I recently read an article in Mothering magazine written by a new dad. He was talking about the attention that he gets when he goes out alone with his baby. People stare, and comment on what a wonderful dad he is to be taking out a baby all by himself. There were oohs and ahs over what a “cute daddy” he was…and then when his wife met up with him later, attention from passersby immediately shifted solely towards the baby.
He brought up another interesting thing: when his wife is out alone with their baby, she doesn’t get comments on how wonderful it is that she can take a baby on an outing by herself. She gets a lot of compliments on her beautiful child, but not the same oohs and ahs about her mothering as he does about his fathering.
That story really got me to thinking. And I realized that I do the same thing– when I see a dad out with his kid or kids, it always makes me smile. I think to myself, “What a great dad! His kids must really love that kind of time with him,” as if it’s something unusual. Yet I see mothers with their children all the time and, I’ll be honest, while it’s nice, it doesn’t necessarily cause me to smile out of the blue.
It’s sort of sad, really. A blog entry I read brought to light a good point…this kind of gushing over dads being able to take care of their children is demeaning in a way, to the dads. I think that although society has accepted that both parents are capable of taking care of children, it still seems to expect dads to fall short somehow. And when they don’t, it’s treated as some kind of marvel.
Jon has done anything but fall short when it comes to parenting. He changes diapers, does bottle feedings, plays with Mason (sometimes more effectively than me, I might add!), and soothes him when he’s upset. He knows Mason’s bedtime routine, and legitimately enjoys giving him baths. Jon is active in almost every single way that I am in being a parent to Mason, and he has to be because I’m not always around. These aren’t things he does as a favor to me, or to “go above and beyond” — he does them because he is Mason’s dad. I think that if I didn’t expect anything from him at all and marveled at the things he did do, it would be condescending and offensive. I mean, hey, if he treated all of my mothering skills as some sort of big surprise, as if he never thought I would be able to do them, I would be offended too!
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that dads shouldn’t be complimented. It’s just that I think they shouldn’t be expected to be ignorant to parenting skills, in the same way that I don’t think mothers should be expected to know everything about babies. The role of Dad is an evolving one, and I think the ideas behind what a father should be are something a lot different than what they used to be.
Yes, deadbeat dads (and deadbeat moms, too) or dads that remain uninvolved will always exist, but there is a recognizable new “Dad” out there now who deserves to be treated with the same respect as all of us Moms…and he’s anything but clueless!
travels through motherhood 