By Vicki Elson, MA, CCE, CD www.birth-media.com Feel free to make copies and share with credit!
This is all true for helping your mate with labor AND for raising kids:
1. Patience.
2. Patience.
3. Patience.
4. Good things take time, including having babies and raising children.
5. Be present – not multitasking – when you’re with your woman and your kids.
6. Get in touch with your “feminine” side: receptive, soft, nurturing, sensitive, responsive, gentle. The payoff is HUGE.
7. You’re The Guy, but sometimes you’ll be “second fiddle” in a more supportive role. Give it up and get used to it. You can cook and clean and drive and diaper and organize and help with homework, but you probably can’t breastfeed. You are VERY important taking care of kids AND their mom.
8. Get down on the floor and play with the little ones.
9. Some things need to start early, especially the college fund and the swimming lessons.
10. “More is caught than taught.” Show your laboring woman your love by your steady voice and touch. Show your kids how to apologize, how to be generous, how to work hard, how to take care of yourself by doing those things yourself.
“Doctor Dad” is Barry Elson, MD, an integrative care physician (and retired baby-catcher) in western Massachusetts. His grateful wife, childbirth educator and filmmaker Vicki Elson, MA, CCE, CD, wrote this stuff down for him. Their grown kids are two teachers and a medical student. Their two grandchildren are a ball-player and a bicycle rider. Find more at www.birth-media.com.
awesome!!!