A few weeks ago we got a couple of plastic bags containing children´s clothes, from a relative. Some of the garments have done a circle in the family, for example there was a red cardigan that both my sister and I had when we were kids. In one of the bags there was also a really cute pink top.

Many times it has occurred to me that I don´t look at Korvas as a carrier of a specific gender. It doesn´t matter, she is a little baby and a little person and that´s all there is to it. But when Lisa one day dressed her in the pink top it was a cute little girl that was sitting in front of me and I saw her with different eyes. My reason said that it was the same baby as yesterday and the day before that, but something really deep within me said something else, and I´m sure that I carried her with softer hands that day, aware of her fragility.

A thousand times I have sworn at films when some guy opens a hard sitting lid to a can, for his helpless woman. Not that asking for help is wrong, it´s just that this is a simple trick in a film to illustrate the woman´s need of her man, to make her look dependant on him. “Let her open the god damn lid herself" I scream. But without wanting it, it affects me anyway. And even if I know, intellectually, that it´s silly, I´m still more impressed when a girl is good at building things, than when a guy is. And I notice so clearly that people think it extra nice and special, almost cute, when I am with my daughter, but not when my girlfriend is.

We are children of our time and must be on our guard. Because no matter how free thinking we believe ourselves to be, there are a thousand actions we just do from old habit and the old habits are not free. Therefore it feels extremely important to control the actions that we actually are aware of. Sure, in a mere colour perspective pink is just like any other colour. But in real life it is a colour with a history and a colour associated with a behavior and a role. And of course by avoiding it you keep conserving the meaning of pink as well, but not to the same degree. And as long as Korvas´ own father treats her differently because she is wearing a pink top, then a colour isn´t just a colour.

Many families bend the arguments to make them fit their situation (that’s what they say and maybe even believe to be true) but in reality they twist and turn the arguments to make it fit a tradition. When the father earns more the family can´t afford to have him stay at home with the kid. But when the mother earns more she gets to stay at home, because she gets such good maternity leave benefits, based on her good salary. How logical does that seem?
Then there is the constant subject of breastfeeding. At all costs the kid must be breastfed. But even in families where the mother, for some reason, can´t breastfeed, she gets to stay at home, in most cases. Where are the arguments to why the dad isn´t home then? The child needs love and affection and gets a better immune system from the breast milk. But the important substances are in the milk, regardless of whether it is given from the breast or from a bottle, and also a father can offer love and affection. And why must it be all or nothing? The baby doesn´t just eat on working hours, so even if the mother works she can, most likely, breastfeed one or two meals anyway.
It is not impossible that there are some positive effects of having a present father either. Maybe so positive, that they could weigh up for one or two missed meals from the breast.
Moreover I think the mother and the father have so much to gain, in their relationship, from sharing the time with the kid. The mother (mostly) gets to know what it feels like to be left outside, and just being able to see the baby a little while in the evening, when it´s got its “crying hour". But also how lovely it can be not having to be with you child twenty four hours a day. The dad (mostly) gets to know how fantastic it can be to have your own time with the kid and get a close relation to it. But also how incredibly exhausting it can be to alone be responsible for a child.
There are a thousand solutions, but the most important thing is to really think through why you do things the way you do. So that you don´t just do it the way you have always done.

To me the advertising that is covering the floor in the hallway is synonymous with a waste of nature´s resources and unnecessary and annoying extra work. It´s pretty fascinating that some poor fellow struggles with these pieces of paper and carries them up three flights of stairs, just so that I can collect the crap in a paper bag and carry it down again.
Since Korvas arrived, we are completely flooded with advertising for baby things. It is prams, nappies, clothes, toys, food, insurances etc. And everything, absolutely everything is addressed to Lisa. Not even on the tiniest little piece of paper do I find my name. One would have thought that at least advertisements for masculine associated products would be addressed to me. “Dear Daniel, now we have a 50% discount on automatic weapons for kids. Buy now and don´t let your child go empty handed!". But no, not even that. That´s extremely upsetting, it´s my baby too, for Christ sake!
WE DADS ALSO WANT THINGS THAT WE DON´T WANT!

