More on the Today Show and Marie Claire
Posted on 20. Aug, 2010 by Brian Reid in Uncategorized
Last week’s airing of the Today Show piece related to Marie Claire’s take on at-home-fathers-as-status-symbols gave dads some more to chew on, and there are a couple of follow-ups worth making.
First, Jason Sperber, the dad profiled by Today and by Marie Claire, wrote about his experiences on his blog. It’s worth the read. Part of what Jason talks about is the danger of being sucker-punched by the media. His experience with at-home fatherhood is pretty much glowing, from what I can tell, and yet the magazine chose to include some quotes from his wife that suggested something different. To her credit, the Marie Claire magazine reporter, Hilary Stout, apologized (in a fashion) and let Jason quote from that e-mail.
I can sympathize. A long time ago, a reporter for a national magazine played the same stunt on my wife and me. We gave, in total, nearly 3 hours of interviews, talking about how we made our decisions, how it benefited everyone in the family and the statements we wanted to make about gender roles and equity. And — out of that — were pulled two quotes that made both of us sound whiny. I was, to say the least, horrified. (And that’s why, all the years later, I’m not linking to it.)
The second bit of commentary related to Today was that, once, I ended up on set with Matt Lauer and that he mentioned to me (and rockstar academic Aaron Rochlen) that he hoped to be an at-home dad some day. Maybe all of this at-home dad stuff that has become so prominent on Today is just advanced research for Matt. I, for one, can’t wait to see him trade the wingtips for Chuck Taylors and make the annual pilgrimage to the At-Home Dad Convention.