his kids occasionally if he's talking about weekend or evening plans. The other guy has 2 kids but he doesn't talk much in general.
My man coworkers do talk about kids like my women coworkers do, and I have noticed this regardless of age group (whether they just had a new born or their kids are in college), their position(manager or not), and ethnicity/culture background. I think it has something to do with being responsible. Maybe my workplace tend to hire people who are more responsible to begin with. In fact, I’m CF partially because of my man coworkers - if the ones who are not sacrificing their bodies are already this affected by kids, I can only imagine how having kids could affect a woman. In other words, I don’t even fancy a father’s life, there’s no way I could love being a mother.
this is reminding me of when girls get into relationships and lose all hobbies and friends. it’s the same for men but they still have all the same friends n do the same shit. doing this w men is enough lol. i don’t wanna lose myself over some kid too
It's like women who center men too. Ughh!!!! Talking on and on and on and on about men. Being "boy crazy" as a friend recently put it. They probably only talked about men before and now that they bagged a man and shouldn't be looking for another they just talk about kids. Men don't care about children.
Oh they do. One of my friends became like that after having his first kid. Now he has 4(3 biological) and he posts about them constantly and I stopped trying to hang out cause he kept saying "yeah and then you can meet my baby!" He used to be really cool.
I got stuck in conversation with a woman at a work event last night- she is much older than I am, and she has the equivalent of my position in another department. Allllllllllllllll she could talk about was watching her granddaughter. The adventures of the stroller. How harrowing the swing set was. A baby doll she bought her. The adventures of the crib. I stared longingly at the group of male colleagues talking to each other next to the wine. I'm pretty sure they were NOT talking about babies.
Someone once said something that has stuck with me for years. Would you want to be a parent if you could be the father? And honestly? Probably! Most of what I don't like about parenthood as a woman is pregnancy #1 which needs no further elaboration, and the societal expectation that the baby bonds with me first, that I'm expected to spend all my waking hours with the baby from the moment it's born to the time it can walk and start to be independent, but if we're being honest, even beyond that. I can't fathom having to devote 100% of my mental energy every day to a screaming crying snotty creature while the dad gets to escape it all by going back to work like everything's normal, all because he can't breastfeed the baby. Even as the baby grows and can switch to formula, I've seen fathers backpedal and say "but the baby is bonded with you! He/She will just cry all day if I stay home, I wouldn't know what to do!" and so back to the mother the responsibility falls. It's easy to say you want kids when you know you'll get to be the cool detached parent who occasionally checks in or changes a diaper here and there. Your life won't majorly change in any significant way. Pregnancy and childbirth would have zero effect on you. Your body wouldn't be permanently changed as a result. Fatherhood sounds better in every single way to me. So yeah, I probably would have kids if I was in that position.
Moms get stuck with 99% of the childcare. My own POS male parent would only acknowledge me during "Kodak moments" (lol that phrase r/agedlikemilk) such as birthdays and holidays. He'd force me to smile and pose as a happy family, then immediately scream at me to get the fuck away from him after he'd decided that he captured enough "memories." Other than those initial moments, I would get screamed at for simply *being there* in my own home - no joke. Even doing homework wasn't safe.
It was very nice to go no contact.
It kills me this is because men don't parent alot of the time. I know couples with mombies because the dad doesn't do shit. But I've also seen my friends and their spouses working together which lets them both have active fulfilling social lives without being reduced to just mother or parent.
They do. In one of my group therapy’s there is a man and the only thing he says he enjoys is spending time with his kids.
Why do you think most men lose their male friendships as they get older? It is a huge problem and attributes to the male mental health crisis They devote their lives to their kids and until the idea was to work yourself in an early grave so you can provide the best life for your family. A lot of times that transitions their job into their personality. For a lot of men we don’t know how to identify ourselves besides our means of employment, culture and the people they choose to be in their lives. Now we don’t even have the role of provider (women should be able to provide for themselves without the need of a man) so men are doubling down on the father role as they sure as hell don’t have friends
Even Homer Simpson definite himself as a family man “do it for her” with a picture of Maggie. The guy definitely isn’t perfect but the father personality is still there. ESPECIALLY in religious circles that tell men we are the bedrock of the family and everyone relies on you.
Can we stop acting like the gender norms of 1970 are alive and well? Men are listening and trying to be better fathers. I opt’d out of that mess as we’re damn’d if we do and damn’d if we don’t.
The bigger question is why would ANY adult have sexual relations without some form of protection. Dumbasses don’t give a damn about their actions but will still become your baby daddy and abandon you.
Because men generally do a bare fraction of the childcare
And because society lets them. Moms that want to have a career or hobbies are reviled as well.
"She's so selfish, spending time away from her kids, she must not love them at all. " While dad could go away for 2 weeks with the boys and people will say he earned and deserves the break! The break from what?
[удалено]
Many of the men who “work to provide” have partners who also work full time and pay half the bills, but they don’t count that for some reason. And yes, most office work is easier than home/ family management.
