howardcoombs
Registered User
There is yet another possibility : The father does not subscribe to the notion that playing with kids/babies is a good thing.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/07/15/leave_those_kids_alone/
Rant: hubby cant watch baby for even half hour!
- Thread starter purple1
- Start date
There is yet another possibility : The father does not subscribe to the notion that playing with kids/babies is a good thing.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/07/15/leave_those_kids_alone/
I'm not quite buying this dads need to some special coddling to learn how to play with their kids or do anything for their kids. It's not as if I as the mother got any special training on how-to-be-a-mom. I went into labour, I breastfed, I changed diapers, I learned how to rock my baby to sleep, I play with my baby through trial and error. It's not like there's some mom switch that teaches us how to do the needful - rather, there is a baby and we know we better do it or else. Maybe dads think that they have a choice in this matter.
My husband is hands on in helping me with the baby - I didn't give him a choice to not be and thankfully, he didn't show too much desire to just sit around watching me struggle. Yes, his style of entertaining the baby can veer more towards watching TV or iPad but I don't step in always when my son, inevitably protests this. So he's forced to do more because I'm not there rescuing him. So now he has his own games to play with my son, which he's discovered himself.
Regarding the article howardcombs posted, that's another extreme one. I tend to agree more with the expert somewhere in the middle of that article how pointed out that even if tribal people didn't do structured play with their kids, there was a lot of interaction and holding. My son is 10-months-old and he demands to be interacted with, whether you call it play or something else. I've seen Chinese grandparents get down on their knees with their grandchildren, I'm Indian and grandparents in my culture can be counted on to get silly with the grandkids so amusing children is not some ridiculous Western invention. That's not to say they be interacted with every minute or teh play has to have some educational motive but I don't see kids of my sons age at least entertaining themselves for more than 15 minutes or so at a time.
Anyway, the original post was more about helping with other stuff rather than just play.
My husband is hands on in helping me with the baby - I didn't give him a choice to not be and thankfully, he didn't show too much desire to just sit around watching me struggle. Yes, his style of entertaining the baby can veer more towards watching TV or iPad but I don't step in always when my son, inevitably protests this. So he's forced to do more because I'm not there rescuing him. So now he has his own games to play with my son, which he's discovered himself.
Regarding the article howardcombs posted, that's another extreme one. I tend to agree more with the expert somewhere in the middle of that article how pointed out that even if tribal people didn't do structured play with their kids, there was a lot of interaction and holding. My son is 10-months-old and he demands to be interacted with, whether you call it play or something else. I've seen Chinese grandparents get down on their knees with their grandchildren, I'm Indian and grandparents in my culture can be counted on to get silly with the grandkids so amusing children is not some ridiculous Western invention. That's not to say they be interacted with every minute or teh play has to have some educational motive but I don't see kids of my sons age at least entertaining themselves for more than 15 minutes or so at a time.
Anyway, the original post was more about helping with other stuff rather than just play.
Interesting article. For myself, I think that the benefits of play for both child and parent are quite obvious and it's about bonding more than anything. If others can find an equally beneficial way of bonding with their children and it doesn't involve play, more power to them. But, you do have to wonder after reading that article why more HK dads wouldn't be lining up to interact and play with their children if they thought that they would perform better on intelligence tests--given the test-driven culture in HK. Also, I find one of the apparent arguments of the article that because playing with one's child can be boring this indicates that it's not natural and isn't that big of a deal, is a bit hard to grasp. There are a lot of things I find to be boring in life that I do because they have some benefit. Maybe playing with one's child is an "acquired taste." Lots to think about.
Nowadays a lot of people don't have much contact with babies due to smaller families and busy lifestyles. So when they do have one themselves, they are at a loss. My hubby knows nothing involving a baby. But he made an effort to learn. He used to take forever to change a diaper. Now, he can change/bath/entertain the baby. Playing, sounds easy. But for people who don't know how to play with babies, it will seems hard. My MIL for example, don't know how to play with my baby. So she appeared very reserved. Well, that is her loss. As a baby smile and laugh is priceless
Posted via Mobile Device
Posted via Mobile Device
I do agree that some of the reticence on the part of the fathers may be related to 'fear of the unknown', the fact that with very little infants, they don't give much back and also in part, the desire to have some down time (watching telly, surfing the net) as life is really busy work wise in HK. If the wife is happy to pick up the slack then the dads can lapse into a pattern of taking this for granted, so as you become busier and busier as more children come along and their needs become greater, the poor wife just ends up doing it all and becoming accustomed to not getting any help whether you ask for it or not.
In my case, I managed to cope with doing it all for our first DC but when the second came along I just couldn't cope, hired help or not. Somethings warrant the parents personal attention. I sat my hubby down and we had a very frank discussion, and I came to realise that half the problem is that my hubby never thought that I wasn't coping because I always 'just did'. It was an eye opener. Now that he helps much more (although not as much as I would like), he's really reaping the benefits of how close he feels to the children. In some respects you need to do the grunt work (bathing, feeding, putting their shoes on, brushing their teeth, doing crafties with them, caring for them when they have their nightmares at night)to benefit from the closeness you develop with your child. Like thanka2, if my hubby did not help when I asked, I would not be good to live with, but as women we do have to learn to pipe up and ask. There are no mind readers out there, hubbies included.
