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The single best line from the article. """Men should not feel emancipated because everyone believes they are only mildly competent as caregivers""" I fully ag

by dkhenry 14y ago

The single best line from the article. """Men should not feel emancipated because everyone believes they are only mildly competent as caregivers""" I fully agree with this. I strive to do as much work in raising my one child as my wife does. Recently my wife had to cover two saturday shifts giving me two full days with my son ( breakfast to bedtime ). My wife approaced the days like they would be some great hardship for me. I approached them as wonderfull opertuinities to spend extra time with my two year old. Even though I try to do just as much as she does in terms of feeding and changing and general parenting, the fact that for most of the week I am only present for maybe an hour a day gives her the impression that I am incapable of handling the full load of responsability by myself. I see this as the issue. If men do have full time jobs and their wifes are stay at home moms then there will allways be this perception. People always assume that those who are _not_ doing what they do _can't_ do what they do

mtoddh 14y ago
People always assume that those who are _not_ doing what they do _can't_ do what they do. I can definitely attest to this sentiment. When my son was born two years ago, I decided to quit working and become a full time stay-at-home dad. When my wife told the other women in her mother's group about my decision, one of the first responses she got back was, "You trust him?" The implication being that not only are fathers less capable than mothers, but that men are so incompetent at parenting that leaving a child in the care of Dad might be a risky decision! I think this sentiment, plus the still present cultural expectation for dads to be "good providers", is part of why you don't see men contributing more in the home.
- dkhenry 14y ago
  I have heard multiple people express the same sentiment to mothers who leave their kinds in the care of stay-at-home dads. Somehow if your child is left in the care of a male then he is at risk for bodly harm.
- pyre 14y ago
  She could easily turn it around and get offended that those women think that she would marry a man she couldn't trust. At the very least it would force their hand into verbalizing their sexist views, rather than subtlely implying them.
- rmc 14y ago
  Some good answers: "Well he trusts me with the credit card, so I trust him. Does you husband trust you with money?"
- lotharbot 14y ago
  Likewise, I became a full-time stay-at-home dad about 2 and a half years ago. I still have people ask me when I'm going to "get a real job". I can write it off when it comes from my 91 year old grandfather, but it's often coming from 30-something women and men. The implication is that you're not a "real man" if you're not financially supporting the family, and that your wife is not a "real woman" if she lets her husband watch the kids. I'm often surprised by how many people refer to our situation negatively, while they seem to view it as heroic when a single mom works and puts her kids in daycare.
  - Juan01 14y ago
    What I find a bit surprising is that the two aspects are seen as two completely different things. As a soon to be father and current husband one of my motivations towards going to work and advancing my career is financially supporting my family. Does that mean that I will spend lest time at my house than I would wish to? Sure but the key thing is to balance both, you can't take care of your child if you never see him but you can't take care of your child if you can't buy him food either.
TimGebhardt 14y ago
I get the same thing too, but people seem hyper-scared for our family when I'm at home with our twin 18m boys: "Well is your mom (kids' grandma) going to help him? No!? I can't believe you'd leave him alone like that." I'm about |---| this close to start responding with highly offensive responses like "Well, I can't believe your husband trusts you with a credit card, because women are bad at money and math". My wife gets just as offended as I do when her friends say stuff like that to her. Expecting some downvotes, but unless someone's said it to your face or your wife's told you some of the things her friends say, you can't know how infuriating it is when people don't think you're capable of taking care of your own kids.
- AutoCorrect 14y ago
  we have 5 kids. They're older now (youngest is 10), but I watched them while their mother shopped, or had other things to do. We had great fun! I'm like you - I can't understand why people would think men are incapable of handling kids.
- roc 14y ago
  Weighing in to agree. Or maybe just to pile on. I'm a new father and I already can not count the number of times my wife and I have already been asked the cutesy "so how many diapers has he changed?" question. The automatic assumption that I'm just going to phone it in -- not to mention the assumption that my wife would put up with me, were I that type of person -- has already strained more than a few relationships. Never mind that my wife had a difficult labor, unexpected surgery and was stuck in a hospital bed, leaving me to handle everything other than breastfeeding, for the first four days and it never even occurred to either of us to call a grandmother in as a ringer. We just always planned on each doing as much as we could and so my stepping up when she couldn't was the most obvious and natural thing in the world. At least, to us. Seemingly half of everyone we know expected I'd hold my daughter just long enough to hand her to my mother and then head back to work. And as to the people who see my wife out and about and ask in shock/concern whether it's a good idea/whether I can really handle looking after our infant daughter by myself while she so much as runs a few errands ... I have never actually been so angry as to see red before.
brudgers 14y ago
One of the common gender asymmetries of parenting is that a father's "more active role" is more likely to be as "the fun parent." Dad takes his daughter fishing and coaches her soccer team instead of taking her to get a haircut and serving on the PTA fundraising committee. When our child was two, on my Saturday's as caregiver because my spouse was working, the day was organized around a "big adventure." When I was the one working the weekend, the house got vacuumed and the week's groceries got bought...our child got fed and bathed, too, of course. On my days in charge, I got to be entirely present. The priority was a walk in the woods, not the laundry. The all of the article is cherry picked. The all that is expected of women is far more encompassing.
- roc 14y ago
  > "The all that is expected of women is far more encompassing." The article isn't about how much women do or how high expectations are for them. Truly the more-present parent, regardless of gender, has a more serious parenting load. The article is about the social expectations for fathers. To put it in more clear terms: Society expects X from mothers. Society expects Y from fathers. The article is not about a comparison between X and Y in any way. It's not about whether X ~= Y. It's not about whether X > Y or whether X >> Y. It's not about whether any of those comparisons being true might be fair or accurate or desirable. The article is about society's expectation that Y ~= 0 and acts surprised as all hell whenever Y > 0. And how that is bad, shameful and insulting.
- aaronharder 14y ago
  The asymmetry you point out is a difficult truth that definitely resonates with me, and I would guess many other fathers as well.
  - infinite8s 14y ago
    It's interesting that people are bothered by the asymmetry in society's parenting expectations while completely validating the asymmetry between a husband and wife in other household duties (even when the wife also maintains a full time job).
specialist 14y ago
Post divorce, stretches of solo parenting is the norm.