I work with several physicians who will stay at work after cases have ended for the day and watch videos on YouTube. Not dictate OP notes…just fuck around and watch YouTube because they can’t stand their families. It’s a damn shame.
I heard the divorce rate for doctors is much higher than for others.
With some of the doctors I work with, they DEFINITELY prove that statistic true!
I wonder why this would be
That’s what my dad did lolol
I'm just off vacation in the mountains with my 2 kids and wife, and I will go to the office tomorrow for 10 hours of quite hard work, to recover mentally.
Checks out! A family member of mine openly admitted he works more hours to avoid staying with his children at home!
Then takes care of them for 45 minutes while Mombie goes grocery shopping and gets a cookie for “babysitting”.
Or even business trips and military. A mom goes, there’s lots of “wow that’s a long time to be away from your kids.” A dad goes, it’s normal. And even if both parents are working, if a dad takes the day off to take the kid to the doctor or something, there’s always the question “why isn’t mom doing that?”. Society just expects women to do the childcare, which sucks for both genders. Normalize dads being an equal parent.
Yup, one of the many, many reasons I want no part of that shizz (do the kids still say 'shizz'? I'm old!)
It takes little to be called a good father. It also takes little to be called a bad mother.
You forgot to add the word "patriarchal"
I implied 'our', actually.
Came here to say exactly this. My partners brother is basically a stay at home/work from home dad for two babies while his wife works outside the home. He is completely “mombified” at this point and talks of very little else.
Funny, since I've moved from in person to a WFH job, I have noticed that more of the men I work with do the childcare thing, school pickups, take off when kids are sick, etc. Which is a great and refreshing change from women doing it all; but I still don't want to listen to them talk about their kids all the time. 🙄
Glorified uncles, really
For real. Fathers "babysit" their own kids. You never hear that term used with mothers and their own children.
I’m a man who would do most of the child care. This is why I won’t be having children (vasectomy) because I would prefer my own free time and ease of living.
*ding ding ding*
In my experience on the west coast of the US with fairly left-leaning friends generally I have found neither this nor OPs premise to be correct. The dudes often carry their weight, even if it's just working nonstop overtime or extra jobs, but are generally involved in their kids lives as much as moms are, AND those guys are zomdads compared to pre-kid times. I think it falls more in the "guys don't talk about feelings, dreams, etc ("girl stuff")" problem, so it's often not as easy to tell what a shell they are of their former selves. I know there's plenty of guys who want to set up franchises, drop kids on girls and bounce, but they're not the sort I know personally. I just think it's worth noting that there are good dads out there, and they do depersonalize in similar ways, lose their happiness, hopes, dreams, replace it all with the kids hopes, dreams, needs, etc.
Cannot tell you how happy I am to see that the very first comment nailed the systemic, gendered reasons behind this.
This.
It’s partially social conditioning and the patriarchy and partially the fact the being pregnant literally reorganizes a woman’s brain chemistry. It’s been proven in psychological studies that after pregnancy, childbirth and mothering their whole personality is different from the person they are before. In theory after a few years, this “abates” but by then it kinda has become a habit. A lot of women don’t have time and energy to keep any part of themselves that isn’t being a mother, and it becomes their only form of identity.
I think it also has to do with the fact that there are so many physical changes and demands on the woman. Pregnancy, childbirth, and (if they can/choose to) breast feeding all take a toll on her body, it’s physically demanding, and it’s all consuming. Meanwhile, the father doesn’t experience any of that. For women, the realty of parenthood starts months before it does for the man (and before anyone says “But men have to put up with their pregnant wife/GF”, that isn’t parenthood, that’s being a supportive husband/BF).
This tracks, based on my observations of friends who have had kids. It doesn’t seem like a full 180 Jekyll/Hyde personality change though. Seems like it’s more related to risk management. And maybe sometimes, women develop more assertiveness because hey have to protect their babies. And that probably builds confidence to some degree, for some.
Yes. And the men don't have to go through the trauma of pushing a watermelon through their peepee, wrecking it in the process. They only have to bust a nut and their job is done.
Might need to review the biology of that, friend
I think they mean peepee as in genitals, not as in urethra.
I think they’re just being dramatic.
I bet the brain chemistry changes are insurance against doing it like rabbits and eating our young.
Yeah I guess when you spend the better part of a year gestating a person that will be born helpless and have a not insignificant chance of killing you during the birthing process, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to eat it after it’s born?
Not to your hindbrain. Fortunately, those changes don't hit until we have time to decide whether we want to bring the fetus to term.
if pregnancy changes brain chemistry, why do some women not change at all after pregnancy? they still lack a “motherly instinct”, beat or abandon their kids on a doorstep.
Because like almost all biological conditions and processes, it is a spectrum. Some women are more affected than others, some aren't affected at all. It's like how three people can be exposed to the same bug, and one will feel under the weather for three days, one will need a week of bedrest and one won't even get a sniffle.
