Hi. I'm a 17 year old junior in high school, and for the past few days in my RTE (Response To Emergency) class we have been learning about how to deliver a baby in the event of an emergency. And I totally agree with the guys in my class. Childbirth is, like, so nasty.
No not really. I'm actually pretty pissed about all the eews and grosses I've heard in the last 48 hours about the very event that brought these people into the world.
The first day we read a chapter from the book, and there were the predictable comments about the delivery of a baby. Everyone in the class was slightly uncomfortable, but the guys were the ones who were overly-willing to share their opinions on birth. I dismissed it as immaturity, figuring that a bunch of 16/17/18 year old guys were bound to say stupid stuff.
But then the next day our teacher went through the power point presentation, and he was just as rude and judgmental as the guys in my class. He explained how his wife was muttering words under her breath while giving birth, because "she was, I dunno, not in her right mind." He said that there are some "Christian scientists" who choose to have children at home, and that it's "crazy, because something could go wrong, and then they'll end up in the hospital anyway." I had to smile at this, because my sister and I were both born at home, and religion was definitely not the reason my mom chose to do this. And she didn't end up in the hospital. Later he also mentioned how some women choose to have their children in water, and he said "that just sounds dangerous to me. But whatever. El locos." I believe "el locos" is his attempt at a joke with a Spanish flair about the mental state of these women.
So now, not only were the guys being uncool about childbirth, but the teacher was too. This made me reconsider my previous assumption that the comments were made out of immaturity. Could the comments be motivated by gender?
What do you guys think? Are my classmates, and my teacher, just immature? Or is this a gender issue? Is the fact that the judgmental comments came from guys evidence of a deeper problem that some men have with childbirth (and perhaps with female issues in general)? Or does my teacher just need to grow up?