27 Mar Father Goes Further: the differences in parenting styles
Emma Bateman highlights the differences in parenting styles between mums and dads.
At the playground, my arms are folded tightly around my waist and I’m scowling. Not at my two-year-old son, who is smiling crazily, but at my husband, John, who is dangling William precariously about two metres above the hard, tanbark-covered ground. It’s definitely a Michael-Jackson-meets-Steve-Irwin moment as I feel the other adults in the park draw back their arrows in our direction.
I scowl harder and nod my head disapprovingly, but John is transfixed by the obvious joy on our child’s face. Being manhandled is part of the fun, and it’s moments like these that remind me about the differences between my husband’s and my approach to parenting.
This type of skylarking, as my father called it, or what some early childhood professionals call ‘rough-housing’, is certainly symbolic of the way in which John interacts with William. And if I sit back, watch and try to relax, it’s actually quite therapeutic to see the energy and sparks that fly between them. And it’s this type of hands-on, just-do-it approach that certainly relieved a lot of my stress as a new mother.
Like most new mothers, I was a bundle of hormones trying to work out how to care for my baby. I consulted baby books while John would breeze in to tell me to “throw them all away” as he drew William towards his tall, footy-player frame. He was the one who suggested that we go out in the car for the first time with William. “But, what if he cries?” I asked. John looked at me blankly. “It will be okay.” And, of course, it was okay; it was more than okay. I remember feeling a great sense of relief as we drove away, with William secure in his car seat. I truly felt then and there that we were in this together. I could let go and trust my husband’s way of doing things.
My husband’s hands-on approach appeared again when he rolled William over onto his tummy and put him facing outwards in the papoose for the first time. I’m not sure why I didn’t think of doing these things first; perhaps I was too fixated on taking the softly, softly approach with William. But I remember thinking it was nice to have the spotlight taken away from William and me, even if only for a short time.
My girlfriend told me what an old man said to her one day while she was waiting for a bus with her newborn: “Just remember, love, they [babies] are not fragile”. At first, this seemed like an unfeeling comment. But now I appreciate what he meant. It’s not about an eggshell-type, porcelain fragility but more of a sensitive, caring one with trusting boundaries. It made sense. While I kept William close, his father was showing him another world. A world where you could be exposed to new things while becoming more aware of what the body can do in a safe, loving environment.
However, watching my child hang in midair switches on my motherly instincts. And, like a bright red stoplight, my body language soon puts a stop to the rough-housing. I stride over to them, cool and cautious. Safe again on terra firma, my son lies in my arms. He looks up at me and shouts, “More!”
Illustration by Andrea Smith.