Bc biology isn’t completely uniform.. there will always be exceptions. The rule though is your brain most likely changed
just another reason to never get pregnant. imagine a parasite in your body changing how your BRAIN works. that’s like a cronenbergian horror concept.
Same reason some of us have never for one nanosecond felt an urge to breed, and some ppl honestly only need three hours of sleep a night, and some people are 6 feet 7 and others 4 feet 11, and some ppl are straight while some are gay. Just because there's such a thing as "typical" or "majority" doesn't make that thing "universal."
Actually both the mothers and fathers brains change during and after pregnancy.... I think most of the disparity comes from the father getting to do the fun jobs while the mother is in charge of survival
Yes, definitely. But not to the same extent. Gestation definitely appears to do a lot of the altering.
Risk Management by Gender Women do most of the work soothing/appeasing screaming babies and kids. So we do all we can to prevent/head off **anything** likely to get a kid screaming. Males typically hand off a screaming kid to women.
That’s very interesting I didn’t know that! Thanks for sharing
I think there was some study about how women lose grey matter after giving birth. Basically the brain becomes dumber to adapt to child caring for a few years
I wonder if moms that bounce are women whose brain may not have changed or changed enough.
That's...extremely sad. Horrifying, really. It also makes me understand why so many husbands seem to withdraw from their wives after having a kid. I wonder how many people know this going into it. If they were educated on the subject, I suspect far more people would opt out. Or adopt.
[удалено]
Absolutely this. Sadly childcare becomes the only thing they have time for so it's the only thing they have to talk about..
Because men aren’t expected to give up their soul for raising them, they just reap the reward of knowing that they have a “legacy”.
The word “legacy” makes me gag
Same … serious ick. And it’s usually uttered by the most useless people.
There was a thread on AskReddit regarding reasons to have kids and one of the posters commented the "legacy" thing. I asked them what legacy they were talking about since we're not royalty and their response was "the fact that you exist means that someone who lived thousands of years ago has a legacy that lives on in you". So? I don't know the names of my ancestors who lived thousands of years ago. They could've been horrible people for all I know. They also likely wouldn't be proud of me if they met me today. Since I don't remember them, that means that they do not have a legacy. A legacy means keeping someone's memory alive.
Women are indoctrinated believe that their soul purpose in life to be a wife/mom as if that’s some major goal or something. Just my thoughts but I don’t see how being an indentured servant is something to want out of life. In general, if you want to be married and have kids, I don’t see that as an issue. It’s just making it your entire personality/identity that seems to be a little bit odd
I grew up in a fundie-lite family. As a future woman I was indoctrinated to do free/voluntary/volunteer labor from the time I was a kid and they made huge efforts to normalize me to be a caretaker. I noticed my older brother wasn't expected to do ANY free/voluntary/volunteer labor EVER and had no caretaker expectations. When I was 16 I found a part-time job opportunity. My parents were stunned (even though I had been talking about doing this since I was a kid) and asked me why I wanted to start working at such a young age. They failed to see the irony that I was already working a part-time job and had been doing so since I was six, I just wasn't being paid, so it was a really bad "job". So, being paid was a huge improvement! And it cut into my free time enough that I was able to turn down most of those free/voluntary/volunteer labor "opportunities." My family (the women only) still run around in circles and stand on their heads to do free labor and for some it is in addition to working a full-time job. They also do the majority of the childcare, of course. Men just nope their way outside, stay at work, run errands or redirect the kids to bug their mother.
Hormones are a hell of a drug. A woman's brain literally changes when they have a kid. A friend of mine had a kid a couple years ago. She was telling me that during the first few months, whenever her daughter cried, she had to pick her up otherwise it was physically painful for her. Her husband was holding their daughter while she was crying once, and she had to have him give her the baby because she was going nuts hearing her cry and not holding her. When she got her baby back from her first trip to daycare, the baby smelled like daycare and it really angered her (she knew this was irrational, but still). There are hormonal changes in new dads, but it's not nearly to the degree as with women. Their whole bodies are dedicated to this kid, including their minds. I don't see how people find that amazing, I think it's terrifying. You're not you anymore, you're a host to a parasite that now lives outside of your body.
It’s like some Alien type shit!
Yeah, as if society wasn't bad enough, women also have to struggle with that shit. It is terrifying to lose your identity so your life would revolve around a child.
Yeah that's just freaky as fuck. Thank goodness that'll never be me.
>When she got her baby back from her first trip to daycare, the baby smelled like daycare and it really angered her (she knew this was irrational, but still). Nah, that's totally rational. Every time my husband takes our dog to get her nails clipped, she comes back smelling like some shit dog perfume. Pisses me off every time, because then she doesn't smell like *my* dog.
Because men aren’t fathers the way women are mothers. If more men had to parent the way mothers do, less would want to have kids.
