EVANS — Real men don’t (or shouldn’t) care

Kara Evans writes on parenting for the Armchair Mayor News.

COLUMN — Every choice we make in life should be one that is made from a conscious decision. We choose career paths based on passion, not the paycheck it promises; we’re friends with those who make us smile and laugh, not because we’re desperate for attention; and we fall in love with the person who loves us for who we are on the inside, not for what we look like on the outside.

As cliché as the last point may be, it perhaps rings the truest, especially when all the major life events happen after you marry whoever that person is. The marriage vow of “for better or worse” is truly tested after we make the decision, whether conscious or not, to have children.

Childbearing is perhaps the most head-scratching thing we voluntarily put ourselves through. No woman decides she wants to become pregnant and cheers when she’s up all hours through the night vomiting, eating antacids like they’re candy, or planning trips so that she can hit as many roadside rest stops as possible. Nor do we decide to have children because we’re dying to have excess tummy skin, stretch marks, or saggy breasts afterwards. We do it because we, along with our partners, want to bring a child into the world and raise him or her to be all that they can be.

Some men – though not many – care about the superficial details that occur during and after childbirth. A woman’s body is never quite the same unless we go to drastic (and sometimes surgical) measures, and some men may not recognize that. Sadly enough to say, this reason alone may very well be the reason behind why so many marriages fail; children change everything.

To those men considering taking on the title of “Dad,” please remember not to care what happens to your partner’s body after all is said and done. Remind the woman you fell in love with that you still find every single inch of her beautiful, and really, truly, mean it. Look at the 10 tiny fingers and toes that she helped bring into this world, and know that her sacrifice was worth it.

Real men, the men who remember the vows they promised and the women they promised them to, don’t care. They don’t care about the last few pounds of “baby weight” that you can’t seem to shed, or the road map of stretch marks lining your abdomen. Real men know how much of a toll pregnancy and childbirth can take on his partner’s body. Real men don’t care, in the best way possible.

Kara Evans tweets from @KaraEvs and blogs on http://www.shewriteswords.com.