by dkhenry 14y ago

mtoddh 14y ago

People always assume that those who are _not_ doing what they do _can't_ do what they do. I can definitely attest to this sentiment. When my son was born two years ago, I decided to quit working and become a full time stay-at-home dad. When my wife told the other women in her mother's group about my decision, one of the first responses she got back was, "You trust him?" The implication being that not only are fathers less capable than mothers, but that men are so incompetent at parenting that leaving a child in the care of Dad might be a risky decision! I think this sentiment, plus the still present cultural expectation for dads to be "good providers", is part of why you don't see men contributing more in the home.

dkhenry 14y ago
I have heard multiple people express the same sentiment to mothers who leave their kinds in the care of stay-at-home dads. Somehow if your child is left in the care of a male then he is at risk for bodly harm.
pyre 14y ago
She could easily turn it around and get offended that those women think that she would marry a man she couldn't trust. At the very least it would force their hand into verbalizing their sexist views, rather than subtlely implying them.
rmc 14y ago
Some good answers: "Well he trusts me with the credit card, so I trust him. Does you husband trust you with money?"
lotharbot 14y ago
Likewise, I became a full-time stay-at-home dad about 2 and a half years ago. I still have people ask me when I'm going to "get a real job". I can write it off when it comes from my 91 year old grandfather, but it's often coming from 30-something women and men. The implication is that you're not a "real man" if you're not financially supporting the family, and that your wife is not a "real woman" if she lets her husband watch the kids. I'm often surprised by how many people refer to our situation negatively, while they seem to view it as heroic when a single mom works and puts her kids in daycare.
- Juan01 14y ago
  What I find a bit surprising is that the two aspects are seen as two completely different things. As a soon to be father and current husband one of my motivations towards going to work and advancing my career is financially supporting my family. Does that mean that I will spend lest time at my house than I would wish to? Sure but the key thing is to balance both, you can't take care of your child if you never see him but you can't take care of your child if you can't buy him food either.

