Motherhood Gone Wrong (No, Not Britney Again)
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March 14th, 2007
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After giving birth to a baby, what's an appropriate time to wait before going back to work? A week? Two weeks? Three months? A year? Preferences vary. How about 5 hours? DaddyDaze points out that Nebraska-Kearney basketball coach Carol Russel gave birth to a baby boy on Sunday and then attended the game against North Dakota for the North Central Regional title. 5 hours after giving birth! WTF!?
"I could have watched the Webcast, but I wanted to be there for the girls because they've been working so hard for this all year,'' Russell said.
I can't personally imagine anything important enough to leave my newborn baby during the first few days. Especially not a crappy Division II basketball game. What happened to giving yourself and your child a good and relaxed start in life? Giving birth was apparently not stressful enough, she had to coach a game right away.
What kind of perspective on life does that show? How come no one stopped her, told her to take it easy and bond with her son instead off heading back to work? She must seriously believe basketball, career, and her own coaching abilities are the most important in the world. Just like DaddyDaze I think this is not about being a sexist pig. It would have been equally stupid for a man to coach a game, or go back to work, a few hours after his son's birth.
I'm very surprised of the reactions to this stupid, mindless, stunt. Seems most papers think it was a really cool and admirable thing to do. Either people have completely lost their minds or they have no clue of how to give a family (and child) and good start in life.
I'm apparently an idiot who believe extending the period for parental leave drastically is a good idea. Maybe we should just skip it instead? How about we kick it up a notch and keep working while giving birth as well?
This is absolutely NUTS!!! This “You go girl!” spirit is crazy.
If she doesn’t care about bonding and all the other good stuff, then at least think about her own health. Now I’ve not given birth yet, but from what I’ve heard, it ain’t a walk in the park. To quote my friend, “it’s like pooping a fire hydrant”.
As a coach, what kind of leadership is she showing? What message is she sending her girls? Basketball first, everything else second?
On the flip side, can you imagine if a guy returned to coach a game 5 hours after his baby was born? I bet he wouldn’t be admired. He would probably be called an insensitive bastard for leaving his tired wife with a screaming baby.
This is now an exhusband of someone close to me, but his father was a HIGH SCHOOL football coach, and chose to miss the birth of his son because he was coaching a game. Not any kind of tournament or championship mind you. Just a regular game. And freaking HIGH SCHOOL at that. Let me say, that kind of behavior DOES affect the family and the attitudes of the children. Thankfully my friend never had children with this guy, but he had the exact same mentality has his own father. Blech.
This is part of the whole American problem of placing work above family–and congratulating those who can work the most hours.
Somebody should have called her out for this.
Hi Adventure Dad. First time to your site. I came over from HBM because I loved your comment on her current post. And I totally agree with you - here and there.
I’ll be back!
It’s disturbing - placing work over family to an absurd degree. And that it would be praised? Misplaced values run amok.
Newborn babies don’t do much except sleep. In fact, many newborns spend several hours in the nursery when they’re first born so both newborn and mother can recover. And that’s thought to be both safe and prudent because moms and babies have a bond that starts forming while the child is in the womb that a few hours in the nursery isn’t going to spoil. And, in reality, they had five hours to make sure everything was okay before the game.
At the very least we know the baby won’t end up being a whiner - not over his own misfortunes and not over the imagined misfortunes of people he’s never even met.
Carol is going to make a great mother. I like her positive attitude. And she’s a great role model for her team too. She had all of her bases covered and everyone’s fine.
Talking about perspective, far from thinking that work is more important than family, she has the perspective to know that a few hours away from her baby is not going to negatively impact anyone other than a few sexists on the internet.