I'm a new father and I already can not count the number of times my wife and I have already been asked the cutesy "so how many diapers has he changed?" question.
The automatic assumption that I'm just going to phone it in -- not to mention the assumption that my wife would put up with me, were I that type of person -- has already strained more than a few relationships.
Never mind that my wife had a difficult labor, unexpected surgery and was stuck in a hospital bed, leaving me to handle everything other than breastfeeding, for the first four days and it never even occurred to either of us to call a grandmother in as a ringer.
We just always planned on each doing as much as we could and so my stepping up when she couldn't was the most obvious and natural thing in the world. At least, to us.
Seemingly half of everyone we know expected I'd hold my daughter just long enough to hand her to my mother and then head back to work.
And as to the people who see my wife out and about and ask in shock/concern whether it's a good idea/whether I can really handle looking after our infant daughter by myself while she so much as runs a few errands ... I have never actually been so angry as to see red before.
I was in the same boat: My wife carried twins and had a rough non-delivery followed by a C-section. She couldn't hardly walk for the first three weeks, and I took six weeks off total, so I pretty much did everything that didn't involve mammary glands (but I did have to wake to feed them extra milk from a bottle).
And not that I kept track, but it took a looong time for my wife to catch up on the diaper count.
And I felt guilty as all hell when I did go back to work.
[1] There might be something there. If our social expectation shifted to allow that fathers ought to/might want to be involved with their children, we'd probably have to update our archaic views on paternity leave. As is, I burned through all my vacation and then some and then stretched my employers tolerance for 'working from home' as far as it would go before I returned. And in the end I still had to go back before my wife got the doctor's Ok to drive, or to lift anything heavier than our child.
You could have taken six weeks off. You were legally permitted by law to take up to 12 unpaid weeks and still have your job waiting for you when you got back (assuming your employer had 50 or more employees and you had been working there for a year IANAL). Most people don't know that you can actually take up to 24 weeks, but if you do take more than 12 then your employer is not obligated to give you your exact job back, only a comparable one. You also didn't have to take it immediately after your child was born, but that you had up to one year to take your baby leave.
I wasn't paid for all 6 weeks. My wife and I had to save up a cash cushion (and her leave was paid because her company had wayyy better benefits than mine). It was a decision and an expense that was important for us, so we saved up for it because we knew that my wife would probably be out of commission for the first six weeks our boys were born and the first 4-6 months of twins is a crapton of work.
I never felt guilty when I came back to work. Once you really internalize that people in a company are replaceable, you just start preparing people for when you leave on vacation or baby leave instead of worrying about it.
Yeah, with FMLA I could have taken more time, unpaid. I just wasn't in a place where I could do that and still feel comfortable about our savings. [1]
And to be clear: I felt guilty for being away from my wife and daughter. I didn't spare a moment of concern for my employer or colleagues -- they're pretty good people and all, but they can take care of themselves.
And while I know my wife can handle things, I still felt guilty because going to work is so much easier. At least, as a first time parent, the parenting side feels far more stressful/intensive/important.
[1] After the dot-com blow-out I became pretty paranoid about how much was reasonable to hold in reserve. And seeing how long unemployment stretches are going these days only convinced me to pad out that number. Particularly now that I have to factor in a higher burn rate.
Agree about first time parenting being more stressful/intensive. We used to joke that we were so tired from the weekend that we looked forward to going to work on Monday.
I'm a new father and I already can not count the number of times my wife and I have already been asked the cutesy "so how many diapers has he changed?" question.
The automatic assumption that I'm just going to phone it in -- not to mention the assumption that my wife would put up with me, were I that type of person -- has already strained more than a few relationships.
Never mind that my wife had a difficult labor, unexpected surgery and was stuck in a hospital bed, leaving me to handle everything other than breastfeeding, for the first four days and it never even occurred to either of us to call a grandmother in as a ringer.
We just always planned on each doing as much as we could and so my stepping up when she couldn't was the most obvious and natural thing in the world. At least, to us.
Seemingly half of everyone we know expected I'd hold my daughter just long enough to hand her to my mother and then head back to work.
And as to the people who see my wife out and about and ask in shock/concern whether it's a good idea/whether I can really handle looking after our infant daughter by myself while she so much as runs a few errands ... I have never actually been so angry as to see red before.