How are you holding up? (A belated Father’s Day post)

Everyone who visits a new baby has the same script. How’s mama doing, is she sleeping, does she need anything, can I hold the baby, here’s a card, here’s a onesie. It’s a good script. The recovering parent needs all of that and more. But I’ve sat in a lot of living rooms now where the other parent is standing off to the side holding a diaper bag nobody asked them to hold, and not one person in the room has asked them a single question.

So this isn’t a post about how the non-birthing partner can support the person who gave birth. There are a hundred of those, and most of them are awesome. This is about the partner who went back to work after two weeks off, and didn’t sleep either, and is doing the 2am bottle and the laundry and the insurance paperwork and gets asked “how’s she holding up” every time the phone rings.

If you’re visiting a family with a new baby and you want to do something useful, ask the other parent how they’re holding up. Not as a courtesy question on your way to asking about the baby. Ask about them, and wait for the answer. Most of them haven’t been asked that since the baby arrived, and you can watch this little flicker of someone realizing they are allowed to have a hard week too.

And bring them something. If there’s an older sibling around, bring a babyccino, because that kid’s entire world just got rearranged and a tiny cup of foam with their name on it goes a long way. Two coffees. One for the parent who’s recovering, one for the parent who’s feeling a little bit like leftovers right now. Just to remind them they’re important, and you’re there for all of them.