So many different parenting tips and tricks exist — but that doesn't mean you should follow every piece of advice you read. One woman sorely misjudged how willing her husband would be to go along with one parenting tip, when she informed him that she'd be taking care of their newborn for the first month all by herself.
The whole sordid story was explained by a friend of the couple.
As the friend explained in her since-deleted post on Am I the A–hole, her 24-year-old buddy gave birth to a baby boy recently — and the husband was clearly ecstatic.
"He was very excited to see his baby for the first time and actually about to cry when he saw him," she recalled.
But then he started talking about bringing the baby home — which was a problem.
Little did he know that before the birth of his son, the Original Poster (OP) and his baby's mother had been looking at baby advice websites "and found one that said having the mother and the child be alone for one month would strengthen the bond between them."
Obviously, the dad was ticked that they'd come up with the scheme without talking to him.
"He didn't scream at his wife because she had just given birth so he took me outside and started yelling at me saying that this plan was stupid and we were out of line making plans like this behind his back," she shared.
The OP didn't see what the big deal was.
Isn't it a good thing for a baby and his mother to bond?
"He asked me why he should be glad that he wouldn't get to see his newborn son for a month just because we believe some stupid post," she continued. "He also said that I have no say in what happened to the baby because I'm not the parent."
She told him there was really no point in him being there — he'd be pretty much "useless and in the way."
"He just looked at me and walked back into the hospital," she continued "A day later and his side of the family and my friends are calling me and my friend an a–hole."
But was she really that wrong?
To most people this plan made no sense.
One comment noted that the friend is absolutely the a–hole. "If my wife told me I wasn't allowed to see my newborn baby at all for the first month and that the baby doesn't need me, I would leave her and sue for custody."
"Yeah, I’d yell at you too," a second person agreed. "Fathers need bonding too. You also have clearly never had a baby."
"You treat fathers like nothing more than a sperm donor who have zero emotion and zero ability or need to bond with their own children, in contradiction to all real studies (and not some post you saw on the intertubes)," a third person wrote.
It doesn't matter what tips are written online. New moms and dads should communicate and be on the same page before making parenting decisions.
