"""Men should not feel emancipated because everyone believes they are only mildly competent as caregivers"""
I fully agree with this. I strive to do as much work in raising my one child as my wife does. Recently my wife had to cover two saturday shifts giving me two full days with my son ( breakfast to bedtime ). My wife approaced the days like they would be some great hardship for me. I approached them as wonderfull opertuinities to spend extra time with my two year old. Even though I try to do just as much as she does in terms of feeding and changing and general parenting, the fact that for most of the week I am only present for maybe an hour a day gives her the impression that I am incapable of handling the full load of responsability by myself. I see this as the issue. If men do have full time jobs and their wifes are stay at home moms then there will allways be this perception. People always assume that those who are _not_ doing what they do _can't_ do what they do
I get the same thing too, but people seem hyper-scared for our family when I'm at home with our twin 18m boys: "Well is your mom (kids' grandma) going to help him? No!? I can't believe you'd leave him alone like that."
I'm about |---| this close to start responding with highly offensive responses like "Well, I can't believe your husband trusts you with a credit card, because women are bad at money and math". My wife gets just as offended as I do when her friends say stuff like that to her.
Expecting some downvotes, but unless someone's said it to your face or your wife's told you some of the things her friends say, you can't know how infuriating it is when people don't think you're capable of taking care of your own kids.
I'm a new father and I already can not count the number of times my wife and I have already been asked the cutesy "so how many diapers has he changed?" question.
The automatic assumption that I'm just going to phone it in -- not to mention the assumption that my wife would put up with me, were I that type of person -- has already strained more than a few relationships.
Never mind that my wife had a difficult labor, unexpected surgery and was stuck in a hospital bed, leaving me to handle everything other than breastfeeding, for the first four days and it never even occurred to either of us to call a grandmother in as a ringer.
We just always planned on each doing as much as we could and so my stepping up when she couldn't was the most obvious and natural thing in the world. At least, to us.
Seemingly half of everyone we know expected I'd hold my daughter just long enough to hand her to my mother and then head back to work.
And as to the people who see my wife out and about and ask in shock/concern whether it's a good idea/whether I can really handle looking after our infant daughter by myself while she so much as runs a few errands ... I have never actually been so angry as to see red before.
I was in the same boat: My wife carried twins and had a rough non-delivery followed by a C-section. She couldn't hardly walk for the first three weeks, and I took six weeks off total, so I pretty much did everything that didn't involve mammary glands (but I did have to wake to feed them extra milk from a bottle).
And not that I kept track, but it took a looong time for my wife to catch up on the diaper count.
And I felt guilty as all hell when I did go back to work.
[1] There might be something there. If our social expectation shifted to allow that fathers ought to/might want to be involved with their children, we'd probably have to update our archaic views on paternity leave. As is, I burned through all my vacation and then some and then stretched my employers tolerance for 'working from home' as far as it would go before I returned. And in the end I still had to go back before my wife got the doctor's Ok to drive, or to lift anything heavier than our child.
You could have taken six weeks off. You were legally permitted by law to take up to 12 unpaid weeks and still have your job waiting for you when you got back (assuming your employer had 50 or more employees and you had been working there for a year IANAL). Most people don't know that you can actually take up to 24 weeks, but if you do take more than 12 then your employer is not obligated to give you your exact job back, only a comparable one. You also didn't have to take it immediately after your child was born, but that you had up to one year to take your baby leave.
I wasn't paid for all 6 weeks. My wife and I had to save up a cash cushion (and her leave was paid because her company had wayyy better benefits than mine). It was a decision and an expense that was important for us, so we saved up for it because we knew that my wife would probably be out of commission for the first six weeks our boys were born and the first 4-6 months of twins is a crapton of work.
I never felt guilty when I came back to work. Once you really internalize that people in a company are replaceable, you just start preparing people for when you leave on vacation or baby leave instead of worrying about it.
Yeah, with FMLA I could have taken more time, unpaid. I just wasn't in a place where I could do that and still feel comfortable about our savings. [1]
And to be clear: I felt guilty for being away from my wife and daughter. I didn't spare a moment of concern for my employer or colleagues -- they're pretty good people and all, but they can take care of themselves.
And while I know my wife can handle things, I still felt guilty because going to work is so much easier. At least, as a first time parent, the parenting side feels far more stressful/intensive/important.
