Oh my gosh, men. My partner has started getting up at 7am with our son (and so he should, I get up to him all through the night) and while I appreciate that, I still have to change him, dress him and feed him immediately after I am woken up about two hours later. I don't know what they do for those two hours...
Recently, I was woken up deliberately with a smelly butt right up to my face. I had to stumble out of bed and clean up one of the worst poops ever, because he was 'making a point'. I still have no idea what the 'point' was (especially since I perform almost every single change in this house) and I was shitty with him for the rest of the day.
I'm finally understanding that with guys, you really have to tell them what you want them to do, but I also know that sometimes, even that doesn't help. Sometimes, they're just frigging frustrating.
I hope you get your wish soon.

Thanks, I was hoping there'd be an Australian site like it.

I only recently found your blog, and I think things like this need to be written in all the books women read before their baby is born.
I, too, am a little shocked that there are people who are completely not expecting parenting to involve awful, awful days. I mean, it's life, right? Life sucks sometimes, and surprise, surprise, having kids sometimes sucks, too.

I also agree that actual PPD is a serious problem that needs to be addressed, and isn't just a label that anyone can apply to themselves because they're having a shitty day. Like a previous poster said, it's different when you can't just 'man up', and you don't feel the lovely high moments of parenthood.

I had pretty awful depression before my son was born, and though I was feeling a lot better during the pregnancy, I was afraid of slipping back into it after he arrived. But I didn't. On those days where I hadn't had any sleep and it was freezing and I was struggling to breastfeed and I wondered what the hell I had done, I cried, I kept going, and I kept telling myself that it was just a bad moment, there will be more, but there will be much better times, too.
If someone feels overwhelmed occasionally because parenting is harder than what they were expecting, and thinks there's something wrong with them, they obviously need to grow up.
But if it just feels awful all the time, no matter what they were expecting, that's another issue.

Thanks for the interesting post, and for really speaking your mind.