It’s a wonderful, messy, difficult, joyous time. But when you bring home a new baby, it can cause waves you didn’t see coming. Here’s what mums need to tell dads about the first months of parenthood.
When a couple become ‘mum and dad’, life as they know it changes forever. Parenthood begins, along with many lessons, joys, frustrations, feelings and emotions. Some of these more difficult feelings and emotions can be hard for a new mother to vocalise – usually because she feels silly, thinking its something she should just cope with (especially when no-one else talks about it) or because all she really knows is that she doesn’t feel good about something. She can’t quite put her finger on why she feels that way – especially when she never imagined motherhood would bring up such complicated and conflicting emotions.
Here are 5 important things dads need to know as written for bellybelly.com.au:
1. We're faking it. Our new mother self-esteem can be a fragile thing, our confidence just a veneer. This is partly because we have been bombarded with perfect (and so now we’re realising unrealistic) images of motherhood on the screen and in the pages of magazines. This makes our expectations of ourselves, and maybe your expectations of us, impossible to live up to. For most of us, it's a case of ‘fake it till you make it’. But then there is no yardstick for ‘successful parenting’, no measure of performance like salary raises or work bonuses.
Nobody gives a bottle of champagne for superior nappy changing. Where we may have looked to bosses, co-workers or friends to feel good about ourselves before the baby came, now, it’s pretty much only you. We want your acknowledgement, appreciation and encouragement. You also might have to let us know that you want the same from us.