Blogger Calls Out Husband for 'Injustices' New Moms Everywhere Can Relate to

Australian mom blogger Constance Hall is known for keeping it real. When people tried to shame her for being on her phone after giving birth to her fifth child, she clapped back. And while a lot of bloggers use their platforms to showcase their perfect lives and families, Hall gets honest about how truly confusing parenthood can be. Now she’s opening up about something far too many women have struggled with: Shouldering the brunt of childcare duties while her partner occasionally “helps out.”
“The first time you have a baby you’ll notice a few injustices,” Hall wrote in a recent Facebook post. “The second time you have a baby you’ll be used to them. And the third, you could accept it or you could just move out. At some point, unless you’re the exception and in an extremely progressive relationship, you’re going to get angry.”

In May, Hall welcomed her baby boy Raja with husband Denim Cooke. This is the couple’s first child together, though Hall has four children from a previous relationship and Cooke has two, so it’s not their first run at parenthood. But it sounds like life with a newborn has been just as difficult for them as any new parents.

“I carry the mental load of our baby. I know when he’s hungry, tired or needs a bath. My husband will happily bath him, or cuddle him… when he’s asked,” she writes. “When he’s smiling my husband picks him up, when he’s grumpy he gives him back.”

Women everywhere, are you hearing this? We’d ask you to raise a hand but they’re probably busy doing five things at once.

And their friends only reinforce this dynamic. “When my husband is holding him, friends ask to take over,” she explains. But if Raja starts crying, “they give him back to me.”

As she points out, she’s not the only parent around who (should be) capable of, you know, parenting.

“The other day I was giving my husband a kick up the arse to get ready quicker so we weren’t late,” she says, “and he turns to me and says ‘Calm down, I’ve been looking after the baby all morning… for you.’”

I think we can all agree her husband is a dead man walking at this point.

“‘Wait, what? For who?’” Hall responds. “‘Oh me? Doing me a favor? Hang on should I get you some cash? What’s the rate for a babysitter these days, $16 an hour?’”

Anyone who’s ever rolled their eyes when someone jokes about “Dad on babysitting duty” will understand where she’s coming from. After all, it takes two people to have a baby, so it makes absolutely zero sense that just one of them would be responsible for caring for it.

Hall goes on to explain that she’s not trying to condemn her husband or other fathers by opening up about this. She’s just calling attention to a very common dynamic many couples struggle with.

“I say it because equality doesn’t mean sh/t if it doesn’t start in the home. And what better place to start showing your kids what equality looks like then when they first arrive on this beautiful world?”

We couldn’t agree more. And neither, apparently, could the more than 5,200 people who liked the post.