Diaper Dads Have Arrived
Posted on 25. Jan, 2007 by Brian Reid in General
The surest sign that a trend has passed into the mainstream is that the hipper-than-though types start coming out of the woodwork to loudly declare the trend is passe/pedestrian/unoriginal and that we should all keep our excitement about iPods/tattoos/Barack Obama/single-malt scotch to ourselves.
So it thrilled me to no end to see dads get the get-over-yourself treatment from the Globe and Mail’s Leah McLaren — who, at the tender age of 31 — has declared the hip-dad trend (taken to its zenith now with the publication of Neal Pollock’s Alternadad) has been done before and ain’t all that interesting.
This is great news. Because despite McLaren’s belief that every generation of new fathers is just like mine, only with better music, we really do live in a time of huge change for fathers. We’re just beginning to come out of an extended period of Western history where kids didn’t automatically play a huge role in the lives of their fathers (or vice versa). Books like Alternadad are overturning the idea that witnessing each and every joy of childhood (and, admittedly, talking about it a lot) is somehow not something that men do. So I’ll count my blessings that my McLaren, a fellow Gen Xer, sees this as routine, even dull. Because I go to bed every night hoping to wake up in a world where fatherhood is so much a part of the fabric of society that the topic bores the heck out of hip newspaper columnists.
Asha
25. Jan, 2007
Excellent, Brian. It’s nice to see all the hubbub over Alternadad placed in a larger context.
Working Dad
25. Jan, 2007
I get bombarded by parenting books every week, yet I’ve never seen any family author create the kind of buzz Neal Pollack is enjoying - a New York Times Book review, articles around the media, and lots of blogosphere talk. Next stop Oprah. Looks like I’ll have to read it, just to do my job as a parenting reporter.
I couldn’t agree with you more about the significance you see in McLaren’s piece.
cam c.
26. Jan, 2007
I wouldn’t take anything Ms. McLaren says very seriously… most of her writing is more fluffy than the most lightweight parts of Alternadad… at least Pollack didn’t need his mom to help get him his job.
Dadventure
26. Jan, 2007
Leah bugs the crap outta me. She’s the reason I canceled my Globe subscription. The whole time I read her article I was thinking - this is the rant of someone who has no interest in having a family. Oh, look, a thirty something career woman so self absorbed and wrapped up in her own Pinot Noir sipping urban chiq self that she can’t understand why anyone would ever want to have a child, let a lone find joy in it. How uninteresting and “been there, done that” is that, you Carrie Bradshaw wanna be?
How About Two?
26. Jan, 2007
I had to read the article before I commented.
First, the article is an Anti-America rant. She goes out of her way deride Pollack and in the same article she mentions two - TWO! - Canadian authors and cheers them for there take on parenting. Hello?
Second, she’s a woman. Just as I have no idea what it is to be a mother, she has no idea what it means to be a dad.
Sure, I can look at being a mom and talk about being a mom and even play being a mom (even dressing the part), but in the end, I’m not a mom.
Finally, the role of fathers is changing. It also changed for our fathers and for their fathers and so on.
As a GenX new parent (2/20 is our C-section date), I will be more involved in the twins’ life than my father was in mine.
My blog is a testament to that, as are all daddyblogs to the changing nature of fatherhood, no matter what some Canadian woman says.
Greg Barbera
26. Jan, 2007
So I got Pollack’s book Alternadad.
I’m only halfway through but I can say this: it is more about getting married, how you and your partner come to being pregnant, how to adjust when the baby comes, etc. etc… pretty much what any book on parenting might discuss.
from what I gathered so far, the book is more about trying to retain (or reclaim) the self you were before having kids because we all know kids take priority over all aspects of your life.
I think that’s something any parent can relate to.
But Pollack isn’t a stay-at-home dad although he makes his living as a writer and works for home, he’s not the principle caregiver so there’s no real insight there (so far).
I’ll weigh in later when I finish the book.
(un)relaxeddad
27. Jan, 2007
The problem with retaining the self you were before you became a dad is that the condition of work kind of obscures that self in the first place. I’ll have to read the book but if that’s it’s angle, I’m kind of put off.
CrankMama
28. Jan, 2007
Brian,
well said!! Let’s hear it for the peeps getting bored talking about fatherhood. What a refreshing change.
-Rachael
Shandra
29. Jan, 2007
When all the men’s washrooms have change tables, that will be the Sign.
Pete Aldin
29. Jan, 2007
Viva la fathering revolution - and (raspberry) to the sarcastic critics. Agree that it’d be great if this value on fatherhood was commonplace
Debbie
29. Jan, 2007
I cringe at the thought that the federal government or any other employer for that matter has to pay for FMLA leave. I work for a local government and the laws on FMLA are so lax that we have at any time 1/4 of our staff off because they have asthma, they have a migraine, they ahve a backache, their mother is ill, their father is ill, their son has asthma…… FMLA is a joke. It has become the “reason of choice” for those who do not want to work.
James
29. Jan, 2007
Very interesting article from a person who does not even have children. Her “expert opinion” is lacking in expertise.
I have not read Neal’s book yet but have visited his site many times. He makes me laugh. At-home dads write about this stuff because it’s funny. At-home mom’s write about it, too (and have been for many more years than dads), but you don’t see her mentioning that in her piece.
I’m sure Ms. Mclaren will catch a lot of crap for her article, which may be why she wrote it. Is her career failing and she needs the attention?
James
30. Jan, 2007
FOLLOW UP COMMENT…
After reading her article again I had to laugh at the conversation she had with writer David Eddie…
“…Toronto writer David Eddie is the author of Housebroken: Confessions of a Stay-at-Home Dad, a book that stands as a testimony to the fact that it’s possible to write about modern parenting without endless anecdotes involving sippy cups.
“It would be nice for people to have kids and never even talk about it,” he told me over the phone this week. “Even when people ask me about my kids, I say ‘They’re fine,’ and change the topic. Because the truth is nobody really cares. Kids are inherently boring. There’s a way to be a grownup and a good parent and not make a big deal out of that and also be a function member of society. Shoot me if I ever start using my kids and pets as material.”
Did he not just write a book using his kid as material? And she is helping him promote it in her article? The irony of her writing this piece kills me. Really, it should be laughed at by all at-home dads (and moms for that matter!) around the world.
Kelly M. Bray
31. Jan, 2007
Catherine Seipp was doing this a couple of years ago. There is always somebody trying to tear down people when they are trying celebrate the joy of their lives. Oh and on the changing tables in the mens room thing. In 1999 I was looking for a place to change my son, and found the mens room had no changing table, and it was raining outside, so the car was out. A manager came by and I asked why there was no table, and he said ” Men don’t usually need one, why don’t you ask one of the women going into the ladies room to change him for you” I looked at him like he was the biggest idiot in the world and said “So you are suggesting that I ask a total stranger to touch my son’s genitals? This sounds like sex discrimination in your provision of services” He freaked out and apologized, and I changed him on the managers desk. I will tell you thank god he did not suggest I change him on the bathroon floor like others had. A month later the restaurant did install baby changing stations in the mens room. Still alot needs to be done