Gender thoughts by Nadira Gunatilleke

A recent TV advertisement on local channels would open anyone's eyes on parenting. A seminar or something similar will also be held for the benefit of new couples who wish to become parents. In foreign countries this is not a new experience at all because parenting seminars are very common.

But for Sri Lanka it is a new experience because in the past it was parents and grandparents who taught their children how to be good parents!

But how can we talk about parenting when the father does not play any role during pregnancy and childbirth? It will only be a joke talking about parenting without fathers. Some highly recognised and respected gynaecologists in Sri Lanka encourage husbands to be there for their pregnant wives from the beginning. But it is sad to see that some gynaecologists do not do so.

When considering our traditional Sri Lankan culture husbands did not play a major role in pregnancy and child birth but it cannot be accepted in this era where women are employed and empowered as equally as men.

But even at that time husbands took more care about their pregnant wives than at present.

Today when it comes to work and income generating, there is no difference between men and women.

Therefore men should play a major role in pregnancy and childbirth, especially after the childbirth.

At the moment most of the rural pregnant women visit clinics with their mothers or other close female relations. But this is different when it comes to semi urban or urban women. Most of the pregnant women in semi urban or urban areas visit clinics, doctors and other places with their husbands in their own vehicles.

Perhaps the fact is that such women travel in their own vehicles and husbands are compelled to drive them. In such cases husbands accompany their wives not because they want to, but they are forced to drive the vehicles.

This is the truth. Some husbands willingly assist their pregnant wives psychologically and practically and some husbands do not.

But this situation should be changed. All husbands should be there for their pregnant wives all the time. That is from the very beginning to the end of pregnancy and childbirth.

It is sad to see some husbands think that they are not a part of it and it is not worth a man to help his needy wife. Some husbands even think that such things are funny. Some husbands want their pregnant wives to follow all the instructions given by elders and they get angry when she refuses to do so.

Some husbands overprotect their pregnant wives making them miserable and some husbands do not care about them at all.

According to Amanda, a middle aged mother of a 30 year old daughter, her husband was not there when she gave birth to their daughter. "It was a terrible experience for me and even after 30 odd years I still remember that incident very well. I went to that hospital with one of our reatives and my younger sister. My husband was not there. He was at one of his colleague's house attending a birthday party then.

I had high blood pressure and several other complications. He visited the hospital the next day after I gave birth but did not even carry the child. But I can never ever forget that experience, being helpless and alone at that horrible maternity hospital", she said.

Time has come to educate fathers about parenting. Parenting seminars are not only for mothers. Most of the young mothers know how to take care of kids.

Therefore parenting seminars should be conducted for both parents, especially for fathers. Fortunately most of the young fathers care more about their pregnant wives than the fathers in the past. But there is lot more to improve.