About The "Forgotten Father" Tweet I Posted

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So I tweeted something here recently that got a lot of, uh, feedback from men and women alike. I took a screen capture of the tweet and I posted it on Facebook and then on TikTok, something new I've been doing. And a lot of response. And the tweet was, I've learned that nothing gets a more negative response from women than pointing out that men often feel forgotten after the children are born. Oh boy. So what kind of reaction did I get? I'm pointing out in this tweet that over the years I've learned if a man comes out and says, you know, ever since kids came into the picture, I kind of feel like I'm, you know, by the wayside, I'm kind of shoved aside and forgotten as a husband, as a mate, as a partner. I've learned that women don't take kindly to being, uh, to having that little fact pointed out to them. Uh, in fact, I've seen that it brings out the worst in women, to be quite honest with you. And sure enough, the reactions to me pointing out the negativity was— drum roll— more negativity. Welcome to reality. Where the women do the hard work and men whine. If they were as hands-on as Mom, they ass would be just as exhausted and overwhelmed as Mom. If men would help, they wouldn't get ignored. Men are so selfish. Why would they not make it about themselves? We just pushed a whole human out of our body. You're a grown ass human being. Your wife is responsible for a baby that literally can't survive without an adult. Are you a baby, sir? Don't you think an actual baby comes first? Wipe your own ass, the kids need mama. Maybe if these men participated in the childcare and household duties, their wives would have time for them. The negative response is that if there was more partnership, women would have more bandwidth for their men. Men want mothers rather than partners oftentimes. Thank you for the transparency, it's understandable. Women really don't understand that men want them, not children most of the time? Or do they want mothers for their whole lives? It's hard to tell. Imagine being so weak that you're jealous of an infant.

What about me?

Carry my children, birth my children, raise my children, and take care of me, an adult man. And on and on. You can see that the theme for a lot of these women is one of, uh, the man does not help. And if the man helped more, then he would, by virtue of, you know, coming into the fold of of the family and the domestic duties, he would get more attention. And as I've said many times in many of these videos, man, I don't get that. Not because I don't see their point of view, simply because in my social circle and in the men that I talk to in the Dad Starting Over world, it's safe to say that men have never been more domestic than now. All the men that I know, they clean the house, They do the laundry, they change the diapers, they take the kids to daycare and back or to school and back. They coach all the teams, they mow the lawn, they do insert domestic duty here. So when I hear this chorus of women saying men do nothing, I wonder, are we talking to a subset of women from a certain part of the world or the country where men are much more quote unquote traditional in that way where men, I have my job, I go to my 9 to 5 and I don't do that housework kind of thing. That existed for many, many years. Or in fact, are these women just ignoring the work that their men do and they're kind of projecting the resentments for whatever reason onto the man and, and picking apart and, and poking at him where she knows it will hurt the worst, which is you don't participate in the family, therefore you don't get to participate in the love and attention that we're all giving to each other, the child and the mother presumably. I don't know, but it's, um, it's not good. It's not positive, and nothing is getting accomplished here with this sentiment, this, this mindset that we're seeing again and again with these comments. So what would I expect from some women, at least more than the, dare I say, 1% of the comments that I see from women being positive? And what do I mean by positive? A positive comment in my mind would be something like Uh, I'm sorry to hear that. I'm sorry to hear that my spouse feels left out, forgotten. That's not my intent as wife and mother here. It's just that my mind is so caught up in all the stuff with the kid. My anxieties have, uh, gone up exponentially. I recognize that the man is trying to help out. I recognize that he's trying to do his part, and I recognize that I have basically kind of set him aside, but that is not my intent. So Bear with me as I go through this. As wife, your feelings and your opinions, husband, matter a lot because I love you, because you're my husband. That's why I married you. So let's see what we can do to bridge the gap between us, to come back together as a romantic couple. To me, that sounds good, nice, sweet, adult. Instead, what we get is a lot of knee-jerk, instant backlash from women. Men suck. You do nothing. Maybe if you did more, you would get more attention. And then we go into the typical, you are a baby for having feelings. You are less than a man for having feelings. Makes you wonder who's responsible for this whole quote unquote toxic masculinity thing that we hear about. Interesting. If you want your man to be more emotive and to open up and be more vulnerable, come across to your side of the fence, so to speak, as a more emotional, open, vulnerable woman, then you have to be open to those moments where he expresses said emotion, such as, "You know, I kind of feel like I lost my wife. I kind of feel like I lost my place as husband here in the family as soon as we had a kid." And men don't say that easily. We recognize that this is kind of a hot topic powder keg issue. We recognize that this is not the nicest thing in the world to say, to raise our hand and say, "Remember me?" Because it puts us in a place of subservience, weakness, trying to get attention. But you know what? The majority of men feel exactly that way. And a lot of us resolve this by just kind of escaping and doing our own thing. "I guess I'm not needed here." You know, I'll put forth some ideas of, "Hey, maybe we can do this instead," and it's instantly shot down. "No, no, no, just go over there. No, don't touch that." Uh, honey, what if we did— and immediately, no, no, I already got it figured out, please don't. Uh, a lot of that's born out of anxiety for the woman. She just wants to control the situation because it makes her feel better. She knows it will get done right if she does it. And by right, she means what's in her mind and what she's planned all along. And here comes Mr. Husband going, you know, have you ever thought— and she's like, no. You do that once, twice, 200 times, and eventually the man gets the message. I'm not really needed here. And the root of a lot of depression for men is the feeling that we are not needed, that we have no role in our family, in our friend group, at work, wherever it is. We have to feel like we are an integral part of the machine that we are in. Otherwise, we just remove ourselves from it. Just food for thought, guys.