Words Matter: Why Fathers Need To Be Recognized In The Maternity Ward
Newborn babies are cute but boring. Men will hold a newborn for a few minutes if they have to. After that, they’ll wait until the child can do something, before really interacting with them. I’m not speaking for all men, just expressing what I’ve seen and how I am.
My wife and I visited a friend whose daughter just had a baby. The baby is cute. The mom was engaged, up and moving. Everything was fine; until it was time to leave.
As everyone was saying goodbye, I looked at the board in the room that has information about the baby such as name, weight, height, and date of birth. This board had a line for the name of the mother.
Nice. The next line was for the name of the support person. Who? I wasn’t going to say anything but it just started to eat at me, support person.
What in the hell is a support person?
A support person can visit a patient in the hospital and plays an important role in their medical care. For example, patients with disabilities or communication barriers may need a support person to help them communicate with hospital staff.
Understandable, but no definition I found talked about being a support person for a mother who just had a baby, and the support person in this situation should be acknowledged as the father. Maybe the support person doesn’t become a father until the family leaves the hospital. This may seem trivial but we seem to be getting closer and closer to moving men out and moving government into the family structure. I believe this is a subtle and important observation.
You might say I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, but if you can identify the person who gave birth as the mother, then you can identify the child’s dad as the father. I’m not even pushing for you to say the man is her husband, because the baby’s father may not be the mother’s husband. Some of you will say well maybe she doesn’t know the father and someone else is there as a support person. Maybe the father didn’t want to be a part of this event, and on and on and on. We can keep creating reasons why the line on the board shouldn’t say father. I get it, it’s all about not offending someone.
Wait. By putting ‘support person’ in place of father you just offended every father out there, but I guess that’s not important.
Why do we cater to the “what ifs” and not the “what it should be”? Again, my opinion, but the “what ifs” (what if they’re a lesbian couple, what if the father passed away, what if the cow jumped over the moon…what if -insert what works for you-) could go on for days. “What it should be” is father on that board.
I believe any man who comes to the maternity ward to see his baby, married to the woman or not, is the father and should be recognized as such. Why do we spend so much energy erasing the father of the child?
I listened to an interview on TNT News with Pelle Neroth Taylor where the following comments were made by his guest, Adam B. Coleman; men are seen as just income earners for the family.
Men (fathers) are optional. We (women) don’t need or want a man for anything else. So, scrap off the line for father in the maternity ward and add support person so the mother is happy.
This is where the family structure continues to break down. Words create consequences. As a father, if I look at the board where my child and the mother are acknowledged but I am relegated to being the “support person”, even if we are married, somehow something is lost.
So, instead of making support person a permanent line on the board, use a dry-erase board so you can write down what each adult person wants to be recognized as.
If we don’t speak up about the small stuff now, it’ll be too late when they become the wrong stuff. My senses tell me soon, that women won’t be recognized as the mother. The line for mother will be “Birthing Person” along with “Support Person” in place of father.
The ideal family structure should be openly and loudly recognized as being made up of a father, mother, and children. Fathers and their input are required and must be recognized. Society needs to stop speaking about fathers as if the world would be a better place without them. I am tired of the brow-beating of fathers and their characteristics. I am tired of people making fathers feel irrelevant. Fathers are needed in this society. We need fathers for children.
We need to recognize fathers in the maternity wards.
Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.
 | A guest post by
|
FYI....."Mother" has already been replaced by "birthing person" (or chest feeder). Men are being erased by toxic femininity and women are being erased by trans rights activists. Queer theory is alive and well.
Additionally, our "society" seems to be conveniently putting blinders on to the fact that children with active and acknowledged fathers have significant statistical advantages toward becoming happy, self supporting adults. Sometimes single-mom parenting can't be helped, of course. But the normalization, and even celebration, of minimizing fathers to lessen the stigma attached to such situations is having a terrible side effect on the helpless children who are raised that way. Of course, saying so will get a label of "alt-right, religious fanatic" pinned on you, but we need to stop worrying about what people think and start focusing on right and wrong.
Good piece, Cecil. ZL