Does parenthood make you more sexist – or just more confused?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/29/parenthood-sexist-men-women-gender-roles

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As someone with four daughters, it is clear to me that parenting inevitably changes your outlook and undermines ideals. New research from Australia seems to suggest that both men and women become more conservative about gender roles within families after the birth of the first child. This has been branded “the sexist shift” by the author, Janeen Baxter – but it might as easily be labelled “facing reality”.

For a start there is no way of properly measuring “equality”. How, precisely, to measure an earned monetary contribution against being at home doing domestic labour – whether you or a man or a woman? You may have a mutual commitment to share chores equally, but if one of you is doing a 10-hour shift in an office and the other is at home all day, how realistic is that?

Related: Stay-at-home mums are heroes. The left should stand up for them more | Alice O’Keeffe

As I approached fatherhood I had no doubt that men and women had equal potential to parent, but in truth my first and second wife – who would self-describe as feminists – and myself quickly slipped into somewhat traditional roles. This had to do not only with economics, but with bonding. It took me several years to fully bond with my daughters when they were newborn, a phenomenon I have heard from more than one male contemporary, whereas the bond was much stronger and swifter in the case of their mothers. Perhaps this is conditioned, perhaps not – but it was certainly real.

It appears my experience was not unusual, with this default operating among the 1,800 couples Baxter studied. Before the birth of their children both men and women believed that childcare and housework should be shared equally, but after they had actually experienced parenthood, both sexes changed their previous views to support more strongly the ideas that a woman’s main role is being a mother, that mothers should work only if they need the money, and that young children should not stay in childcare for prolonged periods of time. However, women also believed more strongly than they did before childbirth that working women could be just as good caregivers as stay-at-home mums. New mothers became less likely than before to say that working mothers care more about their careers than about their children.

So men became more conservative, while women became more conservative and more feminist at the same time. What this says about parenthood is very little, other than it slightly addles the brain, which with the lack of sleep, change of circumstance and intense pressure, seems inevitable. It’s not only the mothers who are a bit mixed up. Men, despite strongly agreeing with the idea of a “house husband”, simply do not believe the role to be “a socially acceptable pursuit”. So fathers, like mothers, are conflicted and confused – they want to look after their children full-time, but also don’t want to, because people will look down on them.

Fathers are conflicted – they want to look after their children full time, but also fear people will look down on them

This study also takes the short view, whereas gender influence happens in the long term. My daughters have greatly influenced my view of gender, and have unquestionably moved me further towards the feminist end of the spectrum, at least in my ideas – which is not always the same as practical reality. That’s another way of saying I still don’t do as many domestic chores as my wife, while believing that I unquestionably should. This may be down to sexism or simply the fact that I am a non-gender-specific lazy, untidy slob.

It seems to me that the most clear finding here is that people don’t know what they think, and that’s never more true than after the birth of a child. If conservative attitudes to child-rearing do increase, then that might be for a number of separate reasons. The one favoured by Baxter is that it is a result of inherited attitudes and societal structures that need to be reformed to reflect a more contemporary reality.

This is perfectly plausible, but then so is the view that when it comes down to it, the fact that women actually grow children within their bodies, means that when faced with the reality of mothering, they can find themselves in the grip of a biological urge to stay close to their children. Men, on the other hand, suddenly faced with the often-grim and odiferous reality of raising an infant, lose their fond illusions about being “new men” and run back to their places of work with a sigh of relief at having such a convenient get-out. Men rationalise it as them having no choice. Women rationalise it as being both preferable and not-preferable, without the one view ruling out the other.

There is certainly work to be done to remove some of these contradictions. If “house husbanding” became more socially acceptable – along with paternity rights that match those of mothers – then it may be that the “sexist shift” would begin to disappear. If women could feel that they had an absolute right, if they so wished, to rear their child at home rather than pursuing a career, perhaps the odd guilt-reaction of both asserting and denying the value of the stay-at-home mother would disappear. But this study proves that the picture is as murky as ever. Everyone’s confused and no one thinks it’s quite fair or quite what they expected. Welcome to parenthood.