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OPINION
A new dad has been publicly shamed for taking his daughter into a parents’ room.
Damien Leeson form Mackay in Queensland was called “disgusting” when he took his newborn daughter Harpah into the parents’ room to give her a feed.
A woman walked into the room with her son and told Damien “that’s disgusting to see a full grown man in a parents’ room with a little girl”.
Woah lady! Last time I looked the parents’ room signs showed a mum, dad and kids and was open to all parents who need to care for their children.
Honestly, if we’re going to expect men to be more involved in parenting then we have to give them the means to do that.
And yet plenty of men have told me they’re constantly being watched and scowled at as they go about the business of raising their children.
One mate was trying to calm his screaming toddler on the street outside a busy restaurant recently when a woman came up to him and demanded to know “where’s the child’s mother?” As if he couldn’t calm his daughter himself.
Damien Leeson said he was speechless when verbally abused at the Caneland Central shopping centre. He and his wife Melissa had taken seven-week-old Harpah to the shops on Sunday.
‘I got into the (parents’) room, gave her a change and started feeding her when a mother walked in with her son,’ recalls Damien. ‘She looked at me and said “that’s disgusting to see a full grown man in a parents’ room with a little girl”.’
The woman then apparently told her friend there was a “dirty old man” in the parents room.
Damien said he and wife looked at each other in shock. ‘I’m quite a hands-on dad, dirty nappies, feeding, anything I can do,’ he told the Daily Mercury.
Poor Damien. I applaud dads like him who want to be involved in their children’s lives. They’re role models to other dads and they’ll raise kids who have a deep and loving relationship with both parents.
Anyone who objects needs to take themselves and their busy-body opinions back to the 1950s!
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