Here's the problem:

Left to their own devices, women will do births without any men around. There's no fucking reason for men to be involved. They have none of the plumbing. They have none of the pain. They have none of the experience. Most people aren't inured to hearing about "boggy uteruses" while you're eating dinner but I'm here to tell ya, there's a whole constellation of biology that men seldom come into contact with and that's pretty much fine.

The problem is, once we blew through the tribe/hamlet/village paradigm we took it out of womens' hands. Thus the big holy hospital where the anointed ones confer the miracle of childbirth on you, rather than with you. Men's roles in it all didn't change - the handing-out-of-cigars is a traditional thing.

But we splintered the village, we splintered the hamlet, and we flung families far and wide. So most young professionals of childbearing age? Their sole support is their partner. They're going to go through this process with their partner. They're going to do childbirth ed classes with their partner. And the guy who traditionally provides support and gets the hell out of the way when things get bloody and technical and vaginal suddenly has a contraction timer on his iPhone.

And really? The women want another woman there to do this shit with but we can't leave the husband out. So we make him participate. Awkwardly. In a role he has no experience doing and no interest in.

Next time you're out in a public space, look for a pregnant woman. Now look for the dude with her. Look closely into his eyes. Notice he looks an awful lot like he was having a drink in Portland and woke up in the hold of a ship bound for Shanghai but he's learned not to speak up so he doesn't get beaten. It's this peculiar haunted despair look that communicates pretty clearly that he doesn't know what he's doing but he knows his future depends on doing it right.