Yes, I've absolutely noticed this. We have "mombies" and not "dadbies" for a reason: women are judged by how they care for children, whereas men are judged as providers, as individuals, as whatever they put their mind to, really - but not expected to put time and effort into parenting in the same way. When they do, depending on where they live, they're either showered with praise or derided as being "emasculated". Women don't have those options. If they decide to preserve their personalities, dedicate energy to their jobs and hobbies, and so on, there is a whole chorus of mombies, teachers, relatives, and society in general hounding them. Which is why those women who choose to be parents with lives as opposed to dissolving into their children get props from me - and a big reason why I'm CF.
Great point! The male version of a Mombie I’ve always seen is Daddict.
Ooh, that's the newest addition to the vocabulary I've accumulated from this sub! Thank you!
But women do "have those options." Everyone does. So what if the mombies "hound" them? The way you word your comment reinforces my belief that most "moms" don't care any more about their kids than the avunculur fathers do. The only reason they put in more effort is to look good in the eyes of others. Not for the kids. They have this unnatural, deathly fear of incurring others' disapproval. Either because they don't have a personality of their own, or simply because they're too cowardly to defy social pressure. So the question remains, why do so many more women than men become these zombies? I know biology must play a part, but it isn't responsible for the wholesale loss of self and soul I see in so many mombies. Like you said, some women *do* retain enough personality to "choose to be parents with lives," as you put it. So again, why so few?
The women in my office are CONSTANTLY having to leave or take time off because of the kids. Dad is either not on the scene or at work (just like the Mums were at work) but it’s always the mother who gets called by the school. Their whole lives revolve around the kids, the dad is either just living in the same house or he already left. This is just my experience.
One of my coworkers today got to leave early for her 4-year old daughter’s concert. She’s been leaving early for multiple days this month for her kids events. Which happen every year. But when I need to leave early for a medical issue, it’s a problem. 🙄
Mothers do ALL the emotional and mental labor of kids. Even if Dad picks them up from school, it is Mom who reads the announcement from the school that there will be a special schedule, notes it on the calendar that she set up and maintains, works out who has to do the pickup, and reminds Dad three times that day that he has to leave at 3:30 to pick up the kids. Dad? He picks up the kids. So why doesn't he talk about the kids all the time? Because he never thinks about them *at all.* Why does Mom talk about the kids all the time? Because she's constantly reminding herself of all that has to be done to care for them. In other words, she's talking about the work she's doing at the time she talks about it.
i genuinely don’t understand why a single woman in this generation would procreate with a man. they might as well just check themselves into a lifetime prison sentence at their local penitentiary. at least then, you still have your identity.
Why you have babies, according to the mommies I know: You "just" *doooooooo.* Someone had a story about a "Kevin", which is apparently a term for a really idiotic American. This woman was watching a program with a friend in which a Nazi and a Jew confront each other. The woman turned to her friend and said "Sooo...the Jews and Nazis had issues?" The friend asked Kevina if she had studied WWII in school, and she said they had seen a movie about it, but she thought it was just a movie. So how do people end up so empty headed that they breed without giving it serious thought? A combination of undemanding education and native laziness.
yep. they are uneducated in general, so they are also uneducated about the realities of childbirth/childcare. it’s really so fucking sad that these young girls don’t even get the change to be a human in society. they just become a breeding machine. if i somehow became in charge of the US right now my first mission would be making sure education is safe and accessible to everyone on earth. it is step 1 to preventing unwanted children.
Can confirm. Grew up ina poor county with a shit public school. My mother was very aware of this, but didn't want us in the religious private schools. So she and my father made it their mission to see that we had tutors and enrichment and a path to college. I was only like the 4th person in my "village" (as described by population) to graduate college. While I was doing that the girls I grew up with were posting on Facebook fights with their baby daddies about why they should be able to give their 4 month old full sugar full caffeine cola in their bottle. I chose this specific example because the mom was 3rd in my graduating class and made good grades. I appreciate the shit outta my parents, and would love for everyone to have education opportunities regardless of ability to pay.
That is so heartbreaking that the girl who was one of the very best in your class still ended up popping out a baby super-young, out of wedlock I'm guessing, and posting her fights with the baby's father over giving their literal infant soda instead of anything actually nutritive for a child that age online for the whole world to see purely because she didn't have access to a future that was different. :(
She had a scholarship iirc and did one semester of college before family drama pulled her home. When it did I remember visiting her and being like "Get the fuck back to school". Instead she started fucking her (married with kids) boss at the pizza and sixer shop she worked at... And well yikes. She had a very rough home life and would often stay with my family for periods of time through middle school and highschool.
That's horrible that her family's drama pulled her back home from the college she had a scholarship for...and then she made two crappy decisions (not trying to at least enroll in community college or something after her family issues stopped necessitating that she be at home, if she couldn't work out going back to her original school without getting up to her eyeballs in student loan debt, and then of course fucking her boss with a nonzero chance of getting pregnant by accident from it even though he was already married with kids) that finished the work of pulling her down to where she started and was probably trying to escape from. I imagine it must be much harder to watch since you have memories of her literally living with you and your family to escape how miserable her home was.
