Maria is not called Maria. It is the pseudonym that we choose to refer to it in This report on late maternitiesin which he told that the age difference with his partner – he has 56 and she 42 – made his baby’s care load very unbalanced. In this text, written in the first person, Maria delves a little more in her family history; He explains how the age difference, but also the gender gap and inequality, are conditioning their motherhood.
I am Maria and I am a late mother of a one -year -old girl. I have fulfilled 42 and my partner (man) has 56. It is 14 years of deep differences, both sociological and psychological. He is the father of two other older children, my daughter’s brothers, who are 7 and 11 years old. No one expects to go from being a person to being five in the family, so suddenly, but it happened to me.
For our age difference, I usually talk about the “challenges of educating at two speeds.” It may sound like an economic term, such as “Europe of the two speeds”, but it can be given in such worldly issues as children’s education. And in my case it is going on as like that, since being my older partner, the girl gives a lot in me.
I feel that I can’t anymore, I don’t get to everything. We are both tired, but it has a hard time sustaining it, or raising it and lowering it from the crib, because its back hurts. In addition, it is also outdated in educational issues, which end up falling on me. Always all about me. I am exhausted.
We are both tired, but it is very difficult for him
At first, when I raised a late motherhood, I was glad to have a partner who had already dealt with two kids, to cover the gaps and concerns that arose to me. As inconveniences I already saw the outdated he had in educational issues, and the way of seeing the world, so different from mine. Being pregnant was almost a miracle, and then I started to inform myself: I swelled to see YouTube videos, to follow the apps that the midwife recommended me, to learn from the fashion pediatrician on Instagram … I wanted to be up to date because I understood that things in parenting can be done better than they were done before. For that, science and research evolve.
But it didn’t help me. The differences began with the purchase of things for the baby: the cradle of collecho, the porting backpack … Everything was questioned before even the girl was born, both by my partner and by her family. There I realized that the age difference is noted, because the things that were done before, in some cases, seem to us an aberration today.
When the girl was born, after a very painful caesarean section, all the machismo that was hidden outlined. My partner did not take over. It was I who took care of attending the baby at night, despite not being much less recovered from delivery. And not only at night: also in the morning and in the afternoon. Basically always. I ended up fattening 15 kilos. Everything was pain, tiredness and anxiety.
When the girl was born, after a very painful caesarean section, all the machismo that was hidden outlined. My partner did not take over. It was I who took care of attending the baby at night
The passage of the days did not improve things either. The conflicts and fights followed: because I did not want to put the girl pending, because I didn’t want to baptize her either. Things as basic as that. My idea was to raise a girl with the ability to think freely, to decide for herself, but my partner’s idea was not that. Everything were reproaches towards me and my way of educating and raising her. How many times has I blamed for not letting my daughter cry, for taking her too much in her arms, because she sleeps to me.
My daughter has just turned a year, but the problems do not cease. And it is not only because of the physical ailments, but I feel that I have to deal with a wall so that he understands that things were done differently than now. All this has taken us to a gap in the couple. I do not understand that they do not understand me, that they do not feel interest in informing themselves of the news there are. As things were done before, both my partner and their family understand that they should continue.
I realized that the age difference is noted because the things that were done before, in some cases, seem an aberration today
In recent weeks, we have had small advances, but hiring external help. We have divided the day into shifts: a caregiver takes care of my daughter four hours and my partner takes care of her during one part of the afternoon, including dinner and bathroom. When I arrive from working, at nine o’clock at night, I take care of everything else, until noon the next day. Sometimes I don’t have time for dinner, but I feel more rested and supported. Things go a little better for everyone.
To try to be positive, I am left with my daughter’s good health: just a couple of days with tenths in a year, it does not use pacifier because you have not wanted, eat autonomously and varied, we walk in the morning in the sun and try to transmit good habits in general. But even with the slight improvements, I remain exhausted to deal alone with parenting and collide daily against a wall of misunderstanding and loneliness. Because as a father and mother we advance in two raising speeds, instead of running towards the same place for the good of our daughter.
#experience #raising #girl #man #years #older #falls #exhausted
