We are going to be parents for life, so yes, during those 40 weeks, we are pregnant.
Mila Kunis made the news with her appearance on Jimmy Kimmel’s show with comments that men should not use the term “we” when referencing pregnancy.
This is a case where I think she’s technically correct, but mistaken on the bigger issue.
I understand why women might be sensitive about this. They face lower wages in the workplace and bias elsewhere. It’s understandable they’d want this thing–perhaps the most special thing humanity experiences–to themselves.
It’s also the case that women, not men, are the ones to experience the physical pains of pregnancy and childbirth; not exactly a minor thing.
But in a larger sense, there’s a danger in Ms. Kunis’s comments and that is that it could further exclude men from parenting.
Of course, women are the ones who actually experience pregnancy. I don’t think anyone is confused when a couple says “we are pregnant”. What they are actually saying is that “we” are experiencing something miraculous and life-changing and that “we” are doing it together.
Let’s not squash that.
Men for the most part want and need to be involved in pregnancy, childbirth, and especially, parenting. There are so many messages in the media and our culture suggesting that at best, we are secondary parents, an inferior backup in case the primary parent is away for a few minutes (for which she must feel guilty).
Already, men have to fight for simple things like parental leave. You’ve seen this in other cases recently. When baseball players take just a few days off to help with the birth of their children, they are attacked by sports pundits. There are 162 games in a season and they can’t have a few off without criticism for something that may only occur once in their lives?
Think this is just about the pain of childbirth? Think again. CNN reporter Josh Levs found this out when he and his wife were pregnant (yes, ‘they’ were) with their daughter. Adoptive parents could get ten paid weeks off, regardless of gender. And biological mothers could get ten weeks off as well. But as a biological father, his company’s policy provided only two weeks.
Levs realizes that one sense, he is lucky. Many companies don’t provide paid parental leave at all.
But, there is obvious discrimination at play when someone in Levs own company could adopt his daughter and get eight more weeks of paid leave than he can.
There’s a real problem for both parents if we assume that the only purpose of parental leave is to allow for the physical recovery from pregnancy. Some women can go back to work after only a few days; that doesn’t mean that they should, or that we should require them to.
Similarly, men need time to bond with children. In most countries, this is expected. Parents get from several weeks to up to a year off, depending on the country, often much of it is partially or wholly paid.
The problem doesn’t stop there. In advertising, products for babies and children are marketed almost entirely to mothers. Fathers are irrelevant.
In movies and on television, fathers, should they be present at all, are depicted as incompetent goofs, incapable of performing even the simplest of parenting tasks.
Flip through a few children’s books. I joke with my wife that you can always find the mom in a children’s book. She’s the one wearing an apron. You can identify the father as well. He’s the one who’s just not there.
What message does that send to fathers? For those–probably by now a strong majority–who want to be present and active in the lives of their children, it suggests that they’re an intruder, not quite welcome. Or when they perform basic parenting tasks, they get a ridiculous amount of praise, as though they’re superhuman rather than just normal.
For those who might want to shirk their duties, this gives them an easy excuse. If pregnancy–and by extension, parenting–is a woman’s domain, men can just step aside. It’s not my responsibility to change diapers; I’m just the dad.
What message does it send to kids? If your dad is even present, feel lucky. But don’t expect more.
We need a change in thinking, among parents, the media, and among businesses. Parenting is a task for both mothers and fathers.
We are going to be parents for life, so yes, during those 40 weeks, we are pregnant.
—This piece first appeared in the Porterville Recorder on July 2nd, 2014.
Photo: Support Tattoo + Piercing/Flickr