Baby

Having a baby on the way makes you re-think a lot of things. Work commands a lot less importance now. This realisation has lead me to an observation of how many families appear to work. For sake of arguement, I'm going to use stereotypes exclusively - these exaggerate the situation and emphasize the point. I know they're never completely true.

The man goes out to work to earn the crust. The woman stays at home and looks after baby and home. Let us examine these situations: the housewife has a 24/7/365 job. When baby demands, the woman must supply (literally in the case of breast-feeding) and who will argue that this is not important? Now the working man does his job and comes home. Let's say it's a 50hr week in real terms with holidays, and now add in the reduction of importance I mentioned above. Essentially, the man here is doing a much less important job for less hours.

I don't like this, so I have told my wife that, especially at first, she must do no housework at all. I'm not good at spotting that things need doing, but nevertheless I should at least be responsible for doing it - even if she has to prepare a list for me. I want to do as much as I can for baby too, but she is wanting to breastfeed so there's a limit to what I can do - nappies, baths and general comforting is about that limit.

Putting all these mechanics of making life work aside, these are exciting times.