I think it is. It's discouraged and unspoken, but a lot of men don't like spending time with children. I mean for weeks or months, sure, but when you have a kid it drags on for years 24/7 and nothing but having your own child will really reveal to you how that turns out for you.

As it turns out, I don't enjoy extended time with children. My bad, but I power through it for the sake of the child. In older times that would be no problem, my wife would deal with that. Instead I stopped at 1 when I realized I am not the kind of person who enjoys being equally involved with children.

In the same way you power through taking care of your kids, not because you enjoy it but because you prioritize their well-being, how likely is it that moms are generally doing the same? It seems to me like men have been historically avoiding this child-rearing responsibility, moreso than women enjoying doing so.

I can tell you that my wife and I are both exhausted of taking care of them 24/7. It is not something we do for funsies.

the question is, where does that feeling come from? from your own time growing up, based on how your own father interacted with you? from your friends/peers? others?

i can relate. when my kids were young i didn't know what to do with them. but it's not that i didn't like spending time with them. before we had kids, working part-time so i could spend a lot of time at home was my dream. it was what i wanted. when the dream became real my inability to initiate play with the children was unexpected.

i figure it was because i had no rolemodels from my time growing up, no childhood experience that i could replicate because i grew up with a single dad who wasn't as close to me as i wanted to. every interaction was initiated by my children. it got easier as they got older because our interests became more compatible. (we could play games together that i also enjoyed, etc)

all the other stuff, taking care of them, feeding, putting them to sleep, etc. was easy because it's clear what needs to be done. and it wasn't/isn't exhausting either. i relish every interaction and moments of success where we achieve something together.

I can tell you that as you have more children the time you can spend and need to spend drops - because there’s more of them, but they also play with each other.

Three are running around yelling and I can’t even join in, as they want me to be “the base” apparently.