[1] After the dot-com blow-out I became pretty paranoid about how much was reasonable to hold in reserve. And seeing how long unemployment stretches are going these days only convinced me to pad out that number. Particularly now that I have to factor in a higher burn rate.
Agree about first time parenting being more stressful/intensive. We used to joke that we were so tired from the weekend that we looked forward to going to work on Monday.
Honestly, it goes well beyond childcare. I think a lot of people simply don't expect men to do anything but go to work and come home and mow the lawn with a beer in hand.
When my son was in Cub Scouts, I remember the scoutmaster asking the kids how they helped at home (in order to get a badge or something). My son said "I help my Dad cook." Scoutmaster looked puzzled for a second, then said, "oh, you mean on the grill. OK!" No, he means he helps me make breakfast, lunch, dinner, bake cookies, whatever needs to be done.
Likewise when my wife was pregnant, she couldn't lift heavy things during the last couple months. We live on a horse farm and normally she thinks nothing of tossing around 60lb bales of hay. When she was asked who was doing her chores when she was pregnant, and she said that I was, the look of amazement on the other woman's face was classic "are you serious???"
Oddly enough, no one seems surprised that I change diapers!
As well as societal norms, it's not too surprising that the Cub Scouts would be surprised by it. The Boy Scouts ban anyone who's gay. Part of their policies are in the past.
I agree with you, but why do people think this way? Because there are fathers who absolutely cannot function as a caregiver to their own children. I have friends who have trouble watching their kids for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon while their wives do other things. So, the stereotype exists for a reason--but I agree it is not pleasant to be judged by it.
Parenting isn't rocket science, but it's hard work that requires a bit of introspection if you wish raise your kids well. It's a shame that folks have kids but have no desire to shoulder the burden they've accepted.
And there are mothers who absolutely cannot function as a caregiver to their own children.
I think the article is asking why mothers are assumed to be good parents and everyone assumes fathers are lucky if they can get pants on their kids in the morning.
I guess I didn't fully get the point in my mind across. Yeah, some people are poor caregivers (like most anything in life), but some people also don't expend the energy to be competent caregivers (that is, they are perfectly capable of getting kids their dressed in the morning, but for whatever reason, can't get their brains around it). Of course, in the States at least, the cultural tradition, set over generations, is that fathers are to provide for their families, and mothers do the dirty work of raising children. So, for many fathers, their task ends when they get home from work--"there, I've put the proverbial food on the table, now leave me alone so I can rest."
My grandfather used to beat the crap out of my dad with his belt. My dad decided he didn't want to do that to me. I'm deciding to be a more involved dad than father have by historical standards. I don't think I'm alone.
The linked article is saying there are a lot of other dads out there like me but the rest of society hasn't caught up yet.
I agree completely. My hope, too, is that more dad's like us (I was the "primary caregiver" for large swaths of time when my wife was in grad school) will change the perception.
To be fair, I am very involved raising my three-year-old, but I am lucky if I can tell his pajamas from his proper clothes, and as often as not fail to dress him in an outfit his mother aproves of. :)
Do you also buy the clothes? Being involved from the buying point helps a lot to understand the logic of it all IMO. I had the same pb with the different baby creams, and had to choose one in the shop to really get what is used for what.
Eh, don't feel bad. If they're not denim or button down there's really no difference in kids' day-clothes vs. their pajamas. "Convention over configuration" I think we tend to call it in our industry :).
or it's the result of institutionalized gender roles.
It used to be 'common knowledge' that women can't be relied on for intense jobs ("They might get hysterical!"), but thanks to a long campaign from the feminist movement, most people know such broad generalisations are false. This is the same as the "men are bad caregivers"
The stereotype certainly has validity insomuch as stereotypes do, but it isn't because men are biologically or mentally incapable of raising children. Instead it's a happenstance of history that women usually did the child rearing while men did the hunting and gathering and war making. Each sex had their roles, and this is seen in almost every culture, everywhere where people were found, throughout history.
Now we don't have to hunt and gather or wage war -- or at least not as frequently -- so those roles are obsolete. That doesn't remove the culturally entrenched positions.
So you have men feigning strategic incompetence to avoid something they've been conditioned not to do, and women assuming incompetence of the other sex, acting territorial about their responsibilities. While we are more enlightened now, that doesn't undo millennia of precedent.