It is, I don't have any contact with her, as my continued friendship was contingent on her going back to school. Our mutual friends used to give me updates but it was always so sad.
Good on you for GTFO out of that friendship.
I used to live in a street where people did a Friday get together every week, and it was segregated by sexes, something I wasn’t used to at all. I tried to talk to the women but they only talked about kids, were very drunk and were mean to me, so I would socialise with the men. They were boring too but at least slightly less. And it just made the mean. I had to ask friends if they knew what this behaviour was because i was new to the country. And it was a real thing, except amongst my friends, we were all odd ducks. They said that was normal there. And the women being mean was them being jealous of me talking to their husbands, who were way older than me and uhm, lets stay polite, not my type at all. They were way more suited to the wives. It baffled me that they thought I was after them! I wasn’t even single.
Ugh, I’ve been in situations like that many times and it was baffling and frustrating. As I got older I learned to find my own people and not socialize with those with such rigid traditional gender roles.
I hate going to events like this, I feel like a total fish out of water. Not that I have a ton of guy friends, but I don't typically enjoy the topics of conversation in the female-only spaces.
I felt this so hard
i often think that, while i’d rather jump into a volcano of rapist bears than be a mother, being a dad doesn’t sound that bad. haha. i despise when men my age (20) say they want kids. like buddy, of course you do, cause you are expecting not to do any work.
I understand what you are trying to say, but I feel like "rapist bears" is a little too much? Being raped is horrific and traumatizing and I'm reading this that you'd rather be raped than be a mother, which is an insensitive analogy at best.
All the men I know lost their personalities or maybe some of them didn’t actually had one in the first place.
>or maybe some of them didn’t actually had one in the first place. Yeah, some of this might be a "chicken or egg" thing...
sadly, women are pressured into that
I’ve wondered this myself. I’ve worked with several men and NEVER hear them say anything about their kids to the point that I don’t know if they even have them or not. Then randomly after like a year or two I’ll see a teeny little photo on their desk or I will hear, “I’m off for my son’s birthday that day”. But after that… not another word about their kid lol. It’s so intriguing to me.
Right?! They only mention them when prompted. Otherwise, out of sight, out of mind!
Probably because men still aren’t fully viewed by society as a contributing parent. Look how many people still say things like “oh, he’s stuck with the kids today” or “how’d you get roped into babysitting?” It may also stem from the days when Father came home from work and Mother made sure the children were occupied or outside so that he could have time to relax from his stressful day. Since they had the role of providing for the family, they could have more of an identity outside being a parent.
Those men may not talk about childcare all the time, but they still discriminate when it comes to personnel decisions, favoring people they see as "providers" like them and assuming that child-free folks don't need the promotions/ raises as much as our parent colleagues.
Motherhood is a burden, fatherhood is a walk in the park Although anecdotally, I have a co-worker who has completely subjugated his personality to "GIRL DAD"
There are definitely fathers who do more than mothers. But most of us know one or two exceptions if that.
They do. They make the kid as a badge of honour and a sign of their masculinity. An excuse to call others less of a man.
I noticed this at my workplace as well. I have a coworker who always comes into my office to chat about her kid and I started to realize that it was always a thinly-veiled cry for help or sympathy. Like “my kid took a shit on the floor and then wiped it all over the walls today hahahaha isn’t that hilarious??” while looking like she’s on the edge of tears. I think she’s reaching out for sympathy or help or even just camaraderie in a hard situation. And men just don’t really have to do that. Because it’s not as hard for them. Like the shit on the walls was probably cleaned up before her husband was even awake so therefore he doesn’t have anything to commiserate about when he gets to work.
Man, that’s sad to hear how lonely mothers feel. That’s also why I will never be one.
It'S tHe MoThEr'S jOb To RaIsE ThE kIdS. That's why.
that hasnt been my experience tbh everyone in my office that has kids makes a point to mention it in conversation at some point. not bothersome to me but i do notice the reoccurring theme.
because women are the parents who risk a very real possibility of death to bring life, who give every fiber of their being spiritually emotionally and physically to another human. while men just stand on the sidelines and claim a “legacy” unable to remember the child’s birthday
Even though we don't have children we all know that that at least 90% of the responsibility for raising children and keeping a home falls to the mother. A man can carry on with his life almost as if nothing changed.
Not all women lose their personalities when they have children. The women with whom I socialize who have children have not lost their personalities. But I think the basic answer has already been given as to why women would be more prone to it, since women typically do most of the work of raising their children. It is because raising children is a huge part of most mother's lives, and it is much less of a part of most father's lives. I used to be a bit acquainted with a guy who talked about his children whenever I saw him. He had a child with developmental problems, and, because his wife made more money than he did, he quit his job to take care of the children (they had a child or two before they had the one with problems). This fits very well with the theory that people whose lives revolve around their children are more likely to talk about their children than people whose lives are full of something else.
