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I suppose the article doesn't mention the real reason: that it is the privilege of mothers to spend time with their children, because they invested and risked m

I suppose the article doesn't mention the real reason: that it is the privilege of mothers to spend time with their children, because they invested and risked more to have them (or simply because having the womb gives them the better negotiation position). While a small percentage of mothers can not relate well to their kids and prefer to get back to work asap, the reality is that most mothers prefer to spend time with their kids. Who should get to spend time with the kids? The person who spent 10 seconds injecting their semen into the womb, or the person who toiled for 9 months letting the child grow in their womb, often risking their life to do so? In many cases, the discussion does not even make sense. It is even more ridiculous when feminist men pride themselves for taking "the burden" off their wives. All they did is take away their natural privilege. This also becomes even less surprising if one looks outside of the academic box and realizes that most people don't have exiting creative jobs where they change the world, but mostly mundane stuff like being supermarket cashiers, or, at best, nurses - which is a nice job, but should women really leave their kids so that the can change the diapers of strangers instead? Feminism want us to believe that taking care of kids is a burden that men unfairly push to women while they go off to have fun at work. And huge parts of society have swallowed it. Here in Europe, many governments think they have to force men to take paternity leave, to further equality. They think men don't want to spend time with their kids because of role models or whatsoever. The reality is probably in most cases that the the issue is mostly financial. Even with paid paternity leave, there usually is less money on the table than with full time work, specially since women tend to choose less well paid careers (another privilege - they don't have to provide for the family, so they can afford to trade income for convenience and social status). I think it is great if fathers can take paternity leave and recommend everybody to try to do it. but there are actual real world issues preventing it, not just memes ("societal expectations").