TimGebhardt 14y ago

I get the same thing too, but people seem hyper-scared for our family when I'm at home with our twin 18m boys: "Well is your mom (kids' grandma) going to help him? No!? I can't believe you'd leave him alone like that." I'm about |---| this close to start responding with highly offensive responses like "Well, I can't believe your husband trusts you with a credit card, because women are bad at money and math". My wife gets just as offended as I do when her friends say stuff like that to her. Expecting some downvotes, but unless someone's said it to your face or your wife's told you some of the things her friends say, you can't know how infuriating it is when people don't think you're capable of taking care of your own kids.

AutoCorrect 14y ago
we have 5 kids. They're older now (youngest is 10), but I watched them while their mother shopped, or had other things to do. We had great fun! I'm like you - I can't understand why people would think men are incapable of handling kids.
roc 14y ago
Weighing in to agree. Or maybe just to pile on. I'm a new father and I already can not count the number of times my wife and I have already been asked the cutesy "so how many diapers has he changed?" question. The automatic assumption that I'm just going to phone it in -- not to mention the assumption that my wife would put up with me, were I that type of person -- has already strained more than a few relationships. Never mind that my wife had a difficult labor, unexpected surgery and was stuck in a hospital bed, leaving me to handle everything other than breastfeeding, for the first four days and it never even occurred to either of us to call a grandmother in as a ringer. We just always planned on each doing as much as we could and so my stepping up when she couldn't was the most obvious and natural thing in the world. At least, to us. Seemingly half of everyone we know expected I'd hold my daughter just long enough to hand her to my mother and then head back to work. And as to the people who see my wife out and about and ask in shock/concern whether it's a good idea/whether I can really handle looking after our infant daughter by myself while she so much as runs a few errands ... I have never actually been so angry as to see red before.

brudgers 14y ago

One of the common gender asymmetries of parenting is that a father's "more active role" is more likely to be as "the fun parent." Dad takes his daughter fishing and coaches her soccer team instead of taking her to get a haircut and serving on the PTA fundraising committee. When our child was two, on my Saturday's as caregiver because my spouse was working, the day was organized around a "big adventure." When I was the one working the weekend, the house got vacuumed and the week's groceries got bought...our child got fed and bathed, too, of course. On my days in charge, I got to be entirely present. The priority was a walk in the woods, not the laundry. The all of the article is cherry picked. The all that is expected of women is far more encompassing.

roc 14y ago
> "The all that is expected of women is far more encompassing." The article isn't about how much women do or how high expectations are for them. Truly the more-present parent, regardless of gender, has a more serious parenting load. The article is about the social expectations for fathers. To put it in more clear terms: Society expects X from mothers. Society expects Y from fathers. The article is not about a comparison between X and Y in any way. It's not about whether X ~= Y. It's not about whether X > Y or whether X >> Y. It's not about whether any of those comparisons being true might be fair or accurate or desirable. The article is about society's expectation that Y ~= 0 and acts surprised as all hell whenever Y > 0. And how that is bad, shameful and insulting.
aaronharder 14y ago
The asymmetry you point out is a difficult truth that definitely resonates with me, and I would guess many other fathers as well.
- infinite8s 14y ago
  It's interesting that people are bothered by the asymmetry in society's parenting expectations while completely validating the asymmetry between a husband and wife in other household duties (even when the wife also maintains a full time job).

specialist 14y ago

Post divorce, stretches of solo parenting is the norm.