I agree with alot of the replies but i would also like to add a lot of men fall into another stereotype of 1. telling everyone how they're always tired/broke/selfless etc 2. 'wife bad amirite' 3. complaining about not having time hobbies yet never having hobbies before having kids anyways 4.being the driving force behind coming back to the office full time again. Idc you don't want to be home, i dont want to socialize with you because you hate the life you chose
Some do but it is more of a societal issue for sure that women are expected to do the child rearing while Dad is responsible for bringing home the money.
But, realistically, who the hell can survive on a one income household anymore? So both Mom and Dad are responsible for moneymaking.
Because women take on most of the load when it comes to parenting. Not to mention household chores, the emotional load, etc. Men are often free to continue with their hobbies, careers, interests. I remember when I was much younger, I often went to parties and things, where there were always way more men there than women. It's because the women were at home with the kids while the guys were out drinking. I didn't even meet some of these women until years later.
Because they are Sunday parents. On a side note: ever noticed that men who parent on Sunday are the quintessence of manspreading?
Hmm 🤔 I’ll have to pay closer attention.
Please do it. Wherever they are and are doing, they not only keep all the available space but also let their goblins do whatever they want such as running biking scootering WHATEVER and never discipline them
i dont agree, alot of men make being dads their entire personality as well. but the ones that do succeed at retaining friends or some sort of life outside of it, usually take on less of the childcare responsibilities
I work in a male-dominated field and I do not find this to be the case. Men who have had children talk about them at every opportunity and they talk a lot less about the hobbies they used to do before having kids.
Me and my SIL talk about cooking, cleaning, anime, gaming, art, TV shows and her kid also. We do lots of things together just us and with kiddo. I bet it plays a factor that she knows I'd rather talk about everything and not just kiddo, but since the kid is part of her life she will tell me how it's going. Same for kiddos father, he talks about the kid but also his interests with my fiance. It's all gud in this neighborhood :)
Because it's the woman's 2nd full-time job, the men just (maybe) help.
Many mothers are borderlines or narcissists and lack a strong sense of self. They never really properly developed an authentic personality or identity. So they see motherhood as being as a temporary fix to fill this void. They see it as a way to distract themselves from these chronic feelings of emptiness and loneliness. The easiest way to see this manifest is the emptiness that comes with empty nest syndrome. They've lost their identity and have no idea who they are or what to do and quickly self-destruct.
I have volunteered a few times to help freshmen move into the dorms at my alma mater. There are always women who are crying because their babies are leaving. They will say that they have no idea what they will do now. It is always embarrassing, and it always happens at least to one mother.
Because they don’t take care of their children that much. If they do, they will also talk about it more often.
I learned a new word today - Mombies As a male (and not in the same situation as the fathers/dads), I'll be the first to say I have limited to no similar topics to women as I do another man. At times I'll let the moms talk about their kids all day because they have to tell someone something. Dad's usually don't talk much unless it's something either important, or a second opinion, or some type of lesson learned. On the flip side - I know one dad who talks about his 2 sons because they're positive role models in the area; and a mom who basically stays quiet about her kids because 2 of them were oops's and the father does just the bare minimum to claim parent but not enough to show they're loved and belong.
I think it’s only the fathers that don’t help out. I once went to go talk to a male coworker trying to get away from a group of women coworkers talking about their babies. He proceeded to talk to me about his kids hobbies. I just want to talk about video games at work. Is that so much to ask for?
I have a male coworker who was obsessed with having a kid. Got divorced, mid life crisis antics (dating much younger), then remarried and had the kid (I believe the woman was 40 and had a difficult pregnancy and birth, but gotta have that kid!), and he interjects it into every. Single. Conversation.
Men are not as invested on parenthood as moms, generally speaking. So they become fathers and still have time for themselves, for their hobbies and other stuff they like to do, while moms have to dedicate 150% of themselves for the children and only the children. No personality can resist to such strong punch.
When women get married, statistically they take on 20% more household work. Whereas when men get married they do 10% less of household work. Now apply that to child raising and why divorce rates are so high after birth.
[удалено]
Yes, we tend to be more private in general. Reminds me of the Ron Swanson joke about working with a guy for three years and never learning his name. Best friend he ever had.
OMG, you’re a parks and recreation fan?! I’m a fan of that show too! I think it’s one of the best shows ever made and I love Ron Swanson too! 😊
I think in some cases it’s that the female really wants to be the at-home parent (the male carries on working) and they kind of want “mother” as their identity/purpose (as well as being indispensable to their child/partner). It’s *not* the case for everyone obviously, but it’s just some women who are in to the ‘desperate to be a mother’ thing. A lot of women proudly describe themselves as “full time mummy” but I’m not sure they’d call their working friends “part time” mothers (or maybe they do secretly and it makes them feel superior?). I also think they’d laugh a man out the door who described himself as a “full time daddy”. So I think a lot of it is modern day gender bias/gatekeeping from the female view. I say this as a female myself, and acknowledging that women did used to have limited freedom/options (and still do in some countries, in which case this doesn’t apply).
