It’s one of the most glaring examples of how mum-focused society is.
Sharing the burden of parenting equally can be tricky for couples to get a handle on, even when both mum and dad try to be hands on.
Structures like six months leave for new mums, as opposed to two weeks for new dads, set a sexist tone right from the off, but that’s not the only way society sets parental responsibilities up to be unbalanced.
For instance, what’s a dad to do when he can’t even change his child comfortably on a day out because the only nappy-changing facilities are in the women’s toilet?
Lots of public places don’t cater for dads and one man has had enough.
Taking to Twitter, teacher Clint Hill explained that the lack of facilities bothers him so much because it puts such a burden on mums and leaves dads “off the hook”.
Something that’s really bothered me since we had a kid is how few men’s restrooms have changing tables for babies.
It 1) further perpetuates the notion that the burden of childcare should singularly be on the woman 2) assumes that men are never out by themselves with their kids.
— Clint Smith (@ClintSmithIII) January 28, 2018
And more than being an inconvenience for me & other dads, it’s mostly an inconvenience for women.
Not only is the social expectation that women should take care of diapers, clothes, etc but there are literally structural impediments like this preventing it from being otherwise.
— Clint Smith (@ClintSmithIII) January 28, 2018
Becoming a dad has really demonstrated how profoundly our society is both socially & structurally set up to make it so that the burden of parenting falls primarily on moms & is set up to let dads off the hook.
It’s million tiny things that continue to add up.
— Clint Smith (@ClintSmithIII) January 28, 2018
It sounds like plenty of other parents agree with him – Clint’s original tweet has been liked over 14,000 times.
Do you know of any public places in Ireland that cater equally for mums and dads? Let us know in the Facebook comments.