We have seen it all when it comes to clueless partners in the delivery room. We’ve seen guys eating pizza while their wives are nauseous, guys complaining about the hospital chair being uncomfortable, and guys asking the doctor when they can go home. But just when we thought we had reached the peak of “men not reading the room,” a husband on Reddit has entered the chat with a request so tone-deaf it borders on comedy. He wants to know if it is acceptable to pack his PlayStation 5 in the hospital bag alongside the swaddles and the nipple cream.
The OP (Original Poster) starts with the classic disclaimer that usually precedes a story about a man doing something wildly questionable: “My husband loves me very much and is an amazing man.” He has been involved in the pregnancy, attended appointments, and is excited to be a dad. That is all great, and frankly, the bare minimum. But apparently, his excitement for fatherhood is competing with his excitement for gaming, because he genuinely asked if he could set up his console in the delivery room.
The logic—if we can call it that—is that labor takes a long time. He specifically mentioned the possibility of a thirty-hour marathon like the OP’s sister experienced. His plan is to hook up the PS5 and game while the OP is “sleeping or something.” He seems to be under the impression that getting an epidural is equivalent to being put into a cryogenic deep freeze where you nap peacefully until a baby appears.
Let’s unpack the husband’s assumption that the OP will be catching some Z’s while her cervix dilates to ten centimeters. While some women do manage to rest after an epidural, labor is rarely a tranquil spa experience. there are nurses coming in every twenty minutes to check vitals, machines beeping, ice chips to be chewed, and the general anxiety of, you know, pushing a human being out of your body. The idea that he will be sitting in the corner with a headset on, completely checked out while she is navigating a major medical event, is baffling.
The OP’s stance is simple and valid: if she is suffering, the least he can do is be present with her. She points out the obvious flaw in his plan: “What will I be doing?” while he is fighting bosses in a digital world, she will be fighting contractions. Even if there is downtime, the role of a birth partner is to provide emotional support, not to beat their high score. It sends a message that his boredom is a bigger priority than her comfort.
There is also the logistics of it. Hospitals are not hotels. The rooms are often small, crowded with medical equipment, and bustling with staff. Setting up a gaming console requires a TV (which might be in use or non-existent), outlets, and space. Imagine a nurse trying to check the fetal monitor and tripping over a controller cord. It is just not the time or the place.
Furthermore, the optics are terrible. Imagine the doctor walking in to say it is time to push, and the dad has to pause his game or ask for “five more minutes” to reach a save point. It reduces the birth of his child to a background inconvenience interrupting his leisure time. Support isn’t just about holding a hand during the active pushing phase; it is about waiting in the trenches together during the long, boring, anxious hours beforehand.
The OP mentions that they are posting this because they “both want to be right,” which implies the husband genuinely thinks he has a leg to stand on here. He thinks that because he isn’t the one in pain, he gets a pass to entertain himself. But solidarity is a huge part of partnership. If your wife is running a marathon, you don’t ride alongside her on a scooter playing Candy Crush; you run with her, or at least cheer her on every step of the way.
So, is the OP the ahole? absolutely not. The delivery room is for delivering babies, not for delivering payloads in Call of Duty. Leave the PS5 at home, dude. You can play all the video games you want when you are on the night shift with a newborn (spoiler: you won’t have time then, either).
What would you do if your partner tried to pack a gaming console for your labor? Would you laugh in their face, or would you throw it out the hospital window? Let us know in the comments if you think this dad needs a reality check!