What I did not find helpful was the fact that my MIL always complains that her husband, so my FIL, never helped her raise the children, never even changed a single nappy, and I can tell she is envious as to how much my husband does for our children, yet, rather than feeling joy that her son helps appropriately and reaps the reward of increased closeness with his children, she seems to be very critical of my requests (she reads them as demands) for help. I've tried to point out to her that her son and I are working as a team, and that we both work, so that it makes sense that he would help out with the childcare....but somehow the reasons are not valid. I'm glad my hubby still responds to me, it must be difficult in the face of parents who continually tell him he should relax, he's doing too much and many friends in his circle that do bugger all. For that I'm blessed. As I've said before, guys seem to get an easy ride in HK compared to back home.
In my case, I managed to cope with doing it all for our first DC but when the second came along I just couldn't cope, hired help or not. Somethings warrant the parents personal attention. I sat my hubby down and we had a very frank discussion, and I came to realise that half the problem is that my hubby never thought that I wasn't coping because I always 'just did'. It was an eye opener. Now that he helps much more (although not as much as I would like), he's really reaping the benefits of how close he feels to the children. In some respects you need to do the grunt work (bathing, feeding, putting their shoes on, brushing their teeth, doing crafties with them, caring for them when they have their nightmares at night)to benefit from the closeness you develop with your child. Like thanka2, if my hubby did not help when I asked, I would not be good to live with, but as women we do have to learn to pipe up and ask. There are no mind readers out there, hubbies included.
What I did not find helpful was the fact that my MIL always complains that her husband, so my FIL, never helped her raise the children, never even changed a single nappy, and I can tell she is envious as to how much my husband does for our children, yet, rather than feeling joy that her son helps appropriately and reaps the reward of increased closeness with his children, she seems to be very critical of my requests (she reads them as demands) for help. I've tried to point out to her that her son and I are working as a team, and that we both work, so that it makes sense that he would help out with the childcare....but somehow the reasons are not valid. I'm glad my hubby still responds to me, it must be difficult in the face of parents who continually tell him he should relax, he's doing too much and many friends in his circle that do bugger all. For that I'm blessed. As I've said before, guys seem to get an easy ride in HK compared to back home.
I am very lucky in this respect cos my husband is very hands on. In fact all the men in their family are! My MIL thinks it's the men's job to change nappy etc 
whenever his brother visits from the States, we jokingly call him the man-ny.
Think a lot has to do with how they are brought up, but doesn't mean they are not interested/cannot learn to be a more involved parent.
whenever his brother visits from the States, we jokingly call him the man-ny.Think a lot has to do with how they are brought up, but doesn't mean they are not interested/cannot learn to be a more involved parent.
I am very lucky in this respect cos my husband is very hands on. In fact all the men in their family are! My MIL thinks it's the men's job to change nappy etc
Think a lot has to do with how they are brought up, but doesn't mean they are not interested/cannot learn to be a more involved parent.
What a great family to be married into! My aunt had five children and her husband is a "man's man"--I mean he raised cattle and spent his entire day wrangling animals. He worked outside in the elements so much that his skin is very leathery now. He was in many ways from the older school of thought about gender roles. Probably could spit further and cuss louder than most men I know too! He he he! But, he was always the one to get up with the babies in the middle of the night, change their diapers and bring them to my aunt to breastfeed. He took a lot of initiative with his children and was just as hands-on with them as she was. So, I don't think that it can be said that it's "feminine" (as some might argue) to simply help out with one's own progeny.
Absolutely not!! In fact I think it takes a man so confident of his masculinity to be comfortable doing the so perceived "feminine" tasks
My dad is the opposite. He is a great father, but very traditional, so all the cooking, washing, child caring is left to the women.
I don't know if my dad could have been qualified as "traditional" or not but he probably fit into that category as well--but that's what was modeled for him and he never really "evolved" out of it. His parents came from "the old country" (first generation immigrants) and really the role of women was to "cook, clean and bear children."
Apparently, right after they were married, my dad came home with some carcass of a bird or something he had hunted and kind of like threw we down on the table like, "Here, woman, clean and cook this thing." She kind of laughed in his face and told him that sort of action wasn't going to fly in this household and if he wanted to hunt it, he would have to deal with it. But, my mom did cook three meals a day from scratch for most of my growing up years and can vegetables in a hot kitchen for months with all of her pregnancies.
When we would cry in the middle of the night to be fed or changed my dad would nudge my mom and then roll over and go to sleep. When my mom was in labor with me, she rolled over and was like, "It's time" and my dad just told her to hold off that he needed more sleep--I think she had to call my aunt to come get her and take her to the hospital. Yeah...real "winner" of a husband. I honestly, wouldn't have tolerated that sort of thing for as many years as my mom did--she has a heart of gold, I think.