HuffPo on Guys at Home
Posted on 17. Oct, 2007 by Brian Reid in General
A number of you have forwarded on last week’s Huffington Post post by Peggy Drexler, which had the somewhat misleading title of “In Appreciation of the FTF (Full Time-Father).” While Drexler gives props to the At-Home Dad Convention and notes that SAHDs are “all good,” she then goes on to whittle away at the ideas that this is really a meaningful social shift:
- Drexler calls the number of FTFs “not huge,” which is all in the way you look at things. Two million plus primary caretakers, plus a couple million more single dads ain’t chump numbers.
- Drexler picks up on the bogus involved-fathers-lose-masculinity points arguments that Time invented, noting that “… manliness seems to come up a lot on the new at-home dad web sites that are popping up.” Google says I have never, ever used the term “manliness” on this blog, and I don’t see it much on the, oh, 60 or so dadblogs I monitor sporadically. Manliness is not really an issue with anyone but journalists.
- She says there is “emerging evidence” that mom runs the house even when dad is not there. I’ve never seen that evidence. There is plenty of evidence that in dual-earner household, mom takes the brunt of the household responsibilities — a reality that I find deplorable — but that’s not exactly “emerging”: The Second Shift is now 10 years old.
- Finally, drawing on her own experience, she says that at-home fatherhood is not a “slam-dunk” because “things might not be running with mom-like precision:”
[Fathers] are more likely to apply the five second rule (anything dropped that is not on the floor for more than five seconds is ok to eat), mismatch an occasional school outfit and are secure in the belief that dishes left in a sink for the afternoon do not cause Ebola.
There are a lot of reasons why involved fatherhood, as fast as it is growing, is not growing even faster. And I’ll acknowledge that the dads of the world shoulder the bulk of the responsibility for this. But c’mon: the faithful application of the five-second rule is no reason to cast aspersions on at-home dadhood.
Ginny
17. Oct, 2007
As a mother and the wife of a stay at home dad, I don’t have a problem with
1) the five second rule for dropped food
2) the occasional mismatched outfit (or heaven forbid too-short pants)
and
3) while i don’t like to look at dishes in the sink, they most certainly are not going to cause or create any communicable diseases.
So maybe I am not a “slam-dunk” as a mother??
Dustin
17. Oct, 2007
She’s basically parroting back the kind of stuff that’s kept men *out* of real fathering for so long: men are no good at this kind of stuff, so women *have* to do it.
It’s sad and even objectionable, but kind of understandable. A lot of men complained mightily when women started taking on the kinds of work that had defined men as “Men”; it stands to reason that many women would fight back when a lot of men (and like you said, 2 million-plus is quite a few!) start taking on work the previously defined “womanhood”.
Spencer at pinkbluecafe.com
17. Oct, 2007
Thank you for staying on top of this and blogging about it.
Your arguments are rational, and with a bit of humor, which makes for very level-headed and enjoyable reading.
Spencer
Fellow Stay at Home Parent (Dad)
Dave
17. Oct, 2007
It’s simple.. people always thing their lot it worse than others.. the parent with a paying job thinks that working for a paying boss is harder than at home parenting.. They think that because they aren’t at home parents.. and if they were.. they dropped it because they couldn’t keep up with whatever expectations they had for the job.
Dishes will sit.. and dishes will get done.. food will hit the floor.. floors will be dirty.. floors will be clean.. if ya ain’t doin’ it full time, you won’t appreciate how much work it really is..
It’s like a guy of one racial background trying to figure out how it is to be from another racial background… you can intellectualize it.. but you can’t know it..
Those of us in the trenches have to tell.. and we’re too busy to keep track of all the emotions and work.. hell.. we’re busy moving past one instant to the next.. if we stopped to write about it.. it’d make the next moments that much harder.. so we rely on our memories to write our stories.. and we edit them to make them readable.. and they just don’t convey the gravity of the job.
They won’t get it.. we need to accept that.. it is part of our job.
Rick
22. Oct, 2007
Come on peeps – it’s now a thirty second rule – they even did a study. So my parenting is probably even “scarier.”
Spencer at pinkbluecafe.com
23. Oct, 2007
Does it matter if it is at home or in public?
A sidewalk gives food a different life-expectancy than the living room floor.