“They look like hell when they come out, you should know that", a friend told me when the date of my daughter´s birth were getting close. “Blue and terrible", he continued. Then he told me that the birth of his first child was the coolest thing he had ever experienced.
The whole process was very unreal to me, as if I wasn´t inside my own body, there and then. It felt like I was standing by the side and watching myself when I, extremely calm, did what I could to help Lisa. When Korvas´s head came out (blue and terrible) it looked a bit scary, and I got the feeling that it was unfair that I got to see her before Lisa did. Since she had been carrying her for nine long months, she should get the first peek. The whole time I was prepared for a tremendous feeling to hit me, but when she came out, it didn´t appear. Of course it felt special, but mostly weird and unreal. Incredible that she was the one who had been in there, hidden, the whole time. But I had expected a more overwhelming reaction.
The incredible feeling hit me hard the first time I held her. And when we got to go to a room of our own, I lay in bed with Korvas on my stomach and cried rivers. Then a period of two - three weeks followed, when I cried almost every time I held her. It still happens, but not as often.
The father´s feelings are in the shadow of the mother´s feelings. You get to hear very little about it. With some dads you almost get the impression that they´ve been on vacation for a week and then they´re back at work, as if nothing special has happened. To me this period was like a big haze. I wasn´t prepared for that. It was like a constant buzzing in my head, like a high. My senses were sharpened. I sensed smells, heard and saw everything much better than usual. I don´t know how to better describe it, than that I have never felt so much like an animal, as I did then. I regarded sounds, smells and visual impressions as pure threats to our survival. A little trace of that is still there now, but now there´s a large portion of rational thinking involved. Then, it was pure instinct.
I think many dads keep the experiences from the birth of their child to themselves, because they have been home crying for a week. And I´m sure one or two extra tears are rolling down their cheeks, as they are going back to work, because they have to leave the baby so soon. Or have to, it just turns out that way, an old habit that seems so hard to break. But it is not the father´s job to question whether there is an alternative way. Neither is it the father´s job to cry or to share the feelings of happiness he experiences with his little child.
The father´s job is to work and keep quiet.

“It doesn´t matter how pretty a name you get, you still get to be called Korvas (Korv means sausage in Swedish)". On the paper her name is Edith, Moa, Harry.
It feels like an eternity now, although only ten months have passed. But I remember how incredibly nervous and excited I was the first time I was going to be alone with Korvas and be responsible for making sure that she got her food properly. The first two weeks after her birth both of us were at home, then Lisa started to work part time. A couple of times we followed her to work, with a little kit containing a cooling bag, electric milk warmer and half defrosted breast milk in bottles. It felt safer to know that if the feeding didn´t work out, the breasts would be at hand.
The insecurity I felt was enhanced greatly by the skeptical reactions we got from other people. No one really believed that we would make it work, and frequent comments like “What? Are you not going to breastfeed!?" were uttered. Breastfeeding is such a touchy subject. There is a pressure of how it should be done, how often and above all how joyful it must be, a gift to the woman. Poor, poor those mothers who, for some reason, can´t breastfeed. Not to mention those mothers who can´t appreciate the divine joy of feeding from their blood dripping nipples to the sound of a hungry, madly screaming baby.
I had no problems in feeding Korvas from the bottle and rapidly gained enough confidence to be entirely alone with her. And the satisfaction of proving everyone wrong was enormous. Open mouths and surprised faces on the skeptical bastards who said a father can´t take care of his newborn. My daughter and I went were ever we liked, all over town. We just made sure that we weren’t too far away from a socket, when dinner time was getting close. The ridiculously expensive milk warmer we bought has been worth every penny and it has been worth every minute of pouring breast milk into ice cube bags and freezing and defrosting and labeling and boiling and washing up little bottles a million times.
I also think it has given Korvas a happier mom and dad.