Thread by @AStratelates

One like, one insight from my friends who just had a baby.

1. The attributes that make a good fellow parent are very different than what one optimizes for a “fun friend you have sex with”. Including: ability to function when under stress and sleep deprived, body shape being a lot less important, and ability to let the other takeover.

2. Hospitals will simply try to intervene in every way possible and try to take advantage of a couple being in a stressed and tired state to push for medication, treatments, etc. that aren’t necessary. Basically the hippie natural birth people are 90%+ right.

3. Having a child is like having a very needy stranger become a house guest. So as a couple, you need to not be very needy and able to handle quite a bit of variability. Another reason why “fun but high maintenance” is a bad choice.

4. The pop culture zeitgeist looks at babies as a sort of afterthought of relationships, but they really shouldn’t be since they’re so complex and resource intensive.

5. People will praise a baby for existing more than they’ll praise a man for being at the apex of his career.

6. Lactation consultants are kinda incompetent and judgmental. We’d be much better replacing them with grandmas of a lot of kids who nursed even if they didn’t speak English and just demonstrated / coached positions.

7. Having someone who you can just give your child to be taken care of for a few hours is a godsend. Having this is basically worth any amount of money so fly in the grandparents or hire an excellent nanny.

8. Things will naturally progress in birth, nursing and child development. However, there’s a lot of “pulling the sapling to get it to grow” and weird folk beliefs in the medical establishment about these things which cause intervention.

9. Having a child is emotionally powerful and radically narrows your focus and makes priorities a lot clearer. To paraphrase: “I went from thinking I cared about everyone equally to realizing if you’re not kith or kin I don’t really care about you.”

10. The mother’s mental health during birth is significantly important and a medical birth doesn’t even acknowledge its existence.

11. There’s a mammalian “smug mother look” that all first time mothers have it and it’s adorable and hilarious.

12. It helps for the man to be in the room and help the mother push. Really creates a sense of shared problem solving and vassopresin bonding.

13. Every medical system either really pushes formula or prohibits it. There seems to be no one which takes a moderate position.

14. Babies crying should be looked at as language not noise.