06

The most active thread over the weekend was titled, "The Dad Privilege Checklist" and was posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. The original poster linked to a Substack article that was titled the same as thread. The author of the article posits that "Almost all fathers can slack off, confident in the knowledge that someone else will do the work for them" and then provides a list of ways that fathers are privileged relative to mothers. The original poster of the thread invites others to read the checklist and provide their reactions. One of the earliest reactions was to say, "It's an idiotic list." In contrast, just after that another poster stated that "My husband enjoys most of the privileges." My own reaction is that while the idea behind the Substack article has some validity, the actual article was not particularly well done. Frankly, some of the things listed were pure nonsense. It is true that ours is a traditionally patriarchal system that has provided significant privileges to men, especially fathers. But equally true is that for several generations, significant inroads have been made toward equality. Progress has been uneven and varies from family to family. As such, no such checklist is going to be universally applicable. Nevertheless, this was not a particularly good list. As one poster noted, "It's a crowd-sourced list of petty grievances and projections, most of which are unsupported by any real data or facts." On a list of this length — over 100 entries long — there are obviously going to be a few entries that fit specific relationships. In many cases, however, it is reasonable to ask if the items are true privileges, or rather the result of a division of labor. For instance, one poster — who is a father — wrote, "We divide and conquer. For example, I handle paperwork like school registration, health forms for camp, and paying tuition" but his wife "handles clothes, including laundry and buying clothes" and other duties. He says that they divide up tasks based on who has time and skills. The real failure of the article, I think, is that it almost guarantees that the forest will be missed for the trees. There are so many items of questionable validity that they tend to undermine the entire point of the post. I think a better approach would have simply been to point out that, more often than not, the mother is the default parent and responsible for all that entails. This results in natural privileges with regard to parenting for fathers that may or may not be offset by responsibilities in other areas. Just as the length of the list means that it includes several items for which many fathers take responsibility, it also includes "privileges" that ring true for many of the women responding. However, women who say that the list applies to their husbands come under fire not only from defensive men, but also from women who question why they made such a poor choice of a husband. This might be the ultimate privilege. A man can be lazy and incompetent, but his wife will be the one who is blamed.