Fresh Dad Numbers, All in One Place
Posted on 28. Sep, 2010 by Brian Reid.
In preparation for my presentation at the At-Home Dad Convention on Saturday (you’re going, right), I’ve made sure that my at-home dad statistics page is up to date. I’ve realized that there are a bunch of numbers that I’ve come to rely upon that are no longer being updated, and I’m trying to see if I can track ‘em down before Saturday. (Demographically engaged readers: I’m looking for SIPP child care data more recent than summer, 2006 …)
Of note, I realized that I missed this highly dubious (but encouraging!) survey from Spike TV that said that 73 percent of guys were at least “somewhat” willing to do the at-home dad thing. Food for thought.
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Newsweek Messes Up Masculinity
Posted on 27. Sep, 2010 by Brian Reid.
Newsweek is aware that *something* is going on with guys. I mean, the evidence is everywhere: the recession hit guys a lot harder than women, social roles are clearly being redefined, women are outearning men, Sweden is doing something right, dogs are sleeping with cats, etc. And they turned that mishmash of fact and anecdote into … a mishmash of an article last week that, ultimately, says nothing.
I have a number of ways I can go with this post. I could encourage everyone to read the only the last paragraph, sigh at the simplistic and silly idea that dads should continue to draw their worth from their jobs (or at least half of their worth), and then take advantage of the 30 minutes that they would have otherwise spent reading the article.
I could do a paragraph-by-paragraph explanation of the errors made (the number of at-home dads has not “stalled at 3 percent”) and the silly implications left unchallenged (that huge majorities of both political parties are committed to paid leave), but then parcel out praise for picking up insight from Joan Williams, Jeremy Adam Smith and Michael Chabon.
Or I could try to put the article in historical context. It seems like the “new macho” that the piece describes isn’t so new at all. I’ll buy a beer at the convention to any guy who can find a Newsweek piece on Robert Bly from 20 years ago talking about the “new macho.” I could drop even older history, noting that the whole man-is-defined-by-his-paid-work meme isn’t some sort of inescapable fact of society; before the industrial revolution, families looked a lot more like the involved-father, post-modern makeup than most people realize.
It seems like everyone does best when there aren’t any expectations at all, and fathers can do what’s best for them or the family without feeling locked into any stereotype. Because there wasn’t always a “right” way to be a man. One of my favorite books on fatherhood is an old, old work by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the guy who wrote “The Scarlet Letter.” He was once left as the primary caretaker of his little boy for 3 weeks, and 20 Days With Julian and Little Bunny by Papa is a charming set of stories about watching his kid grow and explore.
But that book is missing one element that has become standard in almost all first-person accounts of fatherhood (see Michael Lewis or Austin Murphy for a contrast): Hawthorne spends zero time ruminating on whether or not he is swimming against some current of manhood or fatherhood. He’s just a dad, hanging out with his kid.
That’s what we need: less navel-gazing about “why we need to reimagine masculinity” and more being just a dad, hanging out with the kids.
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Integrating ‘Mommy & Me’
Posted on 24. Sep, 2010 by Brian Reid.
Full disclosure: I have never, as a dad, been explicitly forbidden from engaging in any sort of parental activity based solely on my gender. For a long time, I assumed that excluded dads were something of an urban legend. And then I heard about a Nashville mom interested in keeping dads away. And then I saw Dana Glazer’s wonderful film, Evolution of Dad, which captures, on tape, a mom denying Dana an invitation to a “Mommy & Me” class.
This week, Dana put up the 3-minute clip of the film where the exclusion takes place as part of a larger post at Huffington Post.I’ve been open that I understand “moms’ nights out,” and grabbing beers with the guys. But I remain baffled by anyone who would — in a childrearing environment — shut out parents. Dana puts it eloquently:
There’s a famous quote by Gloria Steinem that I think is worth repeating here: “Women are not going to be equal outside the home until men are equal in it.” There’s certainly been a lot of growth in terms of how the genders work together, but there’s still a great deal of resistance from all sides. As a society, we still hold too tightly to old stereotypes of what moms and dads should be doing — even when reality dictates we should be more open.
Curious: any of you ever been excluded in this way?