Posted on 30. Mar, 2004 by Brian Reid in General
As promised, I wanted to get to Full Time Father’s posting last week admitting that “I have lost some of my enthusiasm as an evangelist on this issue.” It’s hard to read Mike’s blog over the past few months and not have seen that coming, but it prompted a (small) degree of soul searching on my part, for I haven’t lost that enthusiasm.
On the other hand, I know where Mike is coming from. Being an at-home dad advocate is tough. On a personal level, it’s hard to affect change. I’m not going to alter the family roles of my neighbors; the best I can do is set an example, to refute the myth that no dad would ever make this choice and be happy.
And on a more global level, at-home fatherhood is hardly a movement. If you support gun rights or environmental rights or a sensible energy policy, you have a ready-made political ideology to plug into. There are politicians to support, issues to embrace, publications to read, fights to wage against clear foes. But if you’re a big supporter of at-home fatherhood, if you want to see the idea get more traction, there’s no one to support. There are no magazines to buy. No members of congress to lobby. Indeed, there are not really any issues to lobby at all, in a traditional sense.
Of course, there are still battles to wage, though the enemy is murky. I’m still often the only guy at school meetings, and I still get bombarded with advertising images determined to reinforce the idea that mom — not dad — is the parent who should be watching the kids. I’m still interested in looking at those problems, and though the solutions to those ill-defined bugaboos aren’t clear to me, my enthusiasm hasn’t been dampened.
Anonymous
30. Mar, 2004
Please, please don’t give up on this. We need you and the other dads, even when it’s lonely out there. The frontier always is. Otherwise they’d call it the subway.
There are advocacy issues for you guys, btw. Some of them are the same ones that at-home mothers face: retaining economic power within a marriage, loss of seniority at work, and the difficulty of re-entering the workforce after an extended childrearing absence. If anything, I’d think prejudices make those more serious issues for you. Some of the advocacy issues are peculiar to you, and may initially respond better to marketing than to legal pressure: discrimination on the playground, in advertising, in the school-parents’ organizations.
You may not have the coherent constituency nailed down yet, but I’d say the issues are there. If you’re looking for someone to support…coughcough…
Anonymous
30. Mar, 2004
sorry, that should’ve read:
cough>mirror
Rebel Dad
30. Mar, 2004
Oh — don’t worry. I plan to stick around. And I plan to keep up the same sort of policy stances that folks like Ann Crittenden and the people at M.O.T.H.E.R. are pushing. But at the same time — and women have known this for some time — it’s a slog. It’s an effort to change not just laws and policies, but generations of assumptions.
Thanks for the vote of support …
— rD
Lei
31. Mar, 2004
Glad to know you’re still motivated. You’re an important voice in parent land!
carla
31. Mar, 2004
Hey, I’m not a SAHD (not even a parent; only a part-time stepparent), but I AM an evangelist for you! I have close friends who have done it and I think it’s the only way assumptions change-that is, when people have alternatives right there in their faces. Thank you!
Michael Weber
31. Mar, 2004
I just want you to know what kind of change you do make. When I took on the role of AHD about 10 months ago, I didn’t know anyone else who did that.
But thanks to your site and others like it, I realize their is a whole culture of AHDs out there…communicating with each other and sharing stories. If it wasn’t for these sites, I’d probably live in a vacuum thinking I’m one of the only AHD out there. Your evangilism leads others to feel better about choices they’ve made.
Mike P., aka Full Time Father
11. Apr, 2004
More on this at my blog, but my muddy writing may have led to a misimpression.
I am so comfortable being an at home dad now, I feel a bit silly talking about my former self-consciousness, etc. I was trying to explain how my mindset had changed during the long lag time between an interview I did for St. Louis magazine and its actual publication this month.
BUT: while I have diminished enthusiasm to evangelize based on my own story, I have actually moved forward to get engaged on the policy issues at home parents face. My point: I am part of a group launching a 501c3 that will tackle these issues! Stay tuned. Launch scheduled around July.