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I finally figured out at childbirth class last night something that’s been bothering me about the way a lot of people talk about pregnancy. It has to do with the idea of support. The instructor was talking about it a lot, about how important it was for dads to be supporting moms through labor, and I kept getting more and more annoyed. I know that due to the nature of human physiology, I have to bear the lion’s share of the physical and hormonal burdens of pregnancy, but being pregnant is not something that I am doing and Ryan has to help out with. Being pregnant and having a baby is something we are doing together. When we decided to get married, we resolved that this was going to be an equal partnership, or it wasn’t worth doing, and having a baby is exactly the same. Either we’re in this together, completely and equally, or something is very wrong. Having to listen to all this talk about me being supported makes me feel so alone, like I’m having a baby all by myself, which is not what I want to be doing at all. And before anybody gets the wrong idea, this is not in any way meant to be a criticism of Ryan or his behavior or attitude, but a criticism of a lot of the pregnancy books I’ve been reading, and the way in which a lot of people I’ve encountered seem to talk about pregnancy. And yes, if my situation were different this might not bother me at all. If I really were having a baby on my own, I probably would be wanting someone to support me. But I’m not on my own, and I’m not leading while he follows, this is a partnership and we are doing this together, side by side. Sigh. I suppose I’m pretty lucky to be able to make these kinds of complaints. It probably seems silly, I know my mother would say I’m just worrying about semantics again and I should go worry about something real, but words represent ideas and attitudes, and they shape the way we look at the world, and it’s important to me to try to get them right. And right now, in this situation, I don’t want support, I want a partner, and I’m very, very thankful that that’s what I’ve got.