New Mom Flabbergasted After Her Husband Demands She Make A Roast For His Parents Two Days After Giving Birth
The mom had to remind her husband that she'd just given birth.
RDNE Stock Project / Pexels The phrase “weaponized incompetence” has become buzzworthy, yet sometimes, there’s no better way to describe something than what it actually is.
Weaponized incompetence is a power play, a form of manipulation, wielded by a person in an attempt to coerce someone else into doing something for them, that they’re entirely capable of doing themselves.
An unnamed woman from the U.K. gave the internet a crystal clear example of what weaponized incompetence looks like, by covertly recording her husband.
The new mom was shocked when her husband demanded she cook a roast for his parents, two days after she gave birth.
The mom used her phone to capture the cringe-worthy moment, as her husband asked her, “Can you do a roast?”
“You want me to do a roast?” the mom asked, incredulously. “Can I just remind you of something? I gave birth two days ago.”
“Two days ago,” her husband replied. “And you came out [of] the hospital straight away. You’ve been sitting around all this time. You can make a roast, surely.”
The mom gently stood her ground, explaining that she was sent home from the hospital so she could rest at home and heal her body after the experience of bringing a whole other human being into the world.
“You’ve been doing nothing but resting,” her husband said. “Look at all these cups of tea.”
When she defended her need to up her caffeine intake to care for their newborn baby, her husband retorted, “It’s not easy for me, either.”
Photo: Sarah Chai / Pexels
Digging his hole even deeper, he said, “I didn’t give birth, but I’m not sleeping like you, so I’m knackered.”
The new dad justified his demand for his wife to cook by saying, “You’re awake. My mom and dad are coming, and you know what they’re like. They always want a roast.”
'You can get up and make it yourself,' the mom retorted, after reminding her husband, once again, that she’d just given birth.
After 40 weeks of gestation — accompanied by any number of complications that might have come up, along with however many hours, or even days, of labor until delivering a baby that then requires 24-hour care and feeding — the request to rest isn’t a huge ask. Yet asking a mom who’s just entered her postpartum period to cook is.
Full physical recovery from pregnancy and childbirth takes a minimum of six weeks, no matter how a person gives birth. After giving vaginal birth, recovery can take three weeks minimum, and three more weeks after that, if you experience a perineal tear or an episiotomy, which is an incision.
People who have given birth can expect swelling, soreness, backaches, and postpartum bleeding, called lochia, for up to six weeks, and that's if healing is going well, with no other complications.
The list of physical repercussions goes on, and we didn’t even touch on the extreme emotional ups and downs someone can expect after giving birth.
If the mom is nursing her baby, she can expect to expend as much metabolic energy as if she were running 6 miles a day, which is just to say that it might look to her husband like all the mom is doing is sleeping, when really she’s using her body to keep their baby alive.
The husband then took a different yet well-worn approach: claiming she could cook a roast better than he could.
“You do it much better than I do,” he said. “We know that. I’ve tried. It’s a waste of time.”
Yet the mom wasn’t going to fall for that particular trick, instead asking him why he was gaslighting her.
“I’m not gaslighting you. You always say I’m gaslighting you, I’m not,” said the man, while gaslighting her.
The mom didn’t back down, exclaiming, “You’re trying to manipulate me into making a roast for your mom and dad... I’ve just cooked for the last 9 months — your kid,” she clapped back.
Her husband dismissed her comment by saying, “I’ll sit with them, with the baby, talk to them, you got like, a couple hours to yourself.”
Photo: William Fortunato / Pexels
When the mom responded that she wasn’t going to slave over a hot stove while he sat on his [expletive] with the baby, the dad shot back, “Sit on your [expletive] with the baby? Oh, so it’s easy then. So if that’s the case, you can go in the kitchen then, what’s the problem?”
The man purposefully twisted her words to make a point that served him, all in an attempt to not have to cook a meal for his own parents.
The camera then cuts off, so the mystery of who ended up cooking the roast remains unknown.
It's worth noting that not everything men do to evade an equitable division of labor in their marriages can necessarily be called weaponized incompetence, yet this act clearly is.
What’s shockingly evident is how little that woman’s husband thinks of her labor, her literal labor — the bodily work she put into creating a new life, and all the work it will take for her to heal.
It bears repeating the unbelievably wise words of Maya Angelou: “When people show you who they are, believe them.”
When your husband expects you to do physical labor after completing the utmost expression of physical labor, believe him: His demands won’t end there.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture, and all things to do with the entertainment industry.