number6 5y ago
I am on parental leave right now together with my wife. Financially it's OK- we had some time to prepare. The most basic issue is breastfeeding. A newborn wants to drink about every two hours. My wife just can't leave the house if she wants to breastfeed. Bottled up milk is an option when the child is about 4 months old. At this stage the bond between them both is so thick, that they are basically inseparable. As man you basically spend a whole year to catch up. So even with enough money and leeway from my employer to take parental leave there are still issues why childcare is mainly the part of the mothers. I guess most of the feminists don't have children. Oh and try to have two children. Guess what: it does not scale well! And it takes more than two persons to even raise one child. I would encourage you all to try it yourself. It is really rewarding to be a parent and also so exhausting - even with all the privileges in the world.
- stevekemp 5y ago
  I'm not so sure that fathers need to "catch up", but I guess it depends on the child/family. I know I was always better at calming our child, mostly because it was bloody difficult to learn what he liked and how to help in all the various situations. My wife never really learned that, she'd give him boobs and he'd feed/sleep. That worked perfectly for the first six-ten months, and then it didn't. I'd never had those to fall back on, and was always the one who took over when he was being "difficult". Then again I was also the one that pushed him in his pram for a walk around the block at 2AM, in sub-zero temperatures, to help him fall back to sleep. They were hell on my sleeping patterns, but also some of the best early memories I have. Talking and singing as the snow fell .. magical.
  - number6 5y ago
    Same here! This times where great and terrible - I took our boy for walks in his pram for hours for here to catch some sleep. With two kids this obviously doesn't work anymore. Sometimes when I returned my wife told me she couldn't sleep cause she missed him. I guess they just where very close. Sometimes I envied that - now that he is bigger we have a lot father- son activities, so that makes up for that. Men and women are just different parents and I believe kids need both parts or even more. Grandparents and aunts and cousins, friends and teachers. The kids are always happier in a crowd that just with one parent or even both parents. Nowadays everyone threats parenting as a two person job but everyone will agree the saying that it takes a village to raise a child...
- biasedbrain 5y ago
  I didn't have the same experience. I took a lot of time off and think/hope I bonded just fine. I feel I was privileged to be ale to afford it, or rather, I just decided to afford it to dismay of my wife. That is another underrated factor: mothers actually WANT security, including financial security. Another factor is that it can get annoying if the other parent injects their opinions on rising children. It is not as if mothers in general are keen for the fathers to be around all the time. The feminist narrative (as usual) is absurdly wrong. Breastfeeding is another example of why it is more "natural" for mothers to stay home than fathers, though.
stemfem 5y ago
> Feminism want us to believe that taking care of kids is a burden that men unfairly push to women while they go off to have fun at work. And huge parts of society have swallowed it. No, the feminist position is that childcare is an activity that does not have to be done exclusively by the mother. And so there should be equal and generous time off available for both partners regardless of sex (or if a same-sex relationship, relation to child). Of course there are biological considerations too. The mother having the opportunity to breastfeed, in particular. So the schedule of leave may be organized around optimizing for this as well.
- biasedbrain 5y ago
  So what is the feminist theory why men don't share equally? So feminists believe women should give away some of their privilege of time with their children, for the benefit of men? Or do they believe going off to work and "have a career" (never mind the aforementioned supermarket cashiers) is the better part, that men unfairly claim for themselves? I have never seen feminists to call on mothers to give fathers more time with children, to tbh. It is not about men being able to take care of children. Nobody sane doubts that.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> Feminism want us to believe that taking care of kids is a burden that men unfairly push to women while they go off to have fun at work. No, feminism (except perhaps some weird subcategory of bourgeois feminism) does not want you to believe work is fun. And most feminism places the blame here on institutional patriarchy (which binds both men and women with restrictive gender roles, harming both) not men pushing restrictive gender roles on women. You do seem to describe a common right-wing caricature of feminism, though.
- biasedbrain 5y ago
  Really? Then why do governments feel they have to force men to take time off? Men in the relationship are typically seen as the "arm" of the patriarchy. It is true that in this case it would benefit men if they were granted more time with their children (at the expense of the mothers and the family finances). But that is more accidental. Show me a "proper feminist" article arguing for the benefit of men, rather against the exploitation of women, with regard to that subject, if you believe you know feminism so much better.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Then why do governments feel they have to force men to take time off? Instead of arbitrarily deciding the reason is “feminism” and then trying to invent attributes of feminism that make that make sense, tou could probably do the minimal research it would take to find the actual reasons cited by any one of the governments in adopting the rule. I feel safe in the assumption that it is “men unfairly push to women while they go off to have fun at work” in precisely zero of them. > Show me a "proper feminist" article arguing for the benefit of men, rather against the exploitation of women Uh, okay: “Yet, the proportion of men who take more than a few days off work when their child is born is tiny. Most cite fears of being discriminated against professionally, missing out on pay rises and promotions, being marginalised or even mocked as reasons for not taking time off. Academics consider these concerns to be the effect of deeply ingrained and highly damaging stereotypes around gender” [0] [0] https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210712-paternity-leave-the-hidden-barriers-keeping-men-at-work https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210712-paternity-leav... (yes, the article we’re already discussing in this thread.)
goodpoint 5y ago
> women tend to choose less well paid careers (another privilege - they don't have to provide for the family By the same logic, women in Saudia Arabia have the "privilege" of not being allowed to drive a car.
- biasedbrain 5y ago
  Um, no - women in the west have free choice of careers. Women in Saudi Arabia don't have free choice. Was your comment serious? Do you truly believe women in the west are so oppressed that they can't freely choose their careers?

number6 5y ago

I am on parental leave right now together with my wife. Financially it's OK- we had some time to prepare. The most basic issue is breastfeeding. A newborn wants to drink about every two hours. My wife just can't leave the house if she wants to breastfeed. Bottled up milk is an option when the child is about 4 months old. At this stage the bond between them both is so thick, that they are basically inseparable. As man you basically spend a whole year to catch up. So even with enough money and leeway from my employer to take parental leave there are still issues why childcare is mainly the part of the mothers. I guess most of the feminists don't have children. Oh and try to have two children. Guess what: it does not scale well! And it takes more than two persons to even raise one child. I would encourage you all to try it yourself. It is really rewarding to be a parent and also so exhausting - even with all the privileges in the world.

