[neonnoodle]

I often wonder in these threads what proportion of the commenters is male. HN skews heavily male, and statistically speaking, fathers are spared a huge chunk of the physical and mental burdens of pregnancy, birth, and parenting. Being a mom and being a dad are not equivalent, and I have a feeling that not many male HNers would readily swap places if such thing were possible.

[liveoneggs]

Isn't it convenient that nature has already placed us in our respective roles and given us the necessary strengths to handle our different but equally important roles?

It's such a tragedy that one might feel compelled to weigh the burdens of motherhood vs fatherhood as if either side had a choice in the matter or as if there is some kind of competition to be won.

[AndrewDucker]

The only roles that nature put you into are carrying the baby and giving birth (and possibly breastfeeding). Everything else can be done by both parents.

(I'm a dad, who does do half of everything with the kids. It is possible, it's just a lot of stuff to do.)

[liveoneggs]

I doubt OP would agree with your assessment nor your use of the word "only" but I appreciate you. ;)

[sublinear]

I don't mean to inject politics, but there's a huge mental burden on fathers with more conservative values that take their role seriously.

Unfortunately, there's no way to elaborate what I mean on HN or much of the web without stirring up a ton of pointless argument. People will just get defensive and refuse to consider perspectives they can't agree with.

[tavavex]

That huge mental burden is entirely self-inflicted, though. It's not a fair comparison to the physical burden that is unavoidable.

Growing up in a more conservative society, I've seen many people with that parenting style, who often pop a proverbial blood vessel trying to ensure that their children are more like army cadets that perfectly reflect their worldviews and don't take an unapproved step in any direction. Their rationalizations ranged from real safety concerns to arbitrary opinions like what religion is right (and exactly how someone needs to act at all times, with no limits on specificity or ridiculousness) or what large groups of people are evil (nationality, religion, identity - any group is fair game, just pick one and wall off your child from ever knowing about them). Regardless of motivation, ideology is a choice, and they could've relieved a whole lot of this burden on their own at any point.

[throwaw3y]

"it's easy, just stop believing so much in your religion and attempting to pass on your learned life lessons to your kids". Well said.

[neonnoodle]

Yeah, I agree, if you’re talking about the role of the patriarch as a stoic provider who isn’t allowed to be a vulnerable man with his own emotional needs.

It has been encouraging to see how much more men now seem to desire being engaged and nurturing in their children’s lives (even among those who otherwise consider themselves conservative or traditionalist).

[caaqil]

Instead of the ceremonial complaint and preemptive whining, why don't you consider making the argument coherently and see how people respond?

Ironically, the pointless arguments you so despise (and refuse to invite) offer more than whatever utility this comment has.

[ergocoder]

Assuming the income stays the same, I'd happily swap places. I suspect many people would.

There are 2 further points:

1. I'd say the ideal setting is for both parents to work and hire a sitter even though it might financially net the same (or affordably negative) as having one stay-at-home parent. Because a human needs community and diverse things to do, not just one thing over and over everyday for years. Both of the parents will be much happier.

2. When people say taking care of baby/toddler is difficult, it's almost always about not eating well and/or not sleep well. Eating would take an hour of spoon-feeding because the kid wouldn't eat by themselves. Kids wouldn't be able to sleep by themselves. You must focus on solving these 2 areas first. Once they are solved, it gets a lot easier to take care of a baby/toddler.

[briHass]

While stay at home parenting isn't, and shouldn't have to be, for everyone, it also isn't somehow a downgrade from being in the working world. If anything is doing something 'over and over', it's trudging to some job to push papers/keyboard keys around for 8+ hours.

[ergocoder]

Taking care of kids without a sitter means you have to watch the kid 24h/day. Every waking moment needs to be supervised.

> some job to push papers/keyboard keys around for 8+ hours.

There are tons of socializing during the work time. Nobody sits and types for 8 hours a day without moving.

[em-bee]

granted our kids were easy, but kids don't need to sleep by themselves. see attachment parenting. we let the kids sleep in our bed which solved the sleeping problem and the feeding problem because the kids could get milk at night without my wife having to get up and be wide awake.

i can't speak for my wife's experience directly, but while she complained about other issues, lack of sleep was never her problem.

and the idea that work gives you more community than staying at home is nonsense. we always had family and friends around, and taking the babies to events or visit others is also a non issue.

about swapping places, i did. when our first was 1 year old, my wife started to work. i was always working from home, and i loved the idea if taking care of the kids at home, it's been something i wanted to do all my life, except when it actually happened i was lost. i didn't know what to do with the kids and things only got better for me when i started working part-time and we hired a maid. but this was my problem, it wasn't at all my wife's problem while she was at home. also, as the kids got older, things got easier, and i'd happily repeat the experience now that i am better prepared for it.

practically speaking the most annoying part of my wife working for both of us was breastmilk pumping. the benefits of going to work are not worth that hassle.

[ergocoder]

> kids don't need to sleep by themselves. see attachment parenting

I misused the word a bit.

I meant the kid had a hard time falling asleep. They would get cranky. They would take >30 minutes to fall asleep. They would get up and walk around wanting to play but they would be cranky because they were sleepy. Co-sleeping or not is independent of this.

[em-bee]

Co-sleeping or not is independent of this

unless the child doesn't like to be held then i believe co-sleeping does help here.

cuddling together, maybe reading a story provides an alternative to directly sleeping or playing, allowing the child to settle down until it falls asleep...

from my observation, a child not wanting to go to sleep is coming from the child needing to sleep alone.