Ante-natal classes
Long time no serious post, so here's something about ante-natal classes.
The NHS "parent craft" ones seem to be seriously rubbish. For starters, they're at 2pm in the middle of the working week, apart from the one where husbands [sic - see below] were invited, which is in the evening. Er, what? Men have jobs but women don't? Have I been hit by a car and, like the bloke in Life On Mars, been propelled back in time to 1973?
I know there's a right to paid time off for ante-natal care, and that this includes "parent craft classes" (if and only if recommended by your doctor!). But this is just creating potential conflicts, and needlessly making it harder to balance work and child(related)care. It's not just me who thinks this is a bad idea - the Government's official position is "try to avoid taking time off work when you can reasonably arrange classes or examinations outside working hours."
One huge thing that strikes me about the whole having-a-baby business is that you are propelled firmly back in to the closet. They probably put a child-proof lock on the door as well just to make sure. If you're a gay man who's determined to stay closeted, get yourself a pregnant beard - I'm sure that'll be so much more effective than an ordinary one. Pretty much everyone assumes not only that you're straight, but that you're married, and that "husband" and "wife" should and do take gender roles in the relationship that are extreme to the point of parody.
So, to take an example, the timetable for the NHS "parent craft" classes (when you can finally snatch a copy of it) said that the evening session was one for partners too. My partner went along without me (I was unavoidably away), and the entire discussion about the person doing the supporting role during birth was about ... husbands. Not birthing partners, not partners, not men: husbands. My partner was there on her own so you might have thought that simple politeness would've at least prompted a nervous reaction along the lines of "your husband ... err, I mean, or partner, or birthing partner ...", but no.
We'd expected these to be a bit rubbish, so we signed up for the NCT classes as well. The actual content of these is pretty reasonable, but they are not as good as we'd hoped. We'd gone hoping to find a group of lefty hippies who were in to home births and feminist parenting and all that. It turns out that in the group we are the strange, token lefty hippies who are in to home births and feminist parenting and all that. Sadly, what we all have in common (apart from the obvious) is that we're all thirtysomething, middle-class, and in an opposite-sex relationship, which is not a set of identities I or my partner particularly want to reinforce.
So the feeling I have for the others in the group ends up being wildly variable. For example, the men and the women were split off in to separate groups to list the things they liked and didn't like about this pregnancy. We men started on listing things we liked, and the first idea was "feeling the baby move". I really, really like that, so the conversation about it was great. I got a sense that we'd all shared this important, moving experience.
And then the next idea was "bigger boobs". Suddenly I felt isolated. The mutual-reinforcement-of-shared-experience-and-appreciation thing happened again, but this time without me included. I'm ashamed to say I was so stunned I couldn't think what to say. I opened my mouth to try to say something like "Uh, are you really all saying that the size of your partner's breasts is something that's so important to you, and that you were disappointed with them previously?", or even a more feeble "Uh, I don't think I'd personally count that as a big plus," but all I managed was shell-shocked "Uh.". I mean, I know theoretically that this is a widely-available cultural norm for straight men, but I don't generally sit around with a group of them openly opining about it.
Still, on balance it's worth it, and the NCT facilitator is driving the NCT party line on home births and breast feeding, and it seems to be having some effect. And of course there are plenty of online ways of connecting to more alternative and less heteronormative people interested in this stuff.
I was surprised and pleased that Patricia Hewitt, the new Health Secretary, weighed in to promote home birth. Like, wow. This will be directly and immediately helpful for us. Allegedly, a memo went round the local community midwives a few months ago saying no more home births in that financial year. Whether the resources get allocated to make it happen remains to be seen, of course.
While I'm ranting on this line, I'll weigh in against the whole gender-determinism thing about the baby. When the subject comes up, a very common first question is, "Do you know what you're having?". I know now they're not expecting an answer like, "Well, we're expecting a human baby but I suppose we can't totally rule out kittens or an alien as outside chances." No, they want to know the sex of the baby. When told we don't know and don't particularly want to, one person reacted with horror, "But how do you know what baby clothes to buy, and what colour to paint their room?" Elementary, my dear sex-obsessed colleague: by not buying in to your silly ideas that baby boys need different coloured emulsion and babygrows from baby girls. Surely there's more than enough time to gender-stereotype the poor mite after they're born? Can we not enjoy this brief window of gender-indeterminism in our gender-determined world?
Oh, and I should probably add that mother-to-be and baby-to-be are both in good health. **FIXME Daffodil is growing rapidly, and their kicks and wriggles are not only palpable but visible! I even heard their heartbeat just by putting my ear up to my partner's stomach the other night, which was great.
Edited To Add: To be quite clear, despite the annoyances I've discussed, the NCT classes are very good - they've taught us lots already, they seem to be developing as a social support group, and they're enjoyable (on balance). Well worth going to IMO.
