A few decades ago, no one expected a father to go into labor with his wife, to take sick leave to care for the baby, or to manage his tantrums. The fathers of old were gentlemen who came home at dinner time, shouted when it was necessary to put things in order and, in the best of cases, took the money home. The massive incorporation of women into the labor market shook the foundations of society. Adding to the consolidation of feminism, masculinity and fatherhood are being reviewed.
Some men are still afraid of the idea of parenting, others do not know how to face the vital shock that it represents, the majority have not been educated to care. The park is full of parents, but how many of them remove lice from their children or know the vaccination schedule? The psychologist Máximo Peña, professor at the European Institute of Perinatal Mental Health and member of the Spanish Association of Perinatal Psychology, has just published Paternity here and now. 9 lessons to be a better father than your father (Arpa) and visit La Vanguardia to talk about fatherhood for heterosexual men.
The data says that women dedicate 15 more hours a week than men to caring for children and the home... In general, what is the current degree of involvement of men in parenting?
In a park in Barcelona this morning there were four parents caring, one of them giving a bottle, one pushing a swing... Something is changing, but all this is going slowly. According to the INE, 85% of unpaid care leave is requested by women, the disproportion is brutal, the bias in parenting is enormous. Fathers are in their infancy when it comes to fatherhood, although there are more and more groups of men who are trying to get closer to all this and understand that children are not a woman's issue.
“I don't expect fatherhood to mean a change in my professional life,” said Rafa Nadal when he commented on his wife's pregnancy. Optimistic, daring or lazy?
The only way for any man's professional career not to be affected by becoming a father is to stay out of it or have a discreet participation in the process. If you don't want your life to change, it's better not to be a father, because you will be one incompletely and you will be missing your wife or partner, you will leave the burden of care on her. If men do not step forward and share that care, we will not get anywhere.
“We are pregnant”… Is that plural a positive sign?
There is a positive and a negative part. This expression angers some women because it appropriates something that is theirs. But if a man says “we are pregnant” it is a way of expressing that he feels involved. While the woman is pregnant, it would be a wonderful opportunity for the man to get closer to the changes that are going to happen to her, and for her to inform herself. You have to know what is happening in your woman's body, how the baby is formed, what childbirth is like...
Today the parents are present at the birth. And there are many anecdotes of parents fainting, impressed, tired. In a monologue, comedian María Juan relates that her husband snapped at her, just after giving birth, “thank goodness she's out now, I couldn't take it anymore!”…
A birth is a very powerful event, and there are people who cannot be present. It could be considered whether it is necessary for parents to be trained to accompany them. His role must be clarified, he is not a patient, but he is not a visitor in the hospital either. I have heard very feminist, grateful women saying “I wouldn't have been able to give birth like I gave birth, without my husband”, others who say “until he left, I couldn't give birth.”
You affirm that if men gave birth they would make public monuments for them...
I am convinced. For reproduction, he just has to ejaculate at the right place and time. The woman carries out the pregnancy, she has to give birth, she can breastfeed... All of this has a great impact on her and, instead of praising it (like ancient cultures that praised women), it is belittled. If men gave birth, instead of generals on horseback, there would be squatting male figures giving birth in public squares; giving birth would be a supreme event.
Most men have never held a baby in their arms until holding their own child. A world of difference compared to women: they teach us to take care of our brothers, right from our wrists.
This is the social construction of gender and men are kept away from care and emotions. We are raised to be tough guys, and a baby contradicts this, which is why we reject the idea of parenthood and children. Women take care of sisters, they have friends with babies, they have always accompanied each other on the subject of motherhood. We men have fled.
Parents who care and who get up to care for their children at night are congratulated. “What a great guy!” Are the mothers of humanity madrassas?
The things that men do are always socially valued more highly than those that women do. The other side of that nickname, “dadrazos”, is positive: it is great that they multiply until there are so many that it is not necessary to name them.
He says that equal leave for fathers and mothers when they have a baby may not be entirely appropriate. Because?
I think it's good that paternity leave is increased, but it is one of the few cases in history in which something is given that the beneficiaries have not asked for. Women have long been demanding that maternity leave be extended from four to six months in order to be able to exclusively breastfeed for six months, as recommended by the WHO. They go through pregnancy and childbirth, six out of every ten women who give birth in Spain end up with a major wound, a cesarean section or an episiotomy. Do that woman and her male partner have to have the same sick leave?
It is equalized by law so that both are absent from their jobs for the same amount of time and that the woman is not once again harmed in her professional projection...
There are women who prefer to breastfeed longer, others who do not. Both must have the right to choose. We must trust families, but there is a structural problem: the wage gap between men and women. When the decision is made about who takes unpaid leave, it is often based on who earns the most. Many issues must be attacked to achieve equality.
“The couple prior to birth will have to be rebuilt or it will fail.” That emphatic?
The divorce rate two years after the birth of children increases by approximately 30%, it is a revolution in life. One of the biggest mistakes men make is the desire to quickly return to their pre-child normality. It would be good to spend it as a mourning, say goodbye to the people they were and start a new life with that baby. We should not aspire to return to a past that will never return, the life before becoming parents never returns.
Recovering your sexual life, having small children, is complicated…
The drastic decrease in sexual activity in the couple is the black hole of early parenting, from which only a few exceptional cases escape.
He gives advice to heterosexual male parents to recover their sexual life: “putting on clothes is sexy,” he says...
Women's sexuality changes a lot with pregnancy and childbirth, a revolution occurs in their body. I have heard women in consultation saying that they did not feel ready for sex, but since their husband pressured them and they could no longer withstand that pressure, they let themselves be done to please their husband...
This happens with and without the puerperium, in sexual relations between men and women. Almost 60% of women fake orgasms…
Yes, but in the puerperium the woman's focus, at a cerebral level, is on the child. If she doesn't have a partner to support her... Taking care of a baby is one of the most stressful activities a human being can undergo. If in addition to parenting you have to clean the house and shop, at what point are you going to want sex? If you want to get your wife back sexually, take care of it, free her from the tasks she did, do more laundry, get busy. A woman told me that her husband fell in love with her as a man, and then fell in love with her again as her father. Men, after having a child, have to make their women fall in love again, now they need other things.
Many men behave immaturely with fatherhood, and this affects the sexual bond, you explain...
Many women say “I don't feel like having sex with my husband when I see that he behaves like a son. “I come home and everything is lying in the middle, and he is playing PlayStation.” The woman feels that the couple is like another child, in those cases. If you want to regain sexuality, behave like a man and not like an immature boy.
More tips to recover sexual activity when you have children?
It seems that we give a lot of importance to spontaneity, to desire suddenly appearing with a few glances... Well, nothing happens if the opposite happens, nothing happens to schedule appointments. If grandma comes and you have some time, taking advantage of it is fine, even if it is agreed upon. You have to be creative and turn the entire relationship around.
The birth rate continues to fall in Spain: 103,443 babies have been born so far this year, according to the INE, the worst birth rate in eight years. Is it too difficult to have children in our country?
This has to do with two things. People are becoming aware of what it means to have children and legitimately say “I don't want to,” because it is a brutal renunciation. Another thing is the lack of support, the difficulty in raising children. We must reduce the working day, which is foolish, no one can take care of themselves by going to work at 9 in the morning and leaving at 7 in the afternoon. More help is needed for families. An example: in Germany, the child who is born receives 450 euros per month until the age of 18.
