Couvade
August 11th, 2003I’ve been reading up on how to deal with pregnancy from a man’s point of view. Before anybody starts in, the book I’m reading has told me to stand up and let myself be heard. Apparently, my feelings are important, too.
This book, and every expectant father website I’ve been to, has addressed an important topic that I’d never heard of: sympathetic response to physical and mental pains that the mother is experiencing. The man will actually suffer similar aches, pains and anguish. It’s called couvade, supposedly from the French, meaning “to hatch”. I’m dubious, but a simple search on Google yields a shiteload of links. Finally, a psychosomatic illness that I can back up with data. Like any good U.S. citizen, I’m turning it into a verb, pronto.
Since reading about this, every single feeling, thought and pain has been lumped into this category. I’m constantly checking in with the mother-to-be, asking her if she’s feeling this, feeling that or feeling like she wants to smack me upside the head because I’m not the one with the expanding thorax. Example dialogue:
“Dude, I’m totally couvading right now.”
“. . .”
“Dude. Seriously. I feel bloated.”
It is at this point I am given a look that says I need to stifle the whole business and just go about my little couvade in peace. It is also at this point that I bring up: In some cultures, women worked in the field, had the baby, then brought the baby home and took care of the sick husband.
At any rate, I wonder if this guy experienced couvade. He’s Mormon, so that means he’s got 15 kids or so. o
yup. no sympathy here. pregnancy blows and no matter how much a guy sympathizes with me, it’s MY affliction. MINE. don’t steal my miserable thunder.
Dude. This is a lose-lose situation. As a father of three with a woman whom I call “Easy Queasy,” I’d advise reticence and increasing your intake of alcohol.
I can’t believe any author in their right mind would advocate a guy telling his pregnant spouse that he feels what she feels. That’s a recipe for disaster, or a good thumping at hte hands of a hormonal woman in serious discomfort.
Couvade schmouvade. Stop reading books and start rubbing her feet, dammit.
Interesting… in Italian, Couvade translates to “big pussy.”
sounds like the verdict is in. best to be the strong silent type and stock up on pickles and mint chip ice cream and french frys.
Uh, yeah…promise me you won’t take this theory into the delivery room. I would kill you with my bare hands if you attempted to do so.
Good luck! Let us know how it turns out.
I read that same book, but it kept saying things that made me feel bad. “Month 5, you should have 10k in your child’s college fund by now.”
I really was in pain while my wife was pregnant. I had major knee surgery. If anything fell on the floor it just had to stay there.
Congratulationson your new baby!!!! I know pregnancy pains and aches and all that… I’m a mommy of 3. My husband, that unsympathetic lout( just kidding) never experienced couvade….and I really wish he would have, not because it would steal my miserable thunder as someone else so succinctly put it, but just so I wouldn’t be alone with my various pregnant afflictions, and so he would understand why I was the way I was. I say you must be one heck-of-a guy to be so sympathetic.