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So, Hubby’s deranged, is he?

The struggle of fatherhood is real – so why are new dads often invisible in NHS advice?
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett
We hear so little about the impact pregnancy and birth can have on men, particularly those with a history of mental health problems

That’s the thing with these very female columnists – you can tell their personal lives by what they write about.

36 thoughts on “So, Hubby’s deranged, is he?”

  1. Hubby is using mental health as an excuse to go on four-hour cycle rides with his mates every Sunday morning – “My therapist said I need to reconnect with nature” – and Rhiannon doesn’t like it.

  2. Seems to me as if some people in a relationship simply cannot stand the thought of the other half having fun without them being involved……

  3. The biggest killer of men under 50 in the UK is suicide

    Perhaps Rhiannon could show this bit to Jess Phillips? On second mouths no, that particular harridan has been out of the news for quite a while now which is just fine by me.

  4. He’s with Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett. Self explanatory.
    (I wonder if she insists on him wearing a shiny mohair suit? Nylon bomber jacket weekends.?)

  5. “You’re not doing the cleaning properly, let me do it.”
    “You’re not doing the childcare properly, let me do it.”
    “You never help with the cleaning or childcare”

  6. “According to Adrienne Burgess, the head of research and joint CEO at the Fatherhood Institute, their recent evidence review, Bringing Baby Home, revealed a “dad-shaped hole” in perinatal NHS services.”

    I think Adrienne means that there is a job-shaped hole in NHS services.

  7. OK. She got the mandatory reference to Mental Health Problems into the piece. But she missed out Because Of Climate Heating.

  8. For more details of Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett’s adventures in hubby sitting, pre-order her detailed account of life in “The Year of the Cat” (HARDCOVER / ISBN-13: 9781472290717 PRICE: £16.99 ON SALE: 19th January 2023)

    😐

    I looked around at my flat, at the woodchip wallpaper and scuffed furniture, and realised that I did have a life after all. What it didn’t have in it was a cat.

    Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett grew up in rural Wales with a severely autistic brother and a single mother who did everything she could to give her children a truly magical childhood. At the heart of what made their chaotic, loving house a home were a succession of extraordinary cats.

    In her thirties, Rhiannon and the man who would become her husband, make a rented home for themselves, with a succession of lodgers, while they try to save for a more stable future. Thoughts of a baby are never far from her mind, but after a childhood as her brother’s carer, does she want to devote her adult life to such a traditional, female role, especially when she has so many books to write? And can she be sure she will ever be free of the PTSD from which she has suffered since she was attacked in a London street in her twenties, and was lucky to escape alive?

    Moving from winter to spring over the course of a long, locked-down year, this nimble and gorgeously written memoir charts the way a small cat called Mackerel changed everything about Rhiannon’s life, taught her to face down her fears, and to appreciate quite how much love she had to offer.

    Alternately, don’t.

  9. Theophrastus (2066)

    “You’re not doing the cleaning properly, let me do it.”
    “You’re not doing the childcare properly, let me do it.”
    “You never help with the cleaning or childcare”

    Perfectly put, DJ. Quite exquisite.

  10. Won’t anyone think about the cat!?!?

    You know cats. As long as they can lounge in the sun, choose when to be coddled and when to be left alone and plenty of nice things to eat they don’t give a damn. If things start to deteriorate from pure luxury then they’re off up the street to find a new “can opener” to convince themselves they are the owners of said cat. Cats don’t have owners, they have staff.

    More importantly:

    Won’t anyone think about the husband!?!?

    Then again, that poor sap signed up for it, so it’s self-inflicted as much as anything, unlike the cat.

  11. Wait, she has a husband? All her output so far has given the impression partheongenesis occured.

    You’re obviously not an avid fan if you missed the wedding, but as with all things time moves on what is most important to Ms. Cosslett is whatever is filling up her days at the moment, hence babies appearing as if they were newly minted and no fucker on earth had one until she did.

    😐

  12. All women go a ittle insane around the time pf childbirth. From about eighteen weeks before the event and around thirty years after. However, if they start off as a Graun columnist…

  13. why are new dads often invisible in NHS advice?

    New dads are not invisible in NHS advice. The NHS has all sorts of goofy bad advice for new fathers, such as wanting you to take your shirt off and clasp the baby to your naked bosom like a woman or a French or something.

    Men can definitely get postpartum depression, because mental illness is contagious. And because hippy fuckwits want you to take your shirt off.

