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I recently overheard the following conversation between two men:

Man 1: You have a six week old? Man, you must be exhausted. How are you holding up?

Man 2: Great, actually. My wife’s breastfeeding so I’m not the one who has to get up in the middle of the night.

James had to put a hand on my shoulder, a gentle signal of physical restraint, to keep me from leaping across the grocery check-out line and starting a verbal confrontation with a stranger. A stranger who is a prime example of how the burden of childcare and parenting is de facto placed on women.

Are we not living in the 21st Century? Why is this still an issue? Why do I feel I need to write about this?

If a woman is breastfeeding that in no way means that she is thus the only being responsible for tending to a newborn’s needs. Especially if there is a husband/partner in the mix.

I thought that was obvious.

Breastfeeding would not have been a success for our family had James not played such an intimate role in the experience. He would get up in the middle of the night, retrieve our wailing newborn from her bassinet, change her diaper, bring her to me so I could begin the 30-minute feeding routine and leave me a glass of water. He always asked if I needed anything else before going back to sleep. While he typically received an extra 30-40 minutes of sleep during each feeding, he was always an active participant, and in the morning, would let me linger in bed while beginning the day with Sunny.

Today, a fellow-working mother forwarded me a link to an interesting dialogue about working mothers, specifically related to CEOs and entrepreneurship. The author, a male investor, shared that he had had the following thought: “A pregnant founder / CEO is going to fail her company.” He wrote through that thought process, and the female founder/CEO he was referring to actually weighed in on the situation as well.

I, in turn, shared the link on my Facebook wall and it sparked a little dialogue. I responded to the comments with the following:

It comes down to the lack of support provided mothers, period. We never think about the men (the FATHERS!) in these conversations. The role of parenting is thrown on the woman, and it’s no surprise that it is then an absolute burden and struggle to try to juggle both. AND YET, most often, there are TWO adults involved, but the pressure is placed on the female of the two. And, admittedly, as I am going through it now, there is an undeniable physical burden on the woman who incubates and then bears the child and must recover from such an experience – but if men were held accountable for supporting their wives/partners through that period, it would not nearly be as daunting a task.

And it got me thinking about that conversation between those two men in the grocery store. There’s a concrete example of what I am referring to. Of what’s lacking.

I shouldn’t have to thank my partner for so equally sharing parenting responsibilities, but I am grateful for that amazing man. Every. Day.