stevekemp 5y ago
I'm not so sure that fathers need to "catch up", but I guess it depends on the child/family. I know I was always better at calming our child, mostly because it was bloody difficult to learn what he liked and how to help in all the various situations. My wife never really learned that, she'd give him boobs and he'd feed/sleep. That worked perfectly for the first six-ten months, and then it didn't. I'd never had those to fall back on, and was always the one who took over when he was being "difficult". Then again I was also the one that pushed him in his pram for a walk around the block at 2AM, in sub-zero temperatures, to help him fall back to sleep. They were hell on my sleeping patterns, but also some of the best early memories I have. Talking and singing as the snow fell .. magical.
- number6 5y ago
  Same here! This times where great and terrible - I took our boy for walks in his pram for hours for here to catch some sleep. With two kids this obviously doesn't work anymore. Sometimes when I returned my wife told me she couldn't sleep cause she missed him. I guess they just where very close. Sometimes I envied that - now that he is bigger we have a lot father- son activities, so that makes up for that. Men and women are just different parents and I believe kids need both parts or even more. Grandparents and aunts and cousins, friends and teachers. The kids are always happier in a crowd that just with one parent or even both parents. Nowadays everyone threats parenting as a two person job but everyone will agree the saying that it takes a village to raise a child...
biasedbrain 5y ago
I didn't have the same experience. I took a lot of time off and think/hope I bonded just fine. I feel I was privileged to be ale to afford it, or rather, I just decided to afford it to dismay of my wife. That is another underrated factor: mothers actually WANT security, including financial security. Another factor is that it can get annoying if the other parent injects their opinions on rising children. It is not as if mothers in general are keen for the fathers to be around all the time. The feminist narrative (as usual) is absurdly wrong. Breastfeeding is another example of why it is more "natural" for mothers to stay home than fathers, though.

stemfem 5y ago

> Feminism want us to believe that taking care of kids is a burden that men unfairly push to women while they go off to have fun at work. And huge parts of society have swallowed it. No, the feminist position is that childcare is an activity that does not have to be done exclusively by the mother. And so there should be equal and generous time off available for both partners regardless of sex (or if a same-sex relationship, relation to child). Of course there are biological considerations too. The mother having the opportunity to breastfeed, in particular. So the schedule of leave may be organized around optimizing for this as well.

biasedbrain 5y ago
So what is the feminist theory why men don't share equally? So feminists believe women should give away some of their privilege of time with their children, for the benefit of men? Or do they believe going off to work and "have a career" (never mind the aforementioned supermarket cashiers) is the better part, that men unfairly claim for themselves? I have never seen feminists to call on mothers to give fathers more time with children, to tbh. It is not about men being able to take care of children. Nobody sane doubts that.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> Feminism want us to believe that taking care of kids is a burden that men unfairly push to women while they go off to have fun at work. No, feminism (except perhaps some weird subcategory of bourgeois feminism) does not want you to believe work is fun. And most feminism places the blame here on institutional patriarchy (which binds both men and women with restrictive gender roles, harming both) not men pushing restrictive gender roles on women. You do seem to describe a common right-wing caricature of feminism, though.

biasedbrain 5y ago
Really? Then why do governments feel they have to force men to take time off? Men in the relationship are typically seen as the "arm" of the patriarchy. It is true that in this case it would benefit men if they were granted more time with their children (at the expense of the mothers and the family finances). But that is more accidental. Show me a "proper feminist" article arguing for the benefit of men, rather against the exploitation of women, with regard to that subject, if you believe you know feminism so much better.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Then why do governments feel they have to force men to take time off? Instead of arbitrarily deciding the reason is “feminism” and then trying to invent attributes of feminism that make that make sense, tou could probably do the minimal research it would take to find the actual reasons cited by any one of the governments in adopting the rule. I feel safe in the assumption that it is “men unfairly push to women while they go off to have fun at work” in precisely zero of them. > Show me a "proper feminist" article arguing for the benefit of men, rather against the exploitation of women Uh, okay: “Yet, the proportion of men who take more than a few days off work when their child is born is tiny. Most cite fears of being discriminated against professionally, missing out on pay rises and promotions, being marginalised or even mocked as reasons for not taking time off. Academics consider these concerns to be the effect of deeply ingrained and highly damaging stereotypes around gender” [0] [0] https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210712-paternity-leave-the-hidden-barriers-keeping-men-at-work https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210712-paternity-leav... (yes, the article we’re already discussing in this thread.)

goodpoint 5y ago

> women tend to choose less well paid careers (another privilege - they don't have to provide for the family By the same logic, women in Saudia Arabia have the "privilege" of not being allowed to drive a car.

biasedbrain 5y ago
Um, no - women in the west have free choice of careers. Women in Saudi Arabia don't have free choice. Was your comment serious? Do you truly believe women in the west are so oppressed that they can't freely choose their careers?