This is the fourth post about how a Movement to grow a skilled birthing population can impact fathers-to-be/others. The human mind is phenomenal. We can imagine and that’s what we must do now.
UNSKILLED FATHERS:
A father is someone’s son, brother, partner, cousin, nephew, grand-son or you. What do you want for yourself or for this person in your life? Do you want yourself or this man to feel comfortable or nervous around his newborn? It’s as simple as that.
Men/fathers-to-be who do not grow their ‘becoming’ father skills in pregnancy are less likely to know how to prepare his pregnant partner’s body/mind/emotion for birth. He is less likely to have skills to really work with his birthing partner during The Birth. He is much less likely to really feel confident with his newborn in his early days of ‘being’ a father?
Our modern societies expect fathers to be totally involved in pregnancy, birth and care of the newborn and older children. Yet, we ALL know this has not been what men have done in the past. Mostly pregnancy, birth and parenting was heavily put on the woman … good, bad, right or wrong. Now men are expected to be equal. How exactly can they do that without skills?
Unskilled fathers often don’t know how to respond to the changes in pregnancy even when trying SO hard to please. Unskilled fathers go to births and do their best to support and be there but often know they felt useless and helpless. Put these two things together, even the most dedicated father may feel all thumbs with their newborn and uncertain. Is this what you want for the men in your life?
To understand how essential a social expectation for a Skills-based childbirth trend is, we have to understand the impact that unskilled fathers have. Can we tie this lack of skills to the break down of many families so soon after The Birth? What happens when a fumbling man meets a woman trying to take care of a newborn after he has not been much help in The Birth and not fulfilled her needs in pregnancy? This image (our Mind’s ability to ‘picture this’) has to create sorrow in all of us who read this.
If you’re a father-to-be or know a man who is pregnant please get him a skills-based resource and encourage him to become skilled during this Gateway experience between ‘becoming’ and ‘being’ a father.
Also direct him to this expectant fathers blog so he can grow his skills from early pregnancy onward.
http://birthingbetter.com/expectant-fathers-blog/category/welcome/page/2/
SKILLED FATHERS:
Imagine this other path for yourself or the man in your life who is becoming a father. Imagine a man growing personal skills throughout his pregnancy. The skills in the expectant fathers blog help fathers-to-be to understand he is growing these skills to nurture himself, his pregnant partner and his baby. By doing so he becomes a well rounded human being.
Imagine yourself or this man in your having the skills to prepare his pregnant woman’s body to give birth. Imagine yourself or this man in your life really being present, able to help and totally engaged in welcoming his baby into this world no matter what type of birth unfolds?
Imagine yourself or this man in your life, being with his newborn feeling confident, sure of himself, able to meet challenges alongside his partner and knowing that he has truly grown through the phases of ‘becoming’ to truly ‘being’ a father.
What would millions upon millions upon millions of men be like if we could re-enliven a Skilled-based approach to all pregnancies and every birth so that men could experience themselves in such a complete, mature manner. This is what happened in the 1960s/70s when the father’s role was just shifting to include pregnancy, birth, care of the newborn and being engaged fathers. Skilled fathers entered our society and became more comfortable in their new role. It wasn’t perfect. It was the beginning.
Instead of more fathers since then experiencing the satisfaction of being skilled this has been lost for the subsequent generations because skills were eventually replaced and diminished by the present Choice-based childbirth trend. The intention wasn’t to take away from men/fathers but the results have profound … fewer fathers feel skilled (as do fewer women).
Can we prove that being a skilled birthing father changes our whole society? Yes and no. No one is going to run a double blind study but yes, our human Mind can see how much harder it is to do anything without essential skills. Humans thrive on having skills and they shy away from tasks when they feel or know they lack skills.