A Mother's Presence

In most of the parenthood literature we have read this semester, mother writers have constantly chosen to not include the father or if included, the father is seen simply as a pain-in-the-ass. In a father narrative a mother’s presence is a necessity, however I was curious to see how Neal Pollack portrayed and described his wife, a.k.a. the mother.
What I felt most interesting from the father’s point of view in Alternadad was not that the mother was clearly present, but that she was almost glorified. In my opinion, Pollack was not the ideal, perfect husband to have during pregnancy, but his actions and thoughts towards a mother’s role were impressive. For example, I greatly respected Pollack when he noted that upon becoming a dad not much changes except for increased responsibility; whereas in contrast, “once a woman has a baby, she’s a mom, and the world demands a lot from moms” (64). This acknowledgement to me signified that Pollack was already one step ahead of most the dads we have read about so far because he understands the demands of motherhood, at least to some extent. Furthermore, it seems to foreshadow that Pollack will do whatever he can to help ease the demands of being a mother for his wife.
The other quality I admired about Pollack was his devotion to his wife during her pregnancy. He may not have been ideal and he did go out on occasion, but he still acknowledged that his wife came first. More importantly though was that he did not portray his wife as a demanding, crazy, bitchy, pregnant woman. In fact, it was quite the opposite. For example, Regina gave him permission to go out and party a little after the first six false alarms (which I think is impressive to begin with because I want my husband at my beck and call when I’m that pregnant). He portrayed himself as the ‘bad guy,’ not his hormonal wife by stating: “I was pathetic, but she was forgiving” (82).
Men cannot experience the joys and sorrows of pregnancy or the pain of childbirth (lucky them)! However, why I admired Pollack as a father writer was because he was as involved as he could be in the entire birthing process. We have discussed the emotion that mother writers express during pregnancy and birth, and I was pleasantly surprised at Pollack’s. For example, he was not afraid to show his emotions when his son was first born. In fact, he really began to weep when the nurse pointed to his son’s chin dimple and noted that he was definitely his child. Furthermore, although he could not experience the unbelievable amount of pain his wife encountered, he seemed exceptionally horrified. Afterwards he shouted: “That was horrible!” and “How could they put Regina through it all?” This was shortly followed by “Fuck the process.”
(91).
Although a potential future husband of mine may not be able to deliver a child, I hope that if I’m in a great deal of pain afterwards, he is shouting to someone “Fuck the process” too.