A Day in Life of a Father in the Parenthood Journey

As Indians, we’ve all heard the in famous “Hamare zamane mein toh aisa hi hota tha” from the elders at home, haven’t we? Despite the fact that households now have both spouses working, gender stereotypes too are still unfortunately looming over our heads.

Man goes to earn the bread, woman handles the household, manages baby duties, manages in-laws.

Yes, this surprisingly still continues inspite of better education levels, and exposure via the Internet which still does not make an impact on the senior generation. But there is a bright ray of hope.

All thanks to social media and platforms like these, people can express themselves, be heard and influence others. This has given birth to bloggers of all sorts, travel, food, lifestyle and Mom bloggers telling their experiences and parenting journey. Lots of moms these days are doing things differently while parenting including emphasising on equal parenting.

Now, that the context is set, let me tell you about our story. We had a turbulent pregnancy with a couple of hospitalisations, bedrest etc., through the 9 months but this made us stronger as a couple and our family a strong support system. Never did I miss a scan or sonography or tests. So the baby finally came and I had decided to be hands-on from the start, because I wanted to, because this was equally my responsibilty. But, there was actually an incident which triggered that.

We had gone for a friend’s wedding. All of us friends – New generation business successors, educated abroad,(unfortunately not me) some employed in MNCs, users of latest branded goods, were taking care of the babies while the ladies sat for the mehendi.

And as we know it, kids always somehow have the most amazing timing. One of the tots got hungry and my friend was quick to whip out a milk bottle. I was surprised and asked him if the kid was already on formula milk to which he was quick to respond about this amazing product by Philips Avent, breast pump which assisted in bottling breast milk so couples could share the responsibility of feeding, giving mama’s a well-deserved break. Thank God for modern appliances making life more convenient.

Then baby emergency number 2 (literally) struck. But what can you do? If you’re a baby and you gotta go, you gotta go, and then the world is your toilet. The toddler then decided to do the ‘Big Job’ and the next thing I see is the dad panicking and calling out to his wife to come clean and change the baby.

I was totally taken aback, and that was the day I decided that I will do anything and everything for my child. From feeding, to changing diapers, to cleaning spit-up and spills, to nap time stories, I wanted to share the load.

Everyone wants to give their kids the best and to ensure that happens quite a lot of parents today are working couples at least in the metro cities where everything is expensive and time is always short.

Kudos to the mums who juggle multiple roles of handling office work, managing the house, the kids, the family and if time remains, have an active social life.

My story is somewhat like the popular bollywood flick in which the wife has an excelling corporate career and the husband (in this case..me) has a more creative bent of mind loving his work-life balance.

So when the wife had a conference in Sri Lanka, I booked my son and myself on the same flight and sat to plan the nitty grittier parts of our itinerary.  While she would be busy attending her conference, baby and I decided to gallavant and paint a couple of towns red.

While I was hands on with all the baby duties and confident of managing our son for a couple of days, a challenge stared me straight in the face. I would manage everything but there was one thing I was not biologically programmed to do. Breastfeed. I remembered that time at the wedding I’d heard about the breastpump. With some help from our friends, we picked up the most recommended Philips Avent  Electric Breast Pump.

Game-changer!

Quick, painless, and easy to use (amidst a busy schedule), easy to clean and a touch-free hygienic way to store the milk in specially designed bottles. So my dear wife, did her thing and pumped milk; Papa and baby were happily but not hungrily on their way to explore the island on their own for the next two days.

Now this is what I call a Win (for papa), Win (for mumma), Win (for baby) situation.

Leave your comments below on what you think. *Subjective from person to person basis.

About me: Tejas Buch aka @dadmansuperdad is a father of one based in Mumbai. A marketing and sales professional , he’s here to break the stereotype and create meaningful dialogues around the importance of Dad’s in hands on parenting.

Disclaimer: The views, opinions and positions (including content in any form) expressed within this post are those of the author alone. The accuracy, completeness and validity of any statements made within this article are not guaranteed. We accept no liability for any errors, omissions or representations. The responsibility for intellectual property rights of this content rests with the author and any liability with regards to infringement of intellectual property rights remains with him/her.