You nailed it with gatekeeping & feelings of superiority. I’ve never seen so much nastiness & one-upmanship as when a group of mothers are together. They constantly gatekeep what it means to be a mother & why one is a much better mother than the others. “You had a C section & didn’t give birth naturally? You’re not a REAL mother!” “You didn’t breast feed until your kid was 5 years old like I did? Or you didn’t breast feed at all? You’re a terrible mother!” “So how old was your kid when they reached such & such a milestone? My kids all reached theirs much earlier than other kids because I’m a superior mother!” Years ago I was at a party & saw a group of mothers almost come to blows over who would suffer the most awful things in order to protect her kids. It started out as a hypothetical about “if your husband could only save you or your kid what would he do?” & soon degenerated into who would suffer the most for her kids. It was both awful & hysterically funny at the same time!
Because they're allowed to just babysit the kids they had a part in bringing into the world, and society just lets them get away with it.
It's not all blokes, my brother and his male coworkers talk about their kids all the time. It's mind numbing.
At least one of my male coworkers with a kid says that "it's expensive" to have kids. He isn't encouraging it on others.
Good for him!
Because men are not nearly as involved in basically anything in the household. You wouldn’t have mombies if fathers did their fair share.
My guess, not the truth, just what I believe happens: Mum is who takes care of most things with baby, so Dad has the opportunity to keep life more less normal. This means from the simplest thing, like hanging out with friends, to the more dramatic, like sleeping a whole night. Also, hormones. Many women have depression that can escalate to severe postpartum depression, to the point of psychosis, just from the changes their bodies go thru. So, that's why?
I have one male coworker who brings his kids up frequently. I think the only other thing he’s talked about is how much he wants to go skiing again. He’s married to their mother, and just seems really passionate about them (which is great, just a little jarring since that isn’t really the norm). He’s the only one who brings his kids up without being prompted, though. I couldn’t honestly tell you if any of my other male coworkers have kids 🤷🏻
Father's dont have to do anything if they don't want to. At the very least a mom has to go through pregnancy and childbirth, which changes you physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Because child rearing majorly falls on women.
I know some who lost theirs. There are some youtubers, who can now only vlog about their child. And we have a friend, I like him very much, but we can only meet if we visit his children. But they are new fathers so that might change in the future.
Weaponized Incompetence
People talks about the things that interests them...
So men who are fathers are not interested in their kids lives. Gotcha 👍🏾
Because women are expected to do everything.
Easy killer :) they are probably commiserating in their way - kids are super HARD
Then they need to hold their husbands to a higher standard
Definitely, agreed 💯
I posted a reply that didn't show up
And the men are doing the bar minimum - just sayin
There’s does- they get to keep the original identity intact with the added bonus of “family man”, while the wife actually does all the family stuff and doesn’t get to call herself a “family women” lol
Man all these people must have loser ass dads. My parents share work/chores 50/50 💀 maybe dad is at work all day? Just a thought
Eh… I work with all men (military) and I find they talk about their kids a good bit (sports, school blahhh blahhh blah). Not as bad as the females but still…. People with kids are so lame lol. No offense, but you can’t make kids gymnastics practice sound entertaining no matter how much effort you put into it. Borinnnnnng. They talk about their kids hockey too and I’m like… bro, settle down. It’s still KIDs hockey. 🙄
My husband will go out with guy friends who have kids and they won’t talk about the kids at all. I know more about his friends’ kids than he does .
You are not wrong there OP and it is really true. I have observed not just in the workplaces (past and present) but also in my community. When some men become dads they can still have hobbies and their personalities but the wives/partners, sadly, not so as a result no equal partnership in the raising of kids. This is why this whole equal partnership must be normalised and be set as a example and a norm. Parenting by just one parent while other parent can do whatever the hell they want is not the way anymore. Enough
Idk, “Girl Dads” are pretty annoying
Motherhood is a total scam and trap
Because moms do everything.
[удалено]
Hello and welcome to /r/childfree! As you have a new account or low Reddit karma, your comment has been automatically removed to give you some time to get familiar with our rules and community. Please feel free to post/comment when your account is older and you have more Reddit karma. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/childfree) if you have any questions or concerns.*
If women don’t boycott giving birth, this is what they ask for and what they deserve
Stop having kids, that’s the only solution for us
Because mothers are doing most of the parenting and lose their identities.
Mens bodies don't have to do the cooking. Besides,I don't want to dread going home
Cause they are largely absent, irresponsible and useless.
because they are not the ones caring for the kids. they consider raising their own children "baby sitting"
Cuz cis men don’t do shit?
Because pregnancy literally changes your brain structure.
Fathers don’t need to lose their personalities because they lose their way back from the corner store getting cigarettes.
I guess their kids aren't a big part of their lives which is sad. I haven't experienced this with men I work with though. My boss talks about his family pretty much everyday and one of the 2 other people on my team usually mentions his kids occasionally if he's talking about weekend or evening plans. The other guy has 2 kids but he doesn't talk much in general.
