Comment by sekh60
4 hours ago
I'm a house-husband to a wife with a womb who birthed our daughter. She's a software dev at a major software company. I did most of the diapers (little one is soon 7 and out of them for a while now), I do all the cooking. We had daycare partially to give breaks, but also so the little one would get good social exposure at a young age. I sadly can't drive due to a mix of anxiety and sedating medication for other health stuff, so she does before-school appointments most of the time (so she can go to the office after without me having to bus home), but for the most part I come along with appointments and I'm the one to go along on school trips and do the before and after school bus times. I do almost all the away playdates, with playdates at home being a joint endeavor.
Her carefree living has gone, but she can still go to work parties while I stay home and look after our daughter. She's never told me she experienced any overt judgement about being the sole breadwinner (there was a male manager who asked her after mat leave how her vacation was. I wonder how much he was involved in the early years of raising his kids‽). I will admit I do get more praise than I should be for doing my role, but really that praise is pretty empty, the bar is so low for men. The praise I do get mainly comes from women older than us. I've only once gotten a "Mr. Mom" comment and that was from an older American acquaintance.
She took about 4 months off if I recall correctly for mat leave after our daughter was born. She was going crazy at home.
She has some limitations for sure, she feels like she's as far as she'll get at least while our daughter is young, in terms of the promo-game. But she and the company are content with where she's at, though she is a bit envious at times about how some of her colleagues have been promoted to higher levels despite starting at the same time or after her.
She's very involved and a great mom.
I hope that didn't come off as a brag (I'm terrible at keeping the place clean and tidy, we hire help for that), my point is that you probably can have a high-impact career, be sexually attracted to men, and have a womb, and have a child. The freedom and care-free living will go regardless of one's gender, that's just part of being a good parent. There are plenty of men out there up for a majority parenting role.
For some context I'm around 40, and in my age group there's a lot more involved fathers (we see lone fathers with children at the park all the time, including with solely presenting-female children) and working mothers than when I was a child. Living in a major city in Ontario, Canada.
No comments yet
Contribute on Hacker News ↗