Reply to Are standards for fathers that low?

Forum Index » General Parenting Discussion

Reply to "Are standards for fathers that low?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think it’s that boomers didn’t make their husbands do anything. My mom went on and on about how my dad never changed a diaper. When I had my kids, he quietly learned how to change a diaper and changed my kids if they were wet when he was playing with them (often. He saw them daily). He told me my mom criticized everything he did and didn’t let him.

[b]Millennial men step up. They still might be lacking on emotional labor things like planning holidays or even cleaning a home. But I see mostly men at daycare pickup and drop offs. I was at an elementary school field trip today and it was half dads as chaperones. Men are at the playground en masse on the weekends with their kids. [/b]

My dh rarely makes bottles. I EBF at home and on weekends, but pump for daycare. I make all the bottles because I have a way of mixing the milk and I made it all so I remember which bottle was morning milk, etc.  [/quote]

A lot of these men had to be yelled at by their wives to start parenting their children. Then they started stepping up but still resent their wives for not thinking they are God's gift to women because they do 40% of the parenting and housework and bring in 50% of the household income.[/quote]

No they didn't. Enough with your main character syndrome. Stop projecting your life experiences as if they're typical. They're not.[/quote]

DP but you don't know all dads.

I can say that my husband and my brothers both had to be badgered into being more equal (not quite equal) parents. I do think there's a spectrum of behavior and I think one reason my SILs and I had to work so hard is because we are from a community where this was really not emphasized or encouraged. Also in the prior generation in our community, few women worked and those that did tended to have jobs that still enabled them to be primary caregivers to kids.

I live in DC now and I see a lot more involved dads and I suspect one reason why is that many of them grew up in homes where their moms were highly educated and had jobs that would have been considered not appropriate for my mom and her peers in my community (in a more rural part of the US). I am now a highly educated working mom, and I feel I am raising my kids to understand that it is not the job of women to do all the childcare and housework, and that parents can both contribute to those projects and can also both work and earn money. My DH grew up like I did and this was a bit of a culture shock for him. He did eventually get on board but when we first had a kid, he absolutely reverted to the way we grew up (he seriously did LESS at home after our first was born than he had when we were DINKS, because I think becoming a dad flipped this switch in his brain that has told him since he was a baby that men go to jobs and women take care of the home, and it had just been dormant previously in our relationship).

Many, many people in this country still grew up with the division of labor my parents and ILs had, which means there are many men becoming parents and, like my husband, struggling with the fact that their family lives look very different from what they grew up with. You can't dismiss those experiences just because you and the people you know in what I would bet is a pretty culturally and socioeconomically homogenous friend group don't have these issues. You aren't everyone.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics