just a link
Posted: June 30, 2010 Filed under: Uncategorized 9 Comments »Because I just found a post by Backpacking Dad that is absolutely perfect to include in the conversation/fiercely controversial "should-ing" I recently started here.
For those who don't recall, I "met" Backpacking Dad at BlogHer when he asked if I knew what song was playing and I felt all snazzy with my iPhone's song recognition app but then felt gross after for how much I cared about feeling snazzy. I blogged this, portraying him as an uber-cool pretty boy blog rockstar. He read that post and commented sweetly and I was mortified but properly reminded that, oh yeah THIS IS THE INTERNET and people can see when you link them. Anyway. I have been extremely, extremely fond of him and his blog ever since and still feel ashamed that I initially dismissed him so easily just because he is popular. Forgive me, Backpacking Dad – that was the 7th grade talking.
His post, Feminism and the Immersed Parent, says eloquently everything I feel deeply about parenting and men these days. I want to cry when a woman says her husband is "babysitting" (and I will wither with my eyes anyone who suggests Wes is doing so). I am turned totally off when a woman writes shaming details about "the useless dad" on her blog. And I want for my son a world where all parents are presumed equal.
Here – take this paragraph:
"I want you, ladies, to stop writing about how hilariously incompetent
your husband was that day when you left him with the kids. I want you to
stop writing about how pissed off you were that he couldn’t even make
toast for the kids and let you sleep in for an extra half hour on the
weekend. Even if it’s true the telling of stories like that, and the
seeking out of like-minded women who can shake their heads ruefully with
you, is a magnificent obstacle to the increase in Immersed Fathers. It
is subtle misandry, misogyny’s dance partner, and it is an obstacle to
the very balance and equality that would help you to never feel that
kind of superiority, disappointment, and anger ever again. It is an
obstacle to the creation of a class of men who collaborate with you to
change social and economic structures that will result in gender
equality and improved work-life balance. Think about the converse
situation, in which men would congregate to laugh about the sad attempts
of the newly “liberated” women to operate in a man’s world. Did it,
does it, happen? Yes, I’m certain of it. But it is not something to be
tolerated, and it is certainly not something to be lauded."
Thanks, Backpacking Dad.
The head of our parent volunteers at MPOW had her husband as “au pair” for most of the past year. When I asked him about the experience, he said he was ready to put it on his resume!
And then there was the mother who filled out the student information sheet with this job title: “housewife / person”
Yeah.
The habit women have of complaining about the incompetent dad is definitely Problematic. I always think of an incident at our childbirth class reunion, when the babies were about 2-3 months old. We were the only queer couple. One of the moms was changing her baby and made a comment about how her husband always messed up the snaps on the bodysuits. I, not yet immediately recognizing the Incompetent Dad Trope, responded that indeed the snaps were confusing, Co always had trouble with them and I was the one who usually snapped them. The mom looked honestly surprised: that maybe the snaps are just plain confusing? that a non-gestational parent could be better at something than a birth mother? and she said, “Yeah, you’re right, I guess they are confusing.” It’s the habit of thinking dads are incompetent, I guess.
Amen.
And from a personal standpoint, I have to say that this highlights another point for me from the previous discussion. The only way I am okay with being a SAH parent is because my husband views parenting, cooking, housekeeping, etc as shared responsibilities. Yes, we each have our own obligations during the day, and my primary obligation currently is the care of our daughter, but when we’re both here, we share the work, and we both aim to do a good job. I was about to say that I wouldn’t be okay being home full time with someone who thought otherwise, but it goes beyond that – I’m sure I wouldn’t be okay with being married to him, either!
The Incompetent Father is bad both ways. Bad for the women who feel a sense of satisfaction in noting how inept dad is (I suppose it’s meant to validate or inflate one’s own self-importance), and bad for the dads who hide behind being the Incompetent Father to avoid fully sharing in parenting responsibilities (really, your kid is two and you don’t know when or what s/he eats during the day? Please.).
