Back and forth I hear them outside of the bathroom door, the heavy tread of my husband’s footsteps that I would know anywhere and the shrill cry of the angry newborn in his arms.
I lean my head against the shower wall, alternating waves of rage and total defeat rushing over me. He isn’t doing it on purpose, I tell myself. He’s not deliberately walking in the hallway right outside the bathroom to ruin the only ten minutes of the day you get to yourself by letting you hear the baby’s screams so you will hurry the heck up…
But it sure feels like it.
My husband is about as good as they come in the world of super dads. He thinks nothing of strapping a baby to his chest, cooking dinner, or making a trip to the grocery store with kids in tow. Nor, I can assure you, would he ever describe himself as “babysitting” his own children, but it still doesn’t stop the strange phenomenon that happens to me as a mother:
Giving birth makes me hate him.
It’s completely irrational and truly unfounded, but it’s the plain and ugly truth of what I think is pretty normal in newbornland. Why do I hate my husband after we bring a miraculous life into the world together as a testament of our everlasting love?
It’s simply really.
I hate my husband because no matter how much we achieve in the world of feminism, how many glass ceilings we break through, or how often well-meaning men use the phrase, “we’re pregnant!”, there is no getting around the fact that to bring a life together into the world, I am the one that has to endure the bone-shattering pain of labor and birth and all the fun of surviving the postpartum phase.
I hate my husband because no matter how much he supports me breastfeeding or marvels at our children’s weight gain each month, I am the one who has to endure the bleeding nipples, endless rounds of mastitis, and that special brand of pressure that is known to nursing mothers. Am I nursing long enough, too long, am I exposed enough, was I gone too long, is the baby gassy because I drank too much coffee!?
I hate my husband because no matter how much he tells me I’m beautiful or is adamant that my jelly belly is simply “stretched-out skin” (good one, honey), he will never understand how much of my self-identity and worth is tied into this now unrecognizable body.
The good news is, my irrational husband hatred doesn’t last forever. After four babies, I know enough to realize that it’s not really that I hate him, of course. It’s more about reconciling the fact that as parents, we now have completely different roles than when we first started as husband and wife.
It’s about learning the true definition of teamwork, in finding my own identity as a woman with capacities and skills that, feminism aside, can’t be equal to any man. I am the one that can give birth and provide nourishment and right now, I’m living a life at home with our kids and working in ways that he just can’t understand, through no fault of his own.
Someday, in the not-so-distant future, this life of babies and toddlers and potty training and sleep deprivation will morph again — and once again, I will have to reconcile my new role as a mother and as a wife.
But I’ve finally learned that what it really comes down to is letting go of the any resentment towards my husband for what he cannot do…
And instead, celebrating all that I can do.
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