How Baby

Raise your hand if you’ve heard someone talk about how they do all the night feeds for the baby, because their partner is the one who has a ‘real job’ and needs to be awake so that they can drive and work safely. Heck, raise your hand if you’ve said it yourself, and I’m definitely counting myself in that group. And yo, let’s be real: because we’re off work and possibly breastfeeding anyway, this is almost always a mom thing, right? That’s some high-octane bullshit.

This is one of those things that sounds logical on the surface, but you peel it back and it’s a big stinking core of sexism. How it ends up is always that mom ends up doing 90% of the caregiving work because she gets the day shift AND the night shift, because it’s ‘just watching a baby’, like that’s not one of the most difficult thing to do when you’re also sleep deprived and passing clots the size of baseballs – oh, and keeping the rest of the household running, because most of that stuff (the appointments, the shopping, caring for other kids) just needs to happen during the day too.

It’s not like you can’t do the parent thing while sleep deprived – clearly, you can, or none of us would be here – but I keep hearing that SAHM don’t think they deserve as much sleep as working dads and it’s just. Not on, guys. Being the parent at home requires just as most focus as waged labour – sometimes even more, because the stakes are so high. So for gossake, don’t fall into the trap! If you’re a SAHP, you deserve sleep too!

(PS: her name is Imogen. :D)

(PPS: We’re back from RCCC! It was lovely to see you all – there were so many new faces! Thank you so much for brightening my day. The next show is Edmonton, in two weeks.)