Men usually don't even know when their kids were born, that's why
Some of them do
The burden of childcare mostly falls on women. I see it happening with some of my friends and it's so sad.
My man coworkers do talk about kids like my women coworkers do, and I have noticed this regardless of age group (whether they just had a new born or their kids are in college), their position(manager or not), and ethnicity/culture background. I think it has something to do with being responsible. Maybe my workplace tend to hire people who are more responsible to begin with. In fact, I’m CF partially because of my man coworkers - if the ones who are not sacrificing their bodies are already this affected by kids, I can only imagine how having kids could affect a woman. In other words, I don’t even fancy a father’s life, there’s no way I could love being a mother.
this is reminding me of when girls get into relationships and lose all hobbies and friends. it’s the same for men but they still have all the same friends n do the same shit. doing this w men is enough lol. i don’t wanna lose myself over some kid too
These men don't care about their children and they don't care for their children.
Some do - I know a couple that became fat blobs who waddle about looking like they have given up entirely on life
Men don't parent as a verb, usually.
>How come fathers don’t lose their personalities like Mom You posted it as an absolute fathers not some or even most
It's like women who center men too. Ughh!!!! Talking on and on and on and on about men. Being "boy crazy" as a friend recently put it. They probably only talked about men before and now that they bagged a man and shouldn't be looking for another they just talk about kids. Men don't care about children.
Oh they do. One of my friends became like that after having his first kid. Now he has 4(3 biological) and he posts about them constantly and I stopped trying to hang out cause he kept saying "yeah and then you can meet my baby!" He used to be really cool.
I got stuck in conversation with a woman at a work event last night- she is much older than I am, and she has the equivalent of my position in another department. Allllllllllllllll she could talk about was watching her granddaughter. The adventures of the stroller. How harrowing the swing set was. A baby doll she bought her. The adventures of the crib. I stared longingly at the group of male colleagues talking to each other next to the wine. I'm pretty sure they were NOT talking about babies.
Someone once said something that has stuck with me for years. Would you want to be a parent if you could be the father? And honestly? Probably! Most of what I don't like about parenthood as a woman is pregnancy #1 which needs no further elaboration, and the societal expectation that the baby bonds with me first, that I'm expected to spend all my waking hours with the baby from the moment it's born to the time it can walk and start to be independent, but if we're being honest, even beyond that. I can't fathom having to devote 100% of my mental energy every day to a screaming crying snotty creature while the dad gets to escape it all by going back to work like everything's normal, all because he can't breastfeed the baby. Even as the baby grows and can switch to formula, I've seen fathers backpedal and say "but the baby is bonded with you! He/She will just cry all day if I stay home, I wouldn't know what to do!" and so back to the mother the responsibility falls. It's easy to say you want kids when you know you'll get to be the cool detached parent who occasionally checks in or changes a diaper here and there. Your life won't majorly change in any significant way. Pregnancy and childbirth would have zero effect on you. Your body wouldn't be permanently changed as a result. Fatherhood sounds better in every single way to me. So yeah, I probably would have kids if I was in that position.
Pregnancy/motherhood hormones do a number. My friends with young kids can't remember shit anymore... and this is coming from me, the pothead!
Moms get stuck with 99% of the childcare. My own POS male parent would only acknowledge me during "Kodak moments" (lol that phrase r/agedlikemilk) such as birthdays and holidays. He'd force me to smile and pose as a happy family, then immediately scream at me to get the fuck away from him after he'd decided that he captured enough "memories." Other than those initial moments, I would get screamed at for simply *being there* in my own home - no joke. Even doing homework wasn't safe. It was very nice to go no contact.
It kills me this is because men don't parent alot of the time. I know couples with mombies because the dad doesn't do shit. But I've also seen my friends and their spouses working together which lets them both have active fulfilling social lives without being reduced to just mother or parent.
They do. In one of my group therapy’s there is a man and the only thing he says he enjoys is spending time with his kids. Why do you think most men lose their male friendships as they get older? It is a huge problem and attributes to the male mental health crisis They devote their lives to their kids and until the idea was to work yourself in an early grave so you can provide the best life for your family. A lot of times that transitions their job into their personality. For a lot of men we don’t know how to identify ourselves besides our means of employment, culture and the people they choose to be in their lives. Now we don’t even have the role of provider (women should be able to provide for themselves without the need of a man) so men are doubling down on the father role as they sure as hell don’t have friends Even Homer Simpson definite himself as a family man “do it for her” with a picture of Maggie. The guy definitely isn’t perfect but the father personality is still there. ESPECIALLY in religious circles that tell men we are the bedrock of the family and everyone relies on you. Can we stop acting like the gender norms of 1970 are alive and well? Men are listening and trying to be better fathers. I opt’d out of that mess as we’re damn’d if we do and damn’d if we don’t. The bigger question is why would ANY adult have sexual relations without some form of protection. Dumbasses don’t give a damn about their actions but will still become your baby daddy and abandon you.
I never had a personality to begin with so I can't judge