Empowering Your Husband as a Father
I believe this whole idea of a “motherly instinct” is a bit of a myth. When our first son was born, I felt totally overwhelmed with the task of figuring out the needs and quirks of this new little human. When Beckett would cry, I’d be frantically rotating through all the things that he may be desiring, and when none of them worked, I’d sit there in panic, not knowing how to settle him.
It seemed that whenever Beckett got really inconsolable there was this expectation that I would handle it, because as his mother, I’m better suited to know what he needs. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The reality is, I met this little stranger the same day my husband did, and he was just as foreign to me as he was to Daddy.
So, how do we empower our husbands so that they know they’re just as capable as mom to care for our children? I’ll tell you what I did, completely by accident, that resulted in my husband having major dad swag.
Since the week that Beckett was born, I committed to being out of the house every Thursday night. Beckett was 8 days old the first Thursday that we had at home after being discharged from the hospital, and I left.
Let’s pause. I know a lot of you are freaking out right now. I get it. Us moms can be quite possessive of our babies. Before you start rattling off excuses as to why this would never work for you, I want you to know that I was 8 days post c-section and Beckett was exclusively breastfed. The cards were stacked against me to leave, but I pumped a bottle of milk (and an extra one just in case), and left the house for three hours.
Bobby was in charge of giving Beckett his night feeding and putting him to sleep. He looked like a petrified ghost the first night I left. I could tell he had very little idea what he was doing, and he knew it. It was scary, but I knew he would work through the struggle and figure it out because he’s a smart and capable father.
As the weeks went on, Beckett got used to taking a bottle on Thursday nights, and my husband got more and more confident in his ability to fill the baby’s tummy and get him peacefully to sleep. Thursday nights began to run smoother and I started to watch a confidence build up in my husband. Suddenly, if Beckett started crying, Bobby was instinctually stepping in to tend to him. The mood started to shift from “mom knows best,” to “we’re both capable parents and we’re in this together.” It was magical, and honestly it was a completely unexpected result of my Thursday night getaways.
Fast forward to when Beckett turned 6 months old. Once per quarter I began to take weekend trips out of town on my own. I’d leave Daddy in charge of the kid and for an entire three day block, he’d have to run the household. We did the same thing once our second child was 6 months old, as this is the age that our children begin to eat solids. I felt secure knowing that if they turned away a bottle, he could at least feed them regular food for nutrition. Once again I watched him enter this weekend slightly terrifed, and come out on the other side with his chest puffed out and his head held high.
Here’s the thing about empowering our husbands as fathers, ladies: Our husbands are good, capable, and loving fathers. They want to be good dads. But the key to our husbands becoming the confident fathers we want them to be is equal parts them stepping up and us stepping back. The more fluent your husband is as a father, the more freedom you earn to step away from time to time and be at peace that your kids are being well taken care of. We need this as women. So plan some time away, set your husband and child up as best you can for success, and give your husband the room to squirm so that later they can thrive.