Then we had two more and no, it wasn't the hormones. They both had the usual newborn uglies and even we could see that. Our first one actually was remarkably cute. No one ever told us we should contact acting agents about either of the later ones.

Having more kids makes it easier to tell where your kids truly fall, absent parental bias, on the cuteness or cleverness scale or whatever. Sometimes they actually are unusually cute or unusually smart or unusually well-coordinated, and that's not just parent-insanity talking.

Might I suggest one of the aspects that you may be missing is that mothers are judged as mothers first and humans second in society (at least in America where I live). Often times a woman who doesn't mother as vigorously as another woman is considered less worthy as a human being and less deserving of respect, care, comfort, etc.

I would compare this to ask if men are judged the same way as fathers. For example, if a male CEO doesn't take the day off to nurse his sick infant, is he considered a bad human being and judged as morally a less worthy person?

Or, in my experience, if my male friends are letting their spouses handle taking care of the child for the evening, they are not casually discussed as allowing malnutrition and unkemptness the way women are discussed when they let their husbands take care of the kids while they have a night or a week out for a business trip or just to have some fun.

An interesting thing to note is that women on average were studied to have an additional 2 hours of work per day upon becoming new parents, while men on average have an additional 40 minutes.

The example I would use is a father who looses his job. Is he considered as morally a less worthy person compared to a mother who lost her job?

Cultural we still have gender role leftovers from the perception that mothers are judged based on how they are able to raise children, fathers on how they are able to provide for their children and spouse. A man who can't provide is cultural viewed as an unfit father. A woman who can't raise her children a unfit mother.

In such culture it is of no surprise that the father can take a much more relax attitude to question such as nutrition.

> women on average were studied to have an additional 2 hours of work per day upon becoming new parents, while men on average have an additional 40 minutes.

And how many work hours at the office? Should anyone given our current culture be surprised if fathers spend more time in the office than mothers?

This response is entirely out of scope. This isn't a competition on who works harder, and framing it like this completely ignored my point.

Without understanding gender roles the different in anxiety in fathers and mothers is unexplained, but there is no reason to do so as gender roles is a fairly well documented and understood concept. Even in households that do not perceive the father as the provider and the mother as the caregiver the gender roles in society still imposes expectations that results in anxiety and stress that align identically to those gender roles.

I am not sure where you got the concept of a competition, as the key insight from identify the problems of gender roles is that both women and men suffer from it. A simple decision such as taking a day off to nurse a sick infant should have same outcome for both women and men, but with gender roles pushing the mother to prioritize the child over work and the father to prioritize work over the child the outcome becomes stereotypical.

Yes, that's... kind of what I was pointing at, because the original guy said he was baffled at the anxiety of his wife. That's literally all I'm saying. I'm so confused at your responses.

Also my daughter is super cute and smiley and we secretly suspect she really is unusually adorable, even though we rationally realize that it's mostly hormones. Mostly.