Parenting

**This post follows on from yesterday's ... if you haven't already read it, you might need / want to read it first!**



While I've struggled with juggling life since my LG was born, the thing that caused me, personally the most emotional harm have been the ecpectations that society placed, overwhelmingly, on me, as a mother.  

 My choices were questioned by many ... decisions that should be private seem to be public, just because they involved me and my child ...

 How did I give birth?  
Will I / Am I breastfeeding?
When will you stop / why haven't you stopped feeding her?
When are you going back to work?
Don't you want to stay at home then? (Well, yes, I did, but asking me that repeatedly really didn't help.)

However I answered each of those (and many more) questions, came the weight of judgement from friends, family and the general community.  Judgements on my / our personal choices which were never levelled at my LG's Dad.There are questions we only ever ask the mother

But in all of this, the killer question / conversation (once I was actually able to leave the house for longer than 30mins without her once the feeding schedule settled in):

"Oh, you're going out.  Who's looking after XX?"
" Her Dad is."
"Her Dad?, Oh, aren't you lucky he's willing to babysit."

 There are many things wrong with that conversation.  But fundamentally the crux of what is wrong with all of the above is that we, as a society are placing super-human levels of expectation on women, on mothers.  We don't place that same level of expectation on Dads.  


It's time we recognised that Parenting is a role that doesn't just sit with one person.  Shared parenting should be the norm.  Our social expectations should apply to Dads just as much as Mams, and reflect that.  


I don't 'babysit' my daughter.  I  parent.  And parenting is exhausting.




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