FAMILY TIME
THE WORKING MALE MUM
“Vater werden ist nicht schwer – Vater
sein hingegen sehr”
(“It's easy to become a father but very difficult to actually BE one”)
I have to start with a confession: I had always wanted a family at
stage. But “at some stage” was always at some undefined point
in the future. Isome found small children unnerving and I couldn't understand
why my girlfriend (now wife) went into rapture at the sight of someone
else's baby. Sure, babies are cute because they're tiny, I thought, but
they all
look vaguely like minature Winston Churchills (minus the cigar). And
I found small children disconcerting. They'd do things like walk up to complete
strangers in the bus and say “why don't you have any hair? Why are
you so ugly?”. The kind of thing that makes your toenails curl up
in embarassment. I wanted children, but kind of hoped the baby and small
child part would be over quickly and I would be able to wriggle out of the
nappy changing and the getting up every half-hour throughout the night.
I had vague visions of running across a field with my son or daughter (age
about eight) with a kite in tow giggling manically , or teaching them to
ride a bicycle or building sandcastles, sort of like a glossy advertisement
for insurance products or sun cream. I hoped that the “unpleasant
part” would be over quickly.
That all changed completely the moment I laid eyes on our son. My wife
had a Cesarian, and there was a complication in that he took a deep breath
of fluid and had to be rushed off be given emergency oxygen and have his
airways freed. I rushed along with the staff and held this tiny total stranger
who was in obvious trouble in my arms. I was really scared for him and at
some stage during the emergency treatment (which all turned out fine what
felt like hours later but was probably only a minute or two) something must
have clicked. Probably some primordeal programme that creaked into motion.
I guess this is the “father-child bonding” that sounds so clinical
and theoretical. It's as if Mum had nine months time (and the help of healthy
doses of hormones thoughout that time and afterwards) to help with the transition
to “Mum-role”. Dads need a whack around the head with something
blunt to suddenly wake up, seeing stars and realise “Hey, I'm a Dad.
This is my child. Wow! This is so undescribably wonderful.”
Back home, it turned out that my wife had a healthy, deep sleep and I
was the one who shot of bed when the baby was just thinking about maybe
taking a deep breath to cry. Nappy changing? No worries. More an opportunity
to talk to the baby, play a bit, sing a song or two. Instead of trying to
avoid changing nappies, I was perfectly happy to do it. It had become a
non-issue.
I took two weeks' paternity leave when my wife and our son came home
from the clinic (two weeks? Generous for Switzerland, laughable for anywhere
else in the world) from my employer. Then it was back to work for me, full
time in an international insurance-financial company in Zurich. We had agreed
that my wife would stay at home for six months but that she would then return
to work, which seemed like a good idea to both of us. What we didn't know
at the time was what a wierd place Switzerland – especially the German-speaking
part – is with regard to working parents and their kids. It started
with the difficulty of actually finding a place in a creche for a six-month
old baby. I was told that, at least in the cities, there were waiting lists
of up to over a year. Brilliant, so basically you have to sign on your as
yet unconceived child to a creche waiting list and then do some precision
calculation to make sure it's born in time to be able to get the place in
the creche, otherwise you go the back of the queue again? Sheesh – sounds
like stress! And then many creches are strange times, like “every
Wednesday from 10:00 to 11:30 and Thursday afternoons from 14:30 to 16:00”.
Okay, these are the so-called “Spielgruppen” (playgroups) and
not creches proper, but still. Useless if you want to work, even part time.
And many all-day creches cost roughly the equivalent of a four-room flat
in town. Per month. Ouch. Oh yes, and we got our share of elderly (female)
relatives telling my wife that it was bad for the kids to be away from their
Mums and she was obviously a bad mother to even consider working.
Things took a turn to the extreme when my wife got accepted into Fachochschule
for a four year, full-time graduate course learning to be a speech and language
pathologist. This meant that she was going to leave the house at six every
weekday and return late at night. Weekends were devoted to studying and
preparing for exams, so I spent weekends out of the house with our son (believe
me, I know every last corner of the Zurich Zoo, summer and winter) and got
up with him every day, took him to creche, rushed off to work, picked him
up again after work, went shopping, played with him, cooked, fed him and
off he went to bed. Then my wife would usually appear in time to give him
a goodnight kiss. I guess we switched the traditional roles around completely.
I was more the working male Mum and she was the full-time working female
Dad. Confused? Yeah, me too. To be fair, my wife was and is a great Mum
and it was very difficult for her to have our son refuse to be comforted
by her but only wanting me. That really got to her. And to me. But those
four years were years I would never, ever, under any circumstances have
wanted to miss out upon.
At work, though, from my point of view, things didn't get any easier.
It was acceptable for a female employee to have a family, but the guys were
supposed to pretend their families didn't exist. Otherwise they were suspected
of not giving 100% for the company, which torpedoed any chance of promotion.
A discreet desktop framed photo was okay, but – guys – don't
mention about your family.
But the trials and tribulations of a working Dad are another story.
| DANIS SCHWARZ CARIGIET Born: 1966 in Lugano, Switzerland - Mother American, father German Family: married to Astrid, father of Oliver |
 |
| Occupation: Freelance photographer / commmunications consultant |
|
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