Your baby’s mama needs your empathy. She needs understanding, sympathy and compassion. She needs you to try to identify with her difficult situation. But WAIT! Do NOT use the following phrase: “I understand.” Because you do not.
You do not understand what it is like to have your body stretched out never to be the same again. You do not understand what it is like to feel ugly because of fatigue, brittle hair, bad skin and dark circles under your eyes. You do not understand the body funk. You are seeing your baby’s mama at her most vulnerable, so be careful what you say.
Empathizing means saying, “Wow, this must be really hard. You’re doing so much to take care of our little one. It’s amazing. You are amazing.”
Empathizing also means understanding that sleep deprived mothers may bite your head off for that comment, or really any comment. Make your motto, “Like water off a duck.” Just let it go. It’s not personal.
At times you may feel hurt when your baby’s mama comments about how you’re not doing as much as her, but if she’s breastfeeding, waking with the baby at night and staying home, then she is doing more and that’s okay. What’s not okay is to let that sacrifice go unacknowledged. Mamas need attention, affection, support and acknowledgement. Say things like, “I notice how hard you’re working. Thank you.”
There are many things you should not say. For instance, do not mention how tired you are if mama is the one getting up with baby at night. If mama is breastfeeding that means she’s burning around 500 calories a day and that is like running eleven six-minute miles! So, it's tiring. Plus, she’s turning blood into milk and giving away precious nutrients in addition to not sleeping, so do not mention how tired you are.
When you come home do not say, “You’re still in your pajamas,” with a scowl on your face. That’s a luxury that you enjoy! Don’t judge mama for not getting to enjoy the same privileges as you. Listen, mamas often don’t even get a chance to pee or eat OR shower, so forget changing clothes. Try walking through the door and saying, “I’m here now, so I’ll take care of the baby while you take care of yourself. What can I do to help?”
Do NOT point out – or heaven forbid get upset about – a mess on the floor. What you don’t realize is that mamas spend all day cleaning up messes and a few of them get away from us, or we simply give up after the fifth one. Just clean it up…quietly.
Do not say in astonishment, “You haven’t eaten! What’s wrong with you? Our baby needs you to take care of yourself!” Instead say, “What you’re doing is so hard. What do you want? I’ll make it and I’ll make some snacks so that you can just grab them and eat them easily when I’m not here.”
Do not judge the mama for not springing right back to her pre-baby body. The only women who do that are rich and have personal trainers, nannies and chefs. Buy mama a series of yoga classes so that she can “relax” and then make a date to play with baby twice a week while she exercises. If mama’s breastfeeding, see if baby will take a bottle of breast milk. If not, feed before the class and then put baby in a stroller and walk nearby the yoga studio. If baby starts to cry try soothing your little one and if it doesn’t work, then peek into the class and get mama (or have someone from the front desk get her).
Do not oogle “hot” women in magazines or in real life. Act like nothing is hotter than motherhood! Nothing beats your baby’s mama. Nurturing is hot, not g-strings, got it?
Do not make mama ask you for money. If she is used to making her own money, then asking for money is going to feel strange. It’s going to be a blow to her independent, self-sufficient spirit. Give her an allowance that’s within budget and let her have her own money to do with it as she pleases. Let her have autonomy and do not question her purchases with her money.
Do not take for granted the fact that you move about the world freely, while mama has a baby strapped to her like an extra appendage with a mind of its own. Yes, you go to work and you work hard, but staying home is not easy.
Mamas do not sit around and eat bon-bons. They get thrown up on all day and then get whiffs of rotten milk that make them gag because they don’t have time to change because they’re cleaning up the throw-up, then changing the diaper (which also smells), then feeding the baby again, then burping the baby, then trying to soothe the crying baby, then trying to clean up some of the mess in the house, then debating whether to eat or pee – but WAIT – there’s the curdled milk spit-up again.
After all of that, mama tries to plan for a shopping trip and that requires making sure she has insane amounts of supplies, and once baby is safely in the car and they’re about to leave mama will notice that her boobies are leaking and she needs to go change her shirt.
Take two! Off they go to the grocery store and when they arrive mama notices that baby has pooped all over the car seat. Mama tries to clean up baby and the car seat. Okay, into the store, but not so fast because baby wants to feed.
Now into the store. Half way through shopping baby starts to scream, so mama asks someone who works in the store if they’ll hold her cart. Mama goes outside and soothes baby.
Back into the store. Now, mama must pee and she must pee now because her bladder is still not as strong as it once was, but someone is in the bathroom, so mama does the pee-pee dance, then mama pees on herself a little – yes, it happens to most mamas and some of us have even peed our pants entirely during rush hour – so mama takes baby into the disgusting men’s room and tries to pee while holding baby and balancing above the gross toilet seat.
Finally, mama goes to retrieve her cart, which is gone, so she starts all over.
Once the shopping trip is over, mama has to bring in all of the bags one at a time because if she puts baby down baby will cry, except that baby is asleep in the car. Mama can’t leave baby alone in the car while taking in groceries and mama can’t pick baby up because that will wake baby and now mama has to pee AGAIN! I know women who have peed in cups and on beach towels in situations like this.
So, unless your bladder is so weak that you are forced to squat in the back of the car and pee into a cup so that no one will kidnap your baby while you run inside and so that your baby can FINALLY nap, do not think we have it easy because we get to stay home.
You may be thinking this sounds insane, well, it feels insane too and that’s why mama needs your support, your foot rubs, your back rubs, your lies like, “You look so beautiful when you’re caring for our child. Your eyes sparkle.” Mama will think, “I peed on myself today and you still think I’m beautiful. You are wonderful!” If once a day…no, once a week…you say, “You’re beautiful,” then you, sir, are a prince.
What it comes down to is this: One of your jobs as a papa is to help care for the mama. Be kind. Be appreciative. Be able to look past the pajamas, adult acne, dark eye circles, bad hair, fat roll and bad attitude to find something, ANYTHING, that you still find attractive about us. We need that. We need you.
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