Men, women and children

I was thinking today, as I occasionally do, about traditional roles within couples and looking after children. Alpha males, within the whole animal kingdom provide food but more often than not just fuck the female and then leaves. His quest for sex is fulfilled, he moves on to the next female and fights among other males to spread his seed to continue the species. In fact, many human males act in exactly the same way as their animal counterpart and I was happily once like that. I am not a biologist but even I know that without women, the human population would soon end within a decade or two. Or so we think, I predict that within the next twenty to fifty years, it will be possible to artificially reproduce the human being without the need for men and women to copulate but let's hope that never happens. If it does, women will go out shopping for babies as they do for a new handbag and the world will become a horror movie. They will take men for love or for just sex, god forbid they may not even need men any more and may turn to a large pink, black or rainbow colored vibrator or a virtual man for sexual pleasure or companionship. We will no longer be physically needed. The reality now is that many men have become women and many women have become men in all the worst vulgarities and this worries me. Although, men should be men and women should be women, roles within couples with children care can very easily be changed, as I will show below.

In my opinion, men can do just as a good a job at raising a child as a woman can. Obviously for now, he can't give birth or breast feed and this is how it should be. However, the right male can care for a child as well as any women could. At a basic level, the male must be caring, safety conscious, mature and responsible. Not all men could care for a baby full-time, part-time or raise a child on their own. For example, I could not have cared for a baby when I was in my twenties as I was too immature and too selfish. My situation is now different, I have a wife who works and who can provide enough income for us to live an adequate lifestyle. We did not sit down one day and decide between us that one would work and that one would stay at home to look after our baby. We did not sit down and decide to move to Moscow and then decide to have a baby. We had the baby, then Moscow came up as a job. Moscow chose us, not the other way around and has her claws around us, keeping us here for a good few more years to come.

Perhaps the question should not be, can a man care for a child as well as a woman? We should ask the question does a child need a father and a mother? In my opinion and to hell with any damn political correctness to same sex couples. Yes, a child does need a father and a mother who are opposite sexes, not to mean two men or two women who adopt the role of father and mother and pretend to be a mummy or a daddy to their surrogate baby. A child needs a natural female mother and a natural male father to be well adjusted and reasonably happy. Of course, a child can only be well adjusted and happy if his or her biological parents are 'normal' by normal, I mean they don't beat each other, fight, drink excessively or take hard drugs. They don't run a massage parlor from home or sell drugs, dress up as witches at weekends or keep toads. The parents must have a normal stable home environment and be caring and responsible to their child or children. I am sure many kids across the world have been raised successfully by an only parent, either male or female. This worked because the parents were normal, could handle the situation and had enough food and money to survive. I am not sure I could raise a child or children alone and I admire any parent who can do that. They are brave and very responsible people.

Sure some people may disagree with me about same sex couples with kids and that's fine with me. If you were raised by two dads or two mums and are normal and happy, then respect to you pilgrim. This does not mean that I agree with it, not due to any fanatical religious reason but for sociological reasons and simple common sense. I'm not anti gay, just nervous of same sex couples raising children, not because they are abnormal but becuase in my own opinion its not natural to normal family life, although some suggest this is untrue. When possible, kids need two parents one male one female.

Since arriving in Russia, I am constantly amazed by the unspoken attitude of women here. This attitude mostly comes from Russian women but in my opinion women in general, see looking after a child as a complicated process. They read books on child psychology, go on courses and have very dated stereotypical ideas of what men and women should do. Well I wake up sisters, times have changed. Since you burned your brassieres back in the 1960's, women have almost equal rights to men and many women now work, in fact in most couples married and unmarried, both people work, they have to due to out of financial need because our governments have made this compulsory to do so.

Traditionally in couples, the man will be the bad cop and the women will be the good cop, the women will be caring and soft and the man will be tough and strict. The frightening thing is that many women today, actually believe these roles to be the reality and expect this when they have kids. In my opinion, the expat community here is almost like women were in our parents generations for those of us born in the 1960's and early 1970's, in a ghastly stepford wives flashback. Back then, Husband worked his dinner was on the table when he came home and the perfect wife stayed at home to look after the baby. Many women within the ex-pat community, have husbands on very high salaries and these women don't need to work, many don't want to work and some even have full time nannies and live in nannies. Some women who stay at home and who are happy to stay at home, see childcare as a complex scary science. I think this is wrong, childcare is common sense. Food goes in one end, shit comes out the other end and just take care of all the in between with logic and common sense. A stick and feather approach that's mixed with the criteria below, should tick all the boxes for good parenting.

Children need love, to be told they are loved, to be played with, to mix with other children, to be treated with respect, to be disciplined when necessary, to be praised, to be encouraged, to be protected and to be educated in life and in schooling. Simple. I do all of these things for my own kid. Sure he is naughty, like any little boy but I try not to make the mistakes of my parents. History tends to repeat itself if we don't watch out. When we catch ourselves behaving as our parents did to us, we must change and adapt to make life better for our own children. I am not a saint or a perfect father but I try my very best.  Being a now semi full time father (and male nanny/surrogate father) I have seen it all but I am convinced that any man could do it if he fits the above criteria. If he does not fit the criteria, he should not have children and certainly not be a stay at home dad.

Children need a male father and female mother but who does what within the couple, is largely irrelevant now. Sorry ladies to burst your motherhood ideals and romantic role fantasies. On the other hand, many men also share this female illusion, in these cases the role division works very successfully and their children grow up believing what their parents expect of men and women and the cycle continues.

Raising a child who is 'normal' by that I mean physically and mentally, is not the same as raising a child with problems. If the child is not sick, deaf, handicapped or suffering from a disorder, then it's fairly straight forward. However raising a child at home or abroad, who has any of these the above issues or others, certainly is not easy anywhere in the world for any parent. Raising a child aboard in a different culture, far away from family and friends is not easy and more difficult when you dont speak the language. Raising a child is not the same as looking after a baby abroad and both have their own issues. I have written about this on the blog.  At least 80% of the worlds population lives on less than ten dollars a day, a depressing statistic for so many children who deserve a decent life and a normal family life.

Note on nannies: For any mother who has twins or very young children with only a year or two age gap between them, then a full time nanny, will save your sanity and you will certainly need one. Nannies within the ex-pat community, are usual in Moscow and not seen as a luxury. For some, a nanny is almost as important as having a washing machine or yoga mat.

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