The funny thing about life is that after a woman has children, she changes—drastically! Sometimes, she becomes an entirely unrecognizable person compared to the woman she was before giving birth. While this transformation can be alarming to her husband, it’s as natural as the changing of seasons. It makes you wonder how exactly husbands change after children. Quite frankly, the problem is… that often, they don’t!
It seems that many husbands still want and need to be the center of their mate’s life. It doesn’t matter how many soiled diapers she’s changed, how many times she’s been spit up on, how long the baby kept her awake the night before, or how badly her breasts are leaking milk—her husband still wants her to be as happy, energized, and sexy as she was before having the baby. Many husbands fail to recognize that nine months of having their body overtaken by what feels like an alien, gaining weight in strange places, not being able to paint their toes or wipe properly, and experiencing the unusual spreading of their nose and hips can take a toll on a woman. And then, of course, there’s childbirth, which is aptly called “labor” because once it happens, a wife is enrolled in a 24/7 job with no end in sight.
Sure, having children is wonderful, but if a woman didn’t change quickly and deeply upon having a child, she might not have opted to take that little bundle of joy home from the hospital. And even if she did, just a few weeks later, she might have been trying to return it!
How Husbands Change After Children
For many men, the transformation is not that drastic. Perhaps it’s because they didn’t have such a long period of time adjusting to becoming a parent without a choice. Perhaps it’s due to the age-old, unspoken gender roles passed down since the beginning of time. Or maybe it’s because many men feel so left out of the pregnancy and delivery process that they don’t quite know what their role is once they become a father. At any rate, one week after their wife gives birth, a man still expects to resume their normal sex life, go on golfing trips with their buddies, and think it’s perfectly fine to have a drink at happy hour after a long, hard day at the office (at least until he gets home)!
How husbands change after having children often depends on how demanding their wives are. Some women immediately include their husbands in the daily routine of taking care of the kids, sometimes even threatening divorce if they don’t oblige. Other women are content at first to take care of everything themselves, only to find years later that their husband is just like another child—leaving his underwear on the floor and his plate at the table after eating. This leads to resentment, and it’s often one of the reasons why a woman might leave her husband once the kids are grown. The problem is, it usually blindsides the husband, who, after all these years, never realized he was doing something wrong.
Then, there are other types of husbands. How these husbands change after having children is as deep a transformation as the one many women experience. They cry at the first sign of the little pink line on the pregnancy test, attend every doctor’s appointment with their wife, never faint during labor, and proudly cut the umbilical cord in the delivery room. Once home, they cater to their wife, amazed at the incredible gift of life they just received, and they find themselves with a renewed appreciation for women in general—and for their wife specifically. They even get up for middle-of-the-night feedings, allowing their wife to sleep, and take over household chores to help her avoid becoming overwhelmed. As the children grow older, these men can handle three or four kids at the grocery store, remember to pack lunches, and have even learned to match clothes and put hair bows in their daughter’s hair. Many of these husbands were once men who never changed a diaper in their life or even thought a child could have such an impact on them. Their wives will often complain that the children like their dad better and feel intimidated by his maternal abilities. They may secretly wonder if he is gay. It’s only after hearing horror stories from other mothers that these wives will realize just how good they have it!
Essentially, there is a huge difference in the fundamental makeup of men and women. Most men are content, happy, and comfortable as long as things stay the same. Men are less affected by the ebb and flow of life and prefer their world to remain steady. They seem better able to ignore standards and are much less affected by the perception of others or the unspoken laws that govern society. Women, on the other hand, are constantly striving to accomplish things and meet expectations. Men, husbands, and fathers, on the other hand, are often just content to “be.”
How they change—or how they don’t change—after having children is likely one of the reasons fathers are so important in their children’s lives. Husbands and fathers provide a sense of stability, teaching their children the importance of being comfortable with themselves. They provide an innate strength of self-confidence that mothers and wives spend a lifetime struggling to cultivate.
It makes you wonder: is there really so much reason to drastically change after having children? Certainly, becoming more responsible and realizing that another life depends on you will stir something in anyone. But fathers who remain largely the same after becoming parents have a deep understanding that the more things change, the more they really stay the same. Despite the jokes, jabs, and punchlines about the differences between mothers and fathers, one thing remains constant: the father. And it is that father who our children need—the steady, unchanging man who will remain as constant as a river throughout the entire lives of our children.
If you have—or know—a husband who remains the same, perhaps it’s time to count your blessings.
