In Defense of "Mr. Mom"
Posted on 20. Dec, 2007 by Brian Reid in General
Jeremy Adam Smith screened “Mr. Mom” to see what all the bile was about. Instead, he gives the movie close to a rave review. (“… it marks a cultural watershed: the stay-at-home dad was now a part of the landscape—-as a real option,” Jeremy writes.) Read the post: it’s a worthwhile contrarian take.
(For the record, I believe that the movie, “Mr. Mom,” taken in its entirety, is not a terrible, anti-dad movie. But as I’ve said before, the term “Mr. Mom” now has a life of its own as something close to a pejorative. This is partly as a result of people misremembering the movie. At the next family gathering, ask your brother-in-law to summarize “Mr. Mom.” I’ll bet you a case of beer that he remembers the bumbling, not the uplifting stuff at the end.)
Greg Barbera
20. Dec, 2007
Dick Gordon brought this up when I was on his show The Story back in June.
His take on Mr. Mom was that by the movie’s end, keaton had proved that he could be a worthy father.
But few remember the whole movie I said.
I agree with the Brian (or Jeremy) in that the movie - taken as a whole - can be seen as downright triumphant for AHDs.
Unfortunately, most people only remember the term out of context.
APL
21. Dec, 2007
It was on AMC or something this past weekend, so I watched it while wrapping some presents. I can’t help it, I still love that movie. I have ever since I was 8. And I love the Rocky-music montage toward the end where Keaton really kicks it into high gear.
“Are you gonna make it all 220?”
“Yeah, 220, 221. Whatever it takes.”
Curt
21. Dec, 2007
Please stay up to date. If a man could afford to stay home he would! I am sorry but you want to really talk about stay at home dads? Mr. Mom is not worth talking about. Have you ever wondered about our social policies we have enacted? I know the news I am referencing is already a week old (at least it is not as old as Mr. Mom), but it really makes you wonder if men go to work simply due to insecurity, greed, expectations and all that garbage. Anyways, read the rest and you will see it is not just about who does the laundry.
German dads jump at chance to stay home with kids
Fri 14 Dec 2007, 17:14 GMT
By Naomi Kresge
BERLIN (Reuters) - German fathers are staying home with their newborn babies in unexpectedly high numbers in the first year of a generous government subsidy meant to boost the country’s low birth rate, officials said on Friday.
Fathers accounted for about 10 percent of subsidy beneficiaries in the third quarter of this year, a major shift in the attitude of German men taking time off work for their children, officials said.
They accounted for only 3.5 percent of all requests for benefits before the new programme started on January 1.
“It’s becoming much more acceptable for someone just starting out in his career to take some time off to be with his kids,” Families Minister Ursula von der Leyen said.
Designed to tackle Germany’s shrinking population, the parent subsidy is worth up to 25,200 euros (18,129 pounds).
A parent taking time off work to care for a newborn is paid two-thirds of his or her net monthly salary, up to a maximum of 1,800 euros, tax-free for 12 months. The other parent can take a further two months off to extend the benefit to 14 months.
Officials expected mothers to apply for the full benefit, with fathers only joining in for the final two months.
But 20 percent of the fathers who signed up for the benefit planned to take a full year off. About 21 percent planned three to 11 months at home, and 58 percent planned two months.
“I think many more men would stay at home if they had the opportunity,” said Martin Dommer, 34, who will stay two months at home with his wife and 10-month-old son starting next week.
“The politicians act as if it’s a huge gift, but actually it’s not — it’s an improvement, but I think even more would stay at home if they could afford it,” said Dommer, from Berlin.
With 386,000 parents signed up through September, the program was so popular that the government had to add 130 million euros to its 1.6 billion euro budget. The government expects to pay parents 4 billion euros next year.
The unexpected surge in fathers seeking benefits could signal a significant change in the way Germans divide the labour of childrearing, said Nicola Huelskamp, consultant for the German Economic Institute in Cologne.
“This arrangement could mean not only women are held accountable,” Huelskamp said.
Preliminary statistics released this week showed bi
Anonymous
21. Dec, 2007
Wow - a whole article in a comment - must be a record. I loved the movie. Of course, I consider myself a radical feminist and I loved Baby Boom, too, so go figure. I love babies. Parenting. Period.
Jeremy Adam Smith
22. Dec, 2007
That’s a really interesting article, Curt. So interesting that I’m going to tactfully overlook the fact that you appeared to have had waaaay too much coffee before posting your comment. I agree, incidentally: U.S. public and workplace policies need to catch up with the way moms and dads are living their lives and provide support to fathers and mothers who want to take care of their kids. The social democracies of northern Europe are definitely the best available model.
Going back to Greg’s comment: I’m not so sure that people don’t remember the positive side of Mr. Mom, or that even the mockery has a totally negative impact. A team of historians led by Ralph LaRossa looked at fifty years of comic portrayals of fathers and found that mockery of dads peaked in the 1960s and the early 80s, especially directed at caregiving behavior-Mr. Mom was definitely part of that. None of the jokes, however, stopped gradual, measurable increases in male caregiving over the same period-and then in the 90s it started to increase very rapidly, as Gen X became parents. My interpretation of this is that our society, God bless it, first makes fun of social practices it doesn’t understand. So as new ideas are introduced, the mockery increases…then diminishes, as the new idea is widely implemented. Anyway, in a funny, paradoxical way, I think a film like Mr. Mom helped to normalize stay at home fatherhood.
Jeremy Adam Smith
24. Dec, 2007
Oh, and one thing about Mr. Mom that did annoy me: the baby of the clan (who looks about one year old) conveniently disappears while Jack has his caregiver crisis and spends all day drinking beer and watching soaps. Please: babies that age need constant care and supervision. I’ve noticed that this happens a lot in movies with stay at home parents: the babies just go away when inconvenient to the plot. In reality, you have your crisis and you change diapers and you grit your teeth and wait for the crisis to pass. But then it stops being funny and just becomes depressing.
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28. Dec, 2007
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