SC cowgirl, that is not the issue. I have never hung shit on anyone who stayed with the kids. I am taking him up on using the words *subjected* to childcare. That is not a neutral term. I don’t use the words “subjected to being left at home with his mother” to describe a child at home, ask yourself why?.

I’d hate to see this degenerate into a childcare debate (i.e fulltime child care vs full time staying home) because there are pros and cons for either, and each of our circumstances are incredibly different; some have friends and family around, some are single parents, etc etc…

HOwever, if you are fortunate enough to have the opportunity to stay with your kids, than i say go for it. The second car and the big mortgage can always come later.

Bugger it… I am mythical now…that would explain the fading vision. I thought I was just getting older.

Will someone tell me how you support the family and without leaving the house..

Our theory was that we weren’t going to subject our children to childcare, so my wife and I took turns staying at home with them.

But you’re right Steve, just about every book about child rearing depicts the father as a transient figure, disappearing in the morning before reappearing briefly in the evening, perhaps to pat the child on the head before bedtime. That shit really pisses me off.

Well, Alex, the ignorant comments that people who won’t use childcare come out with (as “subject our children to childcare” implies) really piss me off. Do you not understand your prejudices about childcare may be as unfounded as mythical Dad stories in books?

I dont know about two though. And three! Forget it, game over. You’re now “parents”. As an American friend of mine so aptly put it, with the advent of the third child “you go from man-on-man, to zone defense”.

I believe it was a basketball analogy. Made me chuckle for weeks.

Poor bastard.

oh, and for the record, i’m not a particularly maternal type and found the early years really really hard. Lots of fun and good stuff along the way, but spontaneous, erratic creative independent types usually dont make the transition to routine all that well.

that said, parenthood is absolutely THE most fortuitous thing to have happened to me, on so many levels.

See, I could have typed that word for word (but I just cut and pasted it). Seriously, we love our son, he is so much fun, wouldn’t ask for it to be any other way. But the reasons stated above are why we have decided our perfect number of children are one. Oh, and the other reason is we are both selfish people, and while we can cope with one, more would mean having to be even less selfish, and I am not sure we are willing to do that.

My DH tries to contribute equally - he is happy to change nappies, and he does the shower-pajamas thing each night. But I KNOW that when our son gets older, it will be Dad teaching him the practical stuff and making the crazy machines. Because I will happily admit I am totally crap at that kind of thing.

The next step is to do something about it.

A really good start would be to sit down with three parents of kids with disabilities and some technically knowledgeable representatives of the various support organisations. He could find out exactly what is on offer, when, what obstacles are provided, how it feels to get it, and what happens when it is not available.

I was thinking uncharitably that he should then have to go home one day and face up to the real responsibiity of having a child who has just come out of a coma after a car accident.

Then I realised he could never, ever, be in the position of the people providing long term care to family with disabilities because his parliamentary superannuation will enable him to pay for support which the rest of his constituency simply can’t afford.

Given, you see, that being a carer creates poverty.

Fear not. Your descendants will be too numerous to count. They will be like grains of sands on many beaches or like the stars in the sky on a clear night.

that said, parenthood is absolutely THE most fortuitous thing to have happened to me, on so many levels.

SL: not having yr own biological kids is a perfectly fine choice. You shouldn’t have to justify it.

I caught a group of parents on one of the dodgy ‘current affairs’ shows last week, who were calling on the govt for more support in terms of respite and community care. The majority of that group of parents living with a severely austistic child expressed thoughts of suicide, giving up their child (some already had) and some even confessed to fleeting glimpses of infanticide.

Then theres the current scandal engulfing the Fed Community Services Minister regarding his alledged statement to disability advocates that he would give up his child if it were disabled; while the outrage seems focused on his ‘undervaluing the life of a disabled child ‘ politically the more pertinent issue to me is that he is more or less conceding that the level of community support available ( under our gt) leaves many with little choice but to consider this option.
Now thats a screw up.

Conversation is two-sided by definition and it won’t be meaningless to the young one. And you get an almost unparalleled opportunity to have a formative influence on the development of a young mind. It’s quite the opposite of ‘meaningless’, but YMMV (as clearly it does).

“you’ll get your share of dirty looks for not being a parent with a perfectly behaved little angel who is seen and not heard.�

And everyone not giving dirty looks is either thinking “God, I’m glad I’m through that phase” nor “God, I’m not looking forward to that”

And I reckon there is a good chance that little girl has autism - if so, the noise she makes would be to block out the intolerable noise of the world around her, and I could well understand the glazed look in the mother’s eyes. Even if she wanted the child to be quiet there wouldn’t actually by any way she could make that happen.

The flipside to the Dad’s-a-marvel-for-pushing-the-stroller equation is that Mum’s-crap-because-her-kid’s-tired, cross, hungry, naturally bad tempered or whatever.

Yes, I tend to think the Dad would get sympathy in the same situation for just trying.

SE, a good dad has to do more than push the pram, they have to listen…

Rog, I wasn’t trying to suggest that was all there was to it! It was tongue in cheek you know, a comment on the perceptions merely pushing a pram was generating.

L
Young kids don’t require much more attention in terms of clean up etc. than a dog. Well a little more but not much.

Except you cant tie them up to the clothes line, and leave them by themselves while you go out for drinks for at least a good 6 months.