Tonight, I went to visit my colleague, who just gave birth to her first son two weeks ago. While sitting there with her, her newborn, and her friend, I watched from the corner of my eye as her husband went around the apartment, tidying up one thing, washing grapes and preparing refreshments for us. When it was time to change the baby’s diaper, he quickly picked the baby up and said he’d take care of it while my colleague sat and socialized with us. “We tag team!” my colleague said, when her friend made a comment about how they split up baby and house responsibilities post giving birth. Before having the baby, she told us, she’d never changed a single diaper in her entire life. Neither had he. But they both learned, sucked it up, and they deal with it together.
Changing nappies
It’s funny timing that I observed this today because I just read an article that Chris’s friend posted on Facebook earlier this morning about “Five Reasons I’m Not Lucky to Have My Husband.” Her point is not so much that she’s not lucky to have him. They have a great bond, they love each other and the family they’ve created. He is good to her, and she is good to him. These are “lucky” things to have. But she is more speaking to the fact that she gets so many comments about how “lucky” she is that her husband is willing to do things like change nappies, rock the baby to sleep, and give her free time outside of the house, away from the baby, so she can recharge. Why are these “lucky” things? she asks. This is the egalitarian way in the current era we live in. This is the way it “should” be in a partnership and a marriage. Why do the men get so much credit for doing seemingly normal parenting tasks when women do not?
I’ll be honest. When I observed my colleague’s husband today, I thought in my head, wow, she’s so lucky to have him! I felt a little bad for thinking it. But I can’t help that thought because even in today’s day and age, working women are known to still do more house work and child-rearing than men. Whether it’s self-chosen or not, it’s still a fact. But it’s comforting to know that my colleague and her husband are a couple that will be part of the change I’d like to see.