Feeling Introspective?
Posted on 03. Mar, 2006 by Brian Reid in General
I’ve decided against withholding judgment on the new “Mommy Wars” book. My opinion, not having read the book, is that it won’t get us a smidgen closer to addressing the very real dilemmas parents face in balancing paid work with family. My confidence in this judgment is based largely around a BusinessWeek interview with the book’s editor, Leslie Morgan Steiner.
There are tantalizing clues that Steiner might actually understand why fanning the “Mommy Wars” flames is a bad idea, but in general, she seems to relish the mom vs. mom element of it.
But the thing that has pushed me over the edge is Steiner’s treatment of fathers:
Do you expect to see a book on Daddy wars?
It would be a very short book. Men aren’t that introspective. When kids come, their lives haven’t changed as much dramatically. When husband goes on a business trip to New York, he just packs his little suitcase. When I go away, I have to write a three-page memo for the nanny. I have to talk to three moms to arrange for people to pick up my kids from school. I have to send a note to school to tell them to call my husband in case of an emergency. And then I have to tell my husband to keep his cell phone on.
Look, I don’t speak for all fathers here, but dads — by and large — are moving away from this stereotype. I expect this sort of bashing from the Darla Shine-types, but I honestly expected better from a Washington Post staffer.
Baba
03. Mar, 2006
Of course, these kinds of comments are common, but you make a good point. One would expect more of certain people. Would it have killed her to say “some men,” “a lot of men,” or even “most men” NOT that I AGREE with that but unqualified “men” … come on! Maybe she just didn’t choose her words carefully … what does she do for a living …? (heh heh).
More seriously, when people make blanket comments like this about any group, I think they maim themselves too, because they leave the criticized parties less accountable. In this case, by Steiner’s account, if men are not introspective and not involved with their kids, etc., it’s apparently BECAUSE they are men. They can’t help it then, I guess. If she’s talking about her husband, her assumption that he CAN’T do these things leaves her helpless to do anything about it but tolerate it and complain. (If I were cynical, I would add: … and forward her own ambitions by doing so [complaining] publicly.
~~Baba
OccupationDad.blogspot.com
Baba
03. Mar, 2006
A Shot Fired in the Daddy Wars?
One more thing …
While trying to think what the “Daddy Wars” might even be, I thought of this piece I read a couple of months ago (now buried in the archives of DadBloggers). Really I think it’s more about the so-called “culture war” and religion. It’s interesting nonetheless.
http://www.dadbloggers.com/index.php/weblog/what_do_you_do_for_a_living/
~~Baba
OccupationDad.blogspot.com
John S
03. Mar, 2006
At the BusinessWeek blog interview, I posted this:
“As a stay-at-home dad, I find the last paragraph offensive. Stereotyping men as non-introspective shows that Leslie Morgan Steiner in not that introspective herself. I may speak for a small group (SAHDs) but times are changing. In my circle of friends, the measure of a man is not how much money he makes, but what kind of dad he is.”
Others are chiming in as well. Thanks for drawing it to our attention.
Brian
03. Mar, 2006
There seems to be a few women, maybe more than a few, who are deeply challenged by the notion that a man could parent as effectively (if differently) than a woman. These women often make such comments; I was recently told of a store clerk who said to a SAHD w/ kid “oh, looks like Daddy got stuck babysitting today.”
Cultural norms are VERY slow to change. That said, all my dad friends and I also measure our worth by our parenting.
In the Daddy wars, sorry fellas, I have already won. See my blog.
Lauren Young
03. Mar, 2006
Thanks so much for your comments on my “Mommy Wars” Q&A in BusinessWeek.
Kudos to all of you!
chip
04. Mar, 2006
the nanny? That alone tells us all we need to know. Once again an upper middle class professional journalist claiming to speak as an average person.
These people are absolutely clueless about how most Americans live their (our) lives.
This kind of stuff is just projections of their own prejudices and ignorance. It’s amazing that publishers continue to put this kind of stuff out!
Hogan
06. Mar, 2006
Publishers are not in touch or in denial of what is going on in the real world.
They dont want to admit that there is a cultural shift going on in which the fathers
WANT and DESIRE to become more involved in the caring and raising of their
children.
Men arent that introspective. What a crock. Maybe fathers could be as introspective as women if women like, Steiner, stop giving instructions and telling their husbands how to care for the children the way a mom does and just allow them to care for the children the way a dad does. Does it really matter if the children are dressed in color coordinated clothes? Does it really matter if the dad lets the child wear the same t-shirt and pants for two days? How a child is dressed is not a risk to their health. Not to mention that there will be less laundry to clean. As a dad I’m more concerned about how my child behaves, than I am about how she/he is dressed.
Why do so many wives want their husbands to care for their children the way a mother does? As Ive told moms in the workshops Ive conducted, It isnt fair for a wife to expect their husband to learn in one hour what she learned in eight hours. Nobody was following her around all day pointing out her mistakes and giving her instructions on how to care for the baby.
I also believe that there is a kind of a mommy war going on against fathers. For a wife to allow her husband to care for a child means having to give up time from her role as a mother and giving up control. And for many moms relinquishing care of the baby to the father is a huge problem. How many moms do you know would leave their husbands alone with a two, three, four week old baby? And for those that do it is followed with sarcasm and skepticism.
I know this to be true because one of the things I do in the classes I conduct is ask the dads to return with the baby. Sadly, I have great difficulty in getting the dads to come back. Not because they dont want to but because their wives wont let them take the baby out of the house by themselves. How the heck is a father going to bond with the baby and the baby with the dad if they dont get alone time together ?
One of the things Im grateful for and appreciate about Tina is that she lets me be a dad to our kids. And she appreciates me because I let her be a mom to our children.
I also believe that there are daddy wars. They are not as obvious and ruthless .
Hogan
Wayne
07. Mar, 2006
“Men aren’t that introspective” — and it doesn’t sound like Steiner wants them to be, does she? She seems like complaining about how busy she is, and how stressful it is to … write a note to the nanny? The nanny. The nanny.
I just can’t get past that. Who can afford a nanny?
Seriously, my wife is finishing her degree while I work two jobs, and we have two children who I see plenty, and I’m even quite introspective about it all — hell, my blog might be many things, good or bad, but you’d be out of your mind to say that it’s not introspective. And the thing is, all of the dads I know are like this. Not every dad who has a job takes flights across the country on business trips. I don’t know a single dad who is in the standard, cookie cutter mold of corporate ladder-climber, or who defines himself solely by his accomplishments at work.
Working dads — hell, working parents, because I’m really exasperated with this false dad/mom dichotomy that everyone wants to thrust on us — care about their kids, too, and spend lots of time with them, too, and have feelings and are introspective, too. Of course.
Wayne
07. Mar, 2006
Sorry, meant to type, “she seems to like complaining …”
David
07. Mar, 2006
As a father, moreso as a father that stays at home with my kids, I find her comments perticularly offensive.
If I made a comment such as that about women I would be (quite rightly) pilloried.
Steiner is clearly a bigot and should be treated as such.