The NHS "parent craft" ones seem to be seriously rubbish. For starters, they're at 2pm in the middle of the working week, apart from the one where husbands [sic - see below] were invited, which is in the evening. Er, what? Men have jobs but women don't? Have I been hit by a car and, like the bloke in Life On Mars, been propelled back in time to 1973?
I know there's a right to paid time off for ante-natal care, and that this includes "parent craft classes" (if and only if recommended by your doctor!). But this is just creating potential conflicts, and needlessly making it harder to balance work and child(related)care. It's not just me who thinks this is a bad idea - the Government's official position is "try to avoid taking time off work when you can reasonably arrange classes or examinations outside working hours."
One huge thing that strikes me about the whole having-a-baby business is that you are propelled firmly back in to the closet. They probably put a child-proof lock on the door as well just to make sure. If you're a gay man who's determined to stay closeted, get yourself a pregnant beard - I'm sure that'll be so much more effective than an ordinary one. Pretty much everyone assumes not only that you're straight, but that you're married, and that "husband" and "wife" should and do take gender roles in the relationship that are extreme to the point of parody.
So, to take an example, the timetable for the NHS "parent craft" classes (when you can finally snatch a copy of it) said that the evening session was one for partners too. My partner went along without me (I was unavoidably away), and the entire discussion about the person doing the supporting role during birth was about ... husbands. Not birthing partners, not partners, not men: husbands. My partner was there on her own so you might have thought that simple politeness would've at least prompted a nervous reaction along the lines of "your husband ... err, I mean, or partner, or birthing partner ...", but no.
We'd expected these to be a bit rubbish, so we signed up for the NCT classes as well. The actual content of these is pretty reasonable, but they are not as good as we'd hoped. We'd gone hoping to find a group of lefty hippies who were in to home births and feminist parenting and all that. It turns out that in the group we are the strange, token lefty hippies who are in to home births and feminist parenting and all that. Sadly, what we all have in common (apart from the obvious) is that we're all thirtysomething, middle-class, and in an opposite-sex relationship, which is not a set of identities I or my partner particularly want to reinforce.
So the feeling I have for the others in the group ends up being wildly variable. For example, the men and the women were split off in to separate groups to list the things they liked and didn't like about this pregnancy. We men started on listing things we liked, and the first idea was "feeling the baby move". I really, really like that, so the conversation about it was great. I got a sense that we'd all shared this important, moving experience.
And then the next idea was "bigger boobs". Suddenly I felt isolated. The mutual-reinforcement-of-shared-experience-and-appreciation thing happened again, but this time without me included. I'm ashamed to say I was so stunned I couldn't think what to say. I opened my mouth to try to say something like "Uh, are you really all saying that the size of your partner's breasts is something that's so important to you, and that you were disappointed with them previously?", or even a more feeble "Uh, I don't think I'd personally count that as a big plus," but all I managed was shell-shocked "Uh.". I mean, I know theoretically that this is a widely-available cultural norm for straight men, but I don't generally sit around with a group of them openly opining about it.
Still, on balance it's worth it, and the NCT facilitator is driving the NCT party line on home births and breast feeding, and it seems to be having some effect. And of course there are plenty of online ways of connecting to more alternative and less heteronormative people interested in this stuff.
I was surprised and pleased that Patricia Hewitt, the new Health Secretary, weighed in to promote home birth. Like, wow. This will be directly and immediately helpful for us. Allegedly, a memo went round the local community midwives a few months ago saying no more home births in that financial year. Whether the resources get allocated to make it happen remains to be seen, of course.
While I'm ranting on this line, I'll weigh in against the whole gender-determinism thing about the baby. When the subject comes up, a very common first question is, "Do you know what you're having?". I know now they're not expecting an answer like, "Well, we're expecting a human baby but I suppose we can't totally rule out kittens or an alien as outside chances." No, they want to know the sex of the baby. When told we don't know and don't particularly want to, one person reacted with horror, "But how do you know what baby clothes to buy, and what colour to paint their room?" Elementary, my dear sex-obsessed colleague: by not buying in to your silly ideas that baby boys need different coloured emulsion and babygrows from baby girls. Surely there's more than enough time to gender-stereotype the poor mite after they're born? Can we not enjoy this brief window of gender-indeterminism in our gender-determined world?
Oh, and I should probably add that mother-to-be and baby-to-be are both in good health. **FIXME Daffodil is growing rapidly, and their kicks and wriggles are not only palpable but visible! I even heard their heartbeat just by putting my ear up to my partner's stomach the other night, which was great.
Edited To Add: To be quite clear, despite the annoyances I've discussed, the NCT classes are very good - they've taught us lots already, they seem to be developing as a social support group, and they're enjoyable (on balance). Well worth going to IMO.