Agreed. As first time parents, both men and women tend to feel completely lost. However, the pressure seems to be on women to "figure it out", because if they admit incompetence in any way, they're looked down upon severely, while the same pressure doesn't exist for men.
I'm not saying that there aren't a lot of wonderful fathers who try hard and contribute (my own father and my DH being two of them), but until we make a massive cultural shift towards expecting this, this problem will continue to exist.
Adding to this is that while both will feel lost, women are more likely than men to have at least some experience with children by the time they have kids of their own. For instance, how many of the babysitters when you were a kid were teenage boys?
we have 5 kids. They're older now (youngest is 10), but I watched them while their mother shopped, or had other things to do. We had great fun! I'm like you - I can't understand why people would think men are incapable of handling kids.
Back in the day it was seen as perfectly fine for the husband to take care of the money, and for him to give his wife a bit of money for shopping and things like that. Now we have moved on from that (thankfully!). However there are still people who think that men can't handle children.
People always assume that those who are _not_ doing what they do _can't_ do what they do.
I can definitely attest to this sentiment. When my son was born two years ago, I decided to quit working and become a full time stay-at-home dad. When my wife told the other women in her mother's group about my decision, one of the first responses she got back was, "You trust him?" The implication being that not only are fathers less capable than mothers, but that men are so incompetent at parenting that leaving a child in the care of Dad might be a risky decision! I think this sentiment, plus the still present cultural expectation for dads to be "good providers", is part of why you don't see men contributing more in the home.
Likewise, I became a full-time stay-at-home dad about 2 and a half years ago.
I still have people ask me when I'm going to "get a real job". I can write it off when it comes from my 91 year old grandfather, but it's often coming from 30-something women and men.
The implication is that you're not a "real man" if you're not financially supporting the family, and that your wife is not a "real woman" if she lets her husband watch the kids. I'm often surprised by how many people refer to our situation negatively, while they seem to view it as heroic when a single mom works and puts her kids in daycare.
She could easily turn it around and get offended that those women think that she would marry a man she couldn't trust. At the very least it would force their hand into verbalizing their sexist views, rather than subtlely implying them.
I have heard multiple people express the same sentiment to mothers who leave their kinds in the care of stay-at-home dads. Somehow if your child is left in the care of a male then he is at risk for bodly harm.
One of the common gender asymmetries of parenting is that a father's "more active role" is more likely to be as "the fun parent." Dad takes his daughter fishing and coaches her soccer team instead of taking her to get a haircut and serving on the PTA fundraising committee.
When our child was two, on my Saturday's as caregiver because my spouse was working, the day was organized around a "big adventure." When I was the one working the weekend, the house got vacuumed and the week's groceries got bought...our child got fed and bathed, too, of course.
On my days in charge, I got to be entirely present. The priority was a walk in the woods, not the laundry. The all of the article is cherry picked. The all that is expected of women is far more encompassing.
> "The all that is expected of women is far more encompassing."
The article isn't about how much women do or how high expectations are for them. Truly the more-present parent, regardless of gender, has a more serious parenting load.
The article is about the social expectations for fathers.
To put it in more clear terms:
Society expects X from mothers.
Society expects Y from fathers.
The article is not about a comparison between X and Y in any way. It's not about whether X ~= Y. It's not about whether X > Y or whether X >> Y. It's not about whether any of those comparisons being true might be fair or accurate or desirable.
The article is about society's expectation that Y ~= 0 and acts surprised as all hell whenever Y > 0. And how that is bad, shameful and insulting.
It's interesting that people are bothered by the asymmetry in society's parenting expectations while completely validating the asymmetry between a husband and wife in other household duties (even when the wife also maintains a full time job).
"""Men should not feel emancipated because everyone believes they are only mildly competent as caregivers"""
I fully agree with this. I strive to do as much work in raising my one child as my wife does. Recently my wife had to cover two saturday shifts giving me two full days with my son ( breakfast to bedtime ). My wife approaced the days like they would be some great hardship for me. I approached them as wonderfull opertuinities to spend extra time with my two year old. Even though I try to do just as much as she does in terms of feeding and changing and general parenting, the fact that for most of the week I am only present for maybe an hour a day gives her the impression that I am incapable of handling the full load of responsability by myself. I see this as the issue. If men do have full time jobs and their wifes are stay at home moms then there will allways be this perception. People always assume that those who are _not_ doing what they do _can't_ do what they do