I think I understand the origins of human civilization a little better now. From the very day Stellan was born — from long before it, in fact — Emily has had an obvious, and intense, emotional connection to him. To the point where just the sound of him crying causes her active physical discomfort. I haven’t got that. I think the little guy’s awfully cute, but my interactions with him so far are mostly logistical: insert food, remove diaper. While I’m sure I’ll develop that emotional connection with him over time, it just isn’t there yet. Babies are born so unformed — that whole idea of the fourth trimester is really dead on — that at this point there’s really not much personality there to connect with (and what is there is difficult to see, since he has no way to express it yet). So while I can intellectually relate to him as someone who is going to be a person someday, that deeper connection hasn’t happened yet. One interpretation of this, of course, is that I’m just a heartless and unfeeling person, but I hope you’ll forgive me if I try not to dwell too much on that possibility. No, seriously, that isn’t it. No, really. What it is, I think, is biology screwing with our brains again. Emily’s totally got the whole lioness-protecting-her-cubs thing going on: I don’t know if it’s hormones or the nine months of physical connection or some more subtle programming, but it’s happening on an innate, prerational level that just isn’t available to me. If this experience is at all common, then I am completely understanding how it is we developed societies where the men go off hunting while the women stay home and take care of the kids. Because there have been more than a few occasions over the last few days when I’d have loved an excuse to grab a spear and head off into the wilderness for a while. Which is really difficult for me to accept, because ideologically I’m completely opposed to that idea — gender equality yay, biological determinism boo. I very much don’t like the fact that blue-state-living, hippie-liberal me is basically re-enacting stone age social mores. But that seems to be how it’s playing out anyway. I guess the challenge is going to be figuring out how to get past that stage and on to something more palatable as soon as possible.
Why rail against it? I think men are just not fundamentally equipped for the same sort of tasks as women are while the child is so young. You don’t have breasts, why worry that you can’t produce milk?
I think gender equality is a wonderful goal to aim towards, but in some cases it’s just not possible. All you can do is care for and support your family at this point. The deeper connection I’m sure will come at its own pace :)
Yeah, it does seem unfair, in a certain way. I mean — I guess it’s a good thing that new mothers are hardwired to respond to their babies in these ways. It’s obviously a link on which the survival of the species depends. ::grin::
But it does bump up against our egalitarian inclinations. We want to imagine that both parents can fill a child’s needs, and I think that becomes increasingly true — but in early infancy, I’m not sure there is a way to make things more equal. Which means Emily winds up doing a lot of work that you can’t physically do; and it means she’s (ideally) getting the benefit of a sense of connection that you don’t physically feel.
The connection both facilitates, and repays, the way she’s extending herself. And my guess is that your connection to Stellan, as it arises, will be qualitatively different from hers in ways that are difficult to verbalize, though ideally no less strong in the end. It might take a while to get there, though. Does that sound right? I’m making this up as I go along, obviously, so feel free to tell me I’m all wrong.
We were in much the same place as you (and Emily)
And then. Then the colic hit (I will speak no more of this, I do not want to alarm you). And nothing I did- I mean nothing- worked. I had the lionness connection, the whole shebang. And I was worthless. Jerry, on the other hand, could focus so completely he could slow his breathing and heartbeat to the rhythm that could magically soothe Sean. So we have reams and reams of pictures of a 6-12 week old Sean asleep against Dad’s chest, head right over Jerry’s heart, while Dad played civilzation, surfed the web, etc. That time did more to bond the two of them together than anything else, and there are still times 5 years later where Sean will clamber up into his dad’s lap and rest his head against Jerry’s heart when he’s agitated. Does he actively remember doing it at 12 weeks old? Hell no, but it’s as deep seated and primal a connection as he and I have.
There was an article in the NYT about gender equality parenting a couple of weeks back, and it was both enlightening and infuriating. We found, after a while, that to keep score helped none of us, but that recognizing and embracing the moments when one of us could step up more than the other made it all even out in the end. And to us, even at the end of the day, week, month, was more important than a zero sum at every single moment. YMMV.
Cyn