First Thoughts on Birth (HW 34)

Christopher R

One of the questions that I have for this unit, which I will put in the list of questions at the bottom of this assignment, is what the role of the male is during, before and after birth. What the dominant social practice seems to be is the men are there for support and they are to try to help the woman have an easier time by making the female comfortable. It’s also common to hear a female talk about how much child birth hurts and all of the negatives that come from being pregnant, such as putting on weight making it harder to be mobile, morning sickness, having to adjust and change the lifestyle a person were living to have a healthier child. However what this seems like is a lot of complaining without working towards any kind of solution (which is something almost everyone does). Females are the only ones, who are linked with the idea of pregnancy, and being pregnant but there are always two parents and men get little to no credit for doing anything. The reason I think this is, is because there is not a role for men that is ever glamorized or talked about a lot, and with women being directly correlated birth men, and their roles are kind of forgotten about.

Another perspective that I have about birth, is when is the ideal time for a female to become pregnant and how can this be determined. This is something that I have a lot of personal experience with because my mother had me at a very late ate, or what is considered to be a late in modern society. It is more common that people have children when they are younger now and MTV has started to make a profit off of females that get pregnant while they are teenagers. While that is usually a terrible situation, because mothers do not get the chance to go to college and have to apply for a job (usually low paying) and takes away the opportunity of college. On the other hand my mother had me at a pretty late age and because of this some of the things that younger parents get to experience with their children, I wasn’t able to experience with my mother. Her being older also changes the things we are able to do now, and as time passes no one gets older so what we’re able to physically do or what I’m interested as I get older may start to conflict with the things she wants to do as she becomes older, in contrast to parents and children that are closer together in age.

• What roles do men play, pre-pregnancy, post pregnancy, and during pregnancy in the United States society?
• Is there a biological reason that women are the care-takers of children? What are the reasons that women are culturally the care-takers of children?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of having a home birth?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of having a birth in the hospital?
• If the name of a child has no effect on how the child will act when s/he is older what is the purpose of reading up on names and having coaches to teach about baby names?