Kinds of Fathers
Before Raimi was born, Rosalie and I availed ourselves of pretty much every birth-preparation class the hospital had to offer. This included one that was for fathers only. I was a little nervous beforehand, because this pregnancy was totally a team effort (we still refer to our family as Team Raimi), and I was a bit wary of venturing off on my own. But, eager for discussion about the father’s perspective, and wanting to meet other young dads-to-be in our area, I sallied forth as only I can sally.
When I got to the meeting, the dads were all sitting around talking about hunting. What guns they liked, what animals they’d killed recently. I am not pro-hunting, but I am all for the rights of public assembly and free speech. However, it seemed a little odd and discomforting to me that this meeting–to talk about these fragile little babies who would be arriving soon–was prefaced by talk of the effects of various munitions on Bambi’s mom. It was like Machismo 101: “It’s okay for me to be at this girly pregnancy class, because I own multiple firearms! Test not my manhood!”
But whatever, benefit of the doubt? Uh, no: the class starts and basically everyone there is a fucking idiot. The instructor talks to us about stuff we’ll need for the babies room. He asks who among us has finished decorating the baby’s room yet. I’m the only one who raises his hand, probably because the other guys have no clue where in that process their wives were at that point. So the instructor quizzes me on the items we have in our baby’s room (i.e. CRIB, changing table, white noise machine, etc) and the rest of the room was like crickets and tumbleweeds. Like, they probably didn’t even know where in their house the baby was going to LIVE when it arrived.
Then the instructor is reminding us that when our wives are in labor, they may say some mean things to us. And the guy sitting next to me is: “Uh uh, no way. That’s where I draw the line. My wife is not allowed to say anything like that to me.” I’m like: “Uh, she’ll be in a lot of pain, it’s not fun, who cares if she curses you out a little bit.” And he’s like “I have told my wife that I will not tolerate her being mean to me while she’s in labor.” I weep for that guy’s kid.
After the class, my comment to Rosalie was something like: “Please don’t ever leave me alone with other fathers again.”
This is all a lengthy introduction to the fact that I recently participated in a roundtable for new fathers.
I mention it because I think it demonstrates that not all fathers these days are complete idiots. There are a lot of us out there who are trying (and succeeding) to be committed and informed participants on the child-raising team. These are the kind of fathers I wish had been in that class I took.