Dear Crabby, should men change diapers too?


Dear Crabby,

My husband and I are getting ready to have our first child together. He told me the other day that he does not intend to change any diapers as that is a woman's job, and he does not think it would be right. What do you think about this?


Dosa Realitee

Dear Dosa Realitee,

Many men have gone down this road and attempted to get out of this duty by claiming it is a woman's job. Some got away with it, some were put in their place, and some were never seen again!

I think the only time that conversation would come up is just before you have your first one. The occasional wife buys into it and does all the diaper changing and bottle feedings for a while.

Then the second child comes. It is still considered a "man on man" defense at that point, but only if the husband jumps in and takes one. Then there are the couples crazy enough to continue going for more after that. I can tell you that the reason they quote the statistic that the average American family has 2.3 children is because they only know where that third kid is about 30% of the time!

A friend of mine once said to me, "I heard that going from one kid to two was difficult, but going from two to three is no big deal. Is that true?" I started laughing so hard, then I stopped and calmly told him they are lying if they tell you that. I think as soon as a couple has multiple children, any talk of "her job" or "his job" goes out the window.

I can remember one friend telling me that he always used to tell his wife that his job was to change the oil in the car and hers was to change all the diapers for their twins. One day he came home from work to find his wife covered in oil in the garage. She calmly told him that the oil change was way easier and only every 3000 miles, so he would take the next 3000 miles of diaper changes!

You should have seen the look on his face! When my kids were young, we had no time or energy to fight about job assignments. If there was a dirty diaper, you changed it. If someone needed a bottle, you gave it to them.

If a parent was sleep-deprived, you knew they were doing their job right. There were times when Mrs. Crabby would nudge me in the middle of the night and I would walk down and pick up the baby and bring him to her, only to have absolutely no memory of it in the morning. Apparently, sometimes there were entire conversations that I had no memory of.

But we survived, and now we get to smile and watch our kids go through it with their kids. I now understand what was behind that little grin on my mother's face when I would tell her how tired I was or how much work having kids could be.


Dear Crabby

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