1. Sit down and divvy up your household chores. It's boring, I know. Pour some wine if you have to. But it's crucial to clearly divide all aspects of housework and child care. As one marriage counselor after another told me, fights arise when your roles are not clear.
1. 坐下来好好分摊家务。我知道，这个过程很无趣。必要的话就倒杯酒吧。但在家务活和照顾孩子方面，明确分工至关重要。很多婚姻咨询师都这样告诉我：角色分工不明确就会引起冲突。
If not, you'll be amazed at how apoplectic you get about whose turn it is to sterilize the bottles. When our daughter was a few weeks old, Tom and I almost came to blows one Saturday morning over who deserved to sleep in more (I won that particular argument with "I was up last night three times, and P.S., I carried her for nine months.") We could have saved a lot of bickering with a formula we hit upon years later: One of us sleeps in Saturday, the other Sunday. Done. Clear.
如若不然，你会惊讶的发现自己对轮到谁给奶瓶消毒这件事深恶痛绝。在我们的女儿刚出生几周的时候，在一个周六的早晨，我和汤姆差点因为谁该多睡一会儿而大打出手（我赢了，因为我拿出了制胜法宝"昨天是我熬的夜，况且我还怀胎九月呢。"）要是当时我们也能像几年后那么做：一个人在周六睡懒觉，另一个人在周日睡懒觉，那就可以避免这些争吵了。问题不就解决了嘛，简单明了！
2. Don't shut your partner out. I would get upset with Tom when he wouldn't help me with the baby, but then I read up on something called "maternal gatekeeping," in which mothers can open up the gate to encourage Dad's participation or clang it firmly shut. This behavior can range from making all baby-related decisions without consulting him, to criticizing how he dresses the baby ("Hello, where's his sweater? Do you want him to catch a cold?"). This sets up a bad dynamic where the mother takes over completely, and he becomes more and more uncertain of his abilities. I made sure to ease up on the controlling and include Tom whenever possible. If he feeds our child dinner and doesn't include a vegetable, the kid will survive.
2. 不要排除另一半。当汤姆不帮我照顾宝宝时，我会很难过，但之后我读到了关于"母性守门员"的文章，文中说道母亲可以敞开大门、鼓励父亲参与，或是重重地关上这扇门。这一行为涵盖很广，包括不过问父亲，就做出与宝宝相关的一切决定、批评他给宝宝穿错了衣服（"喂，他的毛衣你没给他穿吗？你想让他冻感冒吗？"）。这样就会营造一种不好的氛围：母亲掌控一切，而父亲越来越不确定自己的能力。我会确保自己减少控制欲，只要可以，就会让汤姆和宝宝互动。如果他给宝宝喂了晚饭，而且没喂蔬菜，那宝宝就能平安长大。
3. Just do it. When you're deranged from lack of sleep and your boobs are leaking, often the last thing on your mind is sex. When our baby was first born, we fell into a depressing cycle of Tom hitting on me and me cruely shutting him down. I could have avoided a lot of bruised feelings by simply telling him that sex was off the table for the first six weeks.
3. 勇敢去做。当你因睡眠不足、漏奶而烦恼时，你最不想做的事情就是啪啪啪了。宝宝刚降临人世时，我们陷入了令人沮丧的死循环，当时汤姆向我暗示，而我残忍的拒绝了他。如果我当时告诉他生完宝宝前六周不能发生关系，那他就不会那么受伤了。
译文属可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载
评论
打印