  14. Bloke in the Fourth Reich

    Men get postpartum depression because it involves several weeks with no sex. For many new fathers this is a novel experience. Some have to get used to it as the new normal.
    .

  15. Rhoda,

    All women go a ittle insane around the time pf childbirth.

    For what it’s worth, my experience has been the opposite. Totally neurotic birds becoming almost human as the pregnancy hormones kick in.

  16. DiscoveredJoys:
    “You’re not doing the cleaning properly, do it my way.”
    “You’re not doing the childcare properly, do it my way.”
    Same result of course:
    “You never help with the cleaning or childcare”

    Rhoda: Keep ’em coming!

  17. “The biggest killer of men under 50 in the UK is suicide” I’ll bet the Covid jab is putting that right.

  18. BiFR – Men get postpartum depression because it involves several weeks with no sex. For many new fathers this is a novel experience. Some have to get used to it as the new normal.

    Eh.

    Dr. Ben Sobel:
    What happened with your wife last night?

    Boss Paul Vitti:
    I wasn’t with my wife, I was with my girlfriend.

    Dr. Ben Sobel:
    Are you having marriage problems?

    Boss Paul Vitti:
    No.

    Dr. Ben Sobel:
    Then why do you have a girlfriend?

    Boss Paul Vitti:
    What, are you gonna start moralizing on me?

    Dr. Ben Sobel:
    No, I’m not, I’m just trying to understand, why do you have a girlfriend?

    Boss Paul Vitti:
    I do things with her I can’t do with my wife.

    Dr. Ben Sobel:
    Why can’t you do them with your wife?

    Boss Paul Vitti:
    Hey, that’s the mouth she kisses my kids goodnight with! What are you, crazy?

  19. Dennis, On The Cutting Edge of Culture and Fashion

    For more details of Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett’s adventures in hubby sitting, pre-order her detailed account of life in “The Year of the Cat” (HARDCOVER / ISBN-13: 9781472290717 PRICE: £16.99 ON SALE: 19th January 2023)

    It’s never a good sign when you cannot tell if a publicity blurb for an upcoming book is genuine or satire.

  20. We hear so little about the impact pregnancy and birth can have on men, particularly those with a history of mental health problems

    Perhaps not having children with someone having mental health problems would be a wiser course.

  21. Dennis, Doing Research

    Seems real enough.

    It is. But I had to dig to confirm that.

    I suspect the book will read like the first draft of a Monty Python movie that was never made.

  22. Perhaps not having children with someone having mental health problems would be a wiser course.

    I agree, but women without mental health problems are an increasingly rare commodity these days.

  23. I don’t recall having any difficulties in adapting to my role as a new dad. In fact, I never seem to recognise any of the problems that these columnists like to air in public. I wonder what it is that makes them think that they are qualified to offer life coaching to the rest of us?

  24. Went shopping Sunday, inter alia, told to get ice creams for granddaughters and bananas.

    Bought Snickers and Almond Magnums.

    MrsBud: “$7.50 for Magnums, that’s a lot.”

    Me: “Is it, I never buy them so I don’t know, label said I saved $3.”

    MrsBud: “You only got nut ice creams.”

    Me: “Does that matter?”

    MrsBud: “I don’t know.”

    Both granddaughters happily ate Snickers ice creams.

    Monday morning, MrsBud: “The bananas are very small.”

  25. I found being a dad was a breeze. I did all the changing and washing nappies crap, playing with kids, reading bedtime stories, dad’s taxi, etc.

    Loved them to bits, still do. Wouldn’t change one bit of my life to date. Except the time I chose duck a l’orange, that was foul.

  26. That’s the thing with these very female columnists – you can tell their personal lives by what they write about.

    Remove the ‘I’ from their keyboards and they’d be mute. TBF many male columnists also suffer from this problem.

  27. Cats generally live longer than a year.
    At the end of the year did she kill and eat it?
    Don’t worry about a spoiler alert, I’m not going to read it.

  28. Dennis, Your Guide To True Love

    I don’t recall having any difficulties in adapting to my role as a new dad. In fact, I never seem to recognise any of the problems that these columnists like to air in public.

    It’s almost as if Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett wrote the column to demonstrate how strong Da Wimmins is relative to your average clueless, dumbfuck married male. Remember, in her mind she’s doing something heroic that’s never been done before… Motherhood.

  29. “We hear so little about the impact pregnancy and birth can have on men”

    Unless it’s Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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