i noticed today that my 8 week old had a small discharge on her girl bits. i asked my husband if he'd seen it before when he bathed her/ changed the nappy. his reply was that he didn't look at those bits. when pressed on why he said it felt a bit wrong to be looking at her bits.
That is a really sad indictment on today's society that a dad feels he shouldn't be looking at his daughters bits when she's 8 weeks old.
Do other dads feel like this/? like they'll be criticised or disapproved for it?
We live in a society that has become more and more paedo-hysterical.
Yes it is very sad - and potentially risky: blokes are sh!t scared to go near any child that might be in danger or is distressed.
my sisters husband refuses to take their little girl to any public toilet, it all stems from when he took his newborn daughter to change her nappy, went into the baby change section and a women screamed at him and called him a dirty perverted peado. Nice eh???? ;-/
I did bathe with my daughter often but that a little different to close examination of her bits.
I know need to examine old ladies bits and I feel uncomfortable doing that as well, I will usually call for a female member of staff to do it if we have one on duty that is competent enough. I would always ensure that a female member of staff was with me but that makes me feel worse.
I once suggested that our manager (a trained nurse) should retract the foreskin of a male resident for cleaning and she nearly died in horror!!
I'm not a dad (obviously), but this reminded me of when a few months back we were with my friend's daughter who was proudly showing off her new son. Mr Frog spent a while cuddling the baby, but later on he said to me that he really wanted to kiss his head and 'smell the new baby smell', but he felt he couldn't in case people thought he was a paedophile.
I suspect that many men feel uneasy about anything to do with children that could possibly be misconstrued as sexual. You're right, bednobs. it speaks volumes about the society we live in.
I don't think himself even considered checking girl bits - he's from a very cold, un-loving family (packed off to boarding school aged 7, then the army, blah, blah). He was in his early 40's when we had our first child and I suppose he has been very good with them considering his background - he is much better with the older ones (he doesn't get on so thing 1 at all, she is too wild for him).
what does he look at when he changes a nappy, the ceiling. I know that times change but at the end of the day he is 50% carer , to hell with other people.
If i were a mother I wouldnt let my partner 'examine' our daughters genitalia, likewise I would not inspect our sons twig & berries, I would leave that up to him to do, it just doesnt seem right, but maybe it is my upbringing, we were never allowed to talk about periods or boobs, or growing up, that was left for our mum to chat to us about. Failing that, take son/daughter to GP for a proper examination.
I don`t think it`s a sad indictment of today`s society. In fact I think that it`s a compliment to today`s society that fathers even bath their babies or change their nappies. That certainly never happened when I was a kid. My dad would never have changed a nappy or bathed us (that was "womens` work")