I think we’re living in a pretty cool world when you can be 50lbs overweight and still get called a “pretty boy”. That’s awesome.
;}
And thanks for the link. Not everyone likes that post (and that paragraph in particular), because I sound like an asshole. Maybe I am.
My husband is a wonderful father in every imaginable way, but as a fallible human being, he makes mistakes–sometimes hilarious mistakes. (I make mistakes too, but as the narrator of my story, those mistakes don’t often seem quite as hilarious to me.) I am rarely secure enough in my own parenting to point out the error of anyone’s ways, but I bristle at the suggestion that there’s a particular kind of story out there that should not be told.
The stereotype of the Incompetent Father is obnoxious and insulting, but I think the analogy Backpacking Dad draws between this figure and “new ‘liberated’ women” is unfair: the bumbling parent (male or female) is more like that brand new college intern who thinks s/he’s smarter than everyone else in the room, but learns on the first day on the job that there’s more to the work that meets the eye.
There is such a thing as parenting knowledge, there are skills to be learned, and as the parent who spends 10 or more hours with my kids than my husband, it stands to reason that I have more of those skills. It’s not genetic. It’s not gender-specific. It’s hard-won experience.
If I choose to tell the story of the time my husband took the kids to the playground and brought neither diapers nor wipes nor water nor snacks nor sunscreen nor bug spray, I’m also telling the story of the way I learned to take care of my kids, and that story is valid.
A “world where all parents are presumed equal” sounds wonderful as long as it doesn’t denigrate the skills and experience of stay at home parents–male or female–that do more of the daily parenting tasks than their counterparts.
This is a really good point. But what about those of us who are, really and truly and honestly, exasperated with our husbands? I almost punched mine in the mouth when HE referred to time alone with our daughter as “babysitting.”
I’m no perfect parent, I’m not a SAH mom, but I still end up doing most of the scut work involved in child raising. And I resent it. And when I talk to my husband about it, he says that he “helps out” in every way he knows how to. I know he’s trying.
I would love to live in a world where parents are equal and my attitude was misandry. But alas, at least in my home, it doesn’t work that way. I’ve learned to stop *expecting* equality because it just is a lesson in frustration and inevitably leads to tears.
In my experience the “Incompetent Father” stuff centers primarily around babies/toddlers … yes, when my kids were babies I, the (part time) stay at home parent was much more experienced and thus much more “polished” at diapers, baby food, etc. Frankly now that my oldest is 6 I am hard-pressed to say I am much “better” at most of the kid-related tasks (making sure they are provided food, get in the shower, help with homework). It just doesn’t take as much skill to make sure a 5 year old gets breakfast, clothes on, and to kindergarten as doing the same for a 1 year old. Let’s not overdo the outrage over a period that lasts just a few years.
I like what the man is saying, but no amount of Big Thoughts or equality and rightness will make my husband into a competent father or housemate. It’s not just whinging on my part– it’s simple fact. The analogy of men making fun of women who’ve newly joined the “man’s world” is apt for US and other Western cultures. It falls flat, however, in Eastern and “macho” cultures, where men (perhaps fearing the day the West will reach their borders and expect them to pick up their socks and change a damn diaper without being asked) are deliberately clumsy idiots in the house and with the kids, hoping the wife will just never ask them to do any work at home ever again because it was such a disaster.
Where I live it’s pretty much only the Western women poking fun at their chronically inept Eastern husbands. The only reason we bother is because we all have this fantasy they might one day love us enough to try to do some of the unpleasant mind-numbing work of the home.
I tell my husband what a wonderful father he is on a regular basis. I do also hate when people say their husband is “babysitting” or complain that he doesn’t do things “right”. There is no right way in parenting. Everyone does things differently. Just because he doesn’t do things like you would doesn’t mean they are wrong. I also think children need to experience the differences. My husband once asked if he could pull our daughter out of preschool (this was about 5-6 years ago) to make a road trip to visit his sister 10 hours away and bring her some things she needed. I told him he didn’t really need to ask and of course he could! They had a great time.