Posted on 12. May, 2004 by Brian Reid in General
Michael over at Daddy Designs is quickly becoming one of my best sources. He e-mailed me this staggering piece from the St. Pete’s Times about a journalist dad’s first day home with his infant. In summary, he notes — minute by minute — that day and its attendant horrors.
Like Michael, I found it tough to make it through the blow-by-blow account of the whole day, so mundane is it for those of us who have lived through hundreds (if not thousands) of similar days. And it’s made harder to read by the fact that the writer, Scott Barancik, is acting as if spending 11 hours alone with his own child is akin to scaling Everest or winning a mountain stage in the Tour de France.
The undercurrent — and it runs through Austin Murphy’s How Tough Could It Be (I’m halfway through), too — is that taking care of kids is a tough, tough job that requires a special kind of person (mom) and specialized training (motherhood). This is, as almost every other at-home dad will attest, bunk. It’s the single punch line behind Mr. Mom. In some ways, I’m softening to the stereotypes of Mr. Mom, which came out before a lot of painstaking research showing that dads are perfectly capable of raising children. We’ve come a long way, baby.
I keep harping on this same point, but articles like this one are the reason that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations I wrote about last week are so important. Guys like Barancik and Murphy shouldn’t be clueless about parenting when they finally do pick up the childrearing slack. Just because they aren’t the primary caretaker is no excuse. I have yet to read a single word by the wife of an at-home dad suggesting that she felt clueless or incapable. The reason: I’ve yet to meet the spouse of an at-home dad who wasn’t totally involved in parenting whenever she had the chance. I’d love to see more dads take the same initiative.
Update: Daddy Types takes on this subject, too. Well worth the read.
greg from daddytypes
13. May, 2004
wow, those were the days. I’m still a little wet behind the ears (actually, I’m wet on my shoulder. drool.), but I can still remember when surviving a shift alone with the kid felt like a tremendous accomplishment.
You’re absolutely right to refute the notion that there’s some motherly secret involved; although the reporter doesn’t say it directly, the secret is spending time with a baby, getting to know her: 1) he didn’t recognize her cries? 2) he didn’t know her schedule? 3) unless it was edited out, he didn’t feed the kid that much (no wonder she cried all the time).
Now that he’s survived the first day, the important thing is sticking it out. (As opposed to, say “waiting for her toddler years” before resurfacing in the kid’s life? Now I AM getting pissed.
Wayne
13. May, 2004
Right on! I agree with Greg. It might be a tough job sometimes, but Dad’s can equip themselves just as well as mom’s can. You are right about Barancik, he blows it all out of proportion, like that first day is some insurmountable object. Bravo from a single primary caregiver dad!
Michael Weber
13. May, 2004
Thanks guys!
I thought I was the only one appalled by this article. My question was: if the baby’s 12 weeks old, what the heck was he doing for those 12 weeks? He wasn’t learning anything?
I agree watching a baby for the first time can be daunting, but he could’ve taken steps to make it a little easier.
Of course, he may have had to write this article in order to get time off. And if he was a great father in the article, his editors may have rejected it. They may have wanted a “pre-mother’s day” piece to make mothers feel special.