Cross-Promotion: The Recession and the New Fatherhood
Posted on 24. Mar, 2009 by Brian Reid in General
For those of you not reading me at the washingtonpost.com, I wanted to flag my piece from last Thursday, which calls into question the recent spate of “poor-him” reporting on dads forced home by the recession. I called for some perspective on this:
My wife and I have passed the primary-breadwinner baton between us a half-dozen times in our marriage, each time renegotiating roles and responsibilities. It is not an easy conversation to have, and it is not comfortable to disrupt old daily routines. But it is a part of life, recession or otherwise. The media infatuation with these guys suggests that there is some deep, intractable and society-wide problem caused by men at home. There’s not. That doesn’t mean that isn’t a deep problem within many relationships, but that’s an issue of communications and marital counseling, not a national crisis.