Opinion: Do Dads Draw the Short Straw?

I’ve been dancing around this post for a while now. I know what points I want to make, but I’m having a hard time trying to put it into words. Recently some rather horrible things happened to some people I know quite well and I’m struggling to get my mind around something. It seems to me that men draw the short straw when it comes to all things pregnancy and baby.

I’ll use this example to try and clarify what I mean. A person very close to me found out that his girlfriend was expecting. He already sees the baby as his child, but his girlfriend is terminating regardless of how he feels and is refusing to talk to him about it. While they’re not in the best position to raise a child and perhaps it may be for the best, he is shattered that as quickly as he became a father, he’s about to have it taken away from him.

Some may argue that should she keep the baby, he could change his mind later on down the track  leaving her with a responsibility she didn’t want, but that does not change the fact that right now there is nothing he can do to prevent what will be the death of his child. As you can probably imagine, he isn’t coping too well. (Please note that I am in no way saying that women shouldn’t have a choice in what they do with their bodies – I’m merely pointing out how helpless a man can be in these situations and that would royally suck to be in those shoes.) In pregnancy and birth, a man has no control over the outcome.

I recently read an article titled On Fatherhood over at Babble Australia where the author makes the following comment on becoming a father and the hurdles that he had to overcome:

I’m a guy, I don’t like things I can’t have at least SOME degree of control over, and I had absolutely no control over this whatsoever. I think that was one of the hardest yet most important lessons I learned from the pregnancy – that it’s OK to not be in control, that acceptance and support are in fact more important than the desire to “help” or fix things in many cases. Fighting the natural instinct to “fix things” was an interesting journey of its own!

So, does this analogy count in the example of my friend who has no say on whether or not his girlfriend aborts? While I think he’s accepted that he’s not in control of the situation, is he obligated to accept and support his girlfriend even when she’s not willing to accept or support him? I guess it depends on their relationship.

I know the time is going to come when my husband finds himself in the shoes of  ‘the guy who drew the short straw’. When I read my previous post to him he got a sad little look in his eyes. I only want one child, but he really wants more. While I’ve taken into account his arguement for more children, I can’t get past the fact that I may not be strong enough to go through another pregnancy. While he has accepted that ultimately I am in control of my uterus, it does seem unfair on him that his own desires get shoved aside. What affect will that have on our marriage…well I’ll guess we’ll cross that bridge when it comes to it.