Heather Davey Fusco explores the reasons many women refuse to believe dads can be as competent as moms, and apologizes to the Stay-at-Home Dad she accidentally insulted.
Originally appeared at Priss & Vinegar
It all started during one of our regular early morning people-watching seshes in Laurel Village. The Little Lady is in an aggressively friendly phase and saying “Hi!” is her absolute favorite. She delights in greeting passerby as well as trees, dogs, mailboxes and people on television. (Not to worry: MENSA has been contacted.) To help the Little Lady hit her “Hi”-per-day quota, we’ve taken to parking ourselves outside of our local Peet’s most mornings with coffee, a bagel and an unobstructed view of the bustling sidewalk. It’s a “Hi” target goldmine.
As you might expect, I meet a lot of new people with such an exceedingly friendly sidekick. Just last week, we met two darling little boys and their father who had been drawn in by the Little Lady’s greeting. (Her sweet, high-pitched, breathy “Hi” really is irresistible.) While the boys shared their toys with the Little Lady and cooed sweetly at her, I inquired about their plans for the day. Their father offered that they were spending the day with him, and the boys added that their mom was “at work.” I responded brightly (and here’s where it gets weird): “Guess that means it’s break the rules day!”
What?
Seriously?!
The father responded quietly but firmly: “I actually run a pretty tight ship. I’m a stay-at-home dad.“
BURN. We deserved that. His boys were polite, well-behaved, dressed in clean, matching, weather-appropriate clothing *and* their hair was perfectly combed. (Which is more than we can say for the cream cheese face mask and bedhead our kid was sporting.)
Here’s the thing: we KNOW that men are just as capable as women at being responsible, thoughtful and diligent parents. We live with one. (Hi, dear.) So why was our first, irrepressible instinct to assume otherwise?
As much as we may pop off about modern motherhood, some dark corner of our brain harbors 1950′s prejudices about fathers. If women can now equal and surpass their male counterparts at work, why can’t men enjoy the same upward mobility at home? Is it that we’ve heard too many (cave)men jokes about the pampered, bonbon eating existences of stay-at-home mothers? Or are we afraid that men might become such competent parents that they (gasp) don’t need us?
Perhaps we want it both ways, to be the MVP at the office *and* at home. We may complain about how daddies don’t load the dishwasher properly or tie hair bows just so, but men being perceived as incompetents might actually feed some subconscious female desire to be needed by one’s family. Wanting to feel needed,necessary, is a pretty normal human emotion, but to recognize it as expressed by our recent, ugly behavior was a reality check.
So, anonymous stay-at-home dad with the two darling sons: we’re sorry. You’re clearly doing a kick-ass job and don’t deserve our condescension. And to the Hus-b (and all the other fathers who parent capably on a daily basis): we’re sorry to you, too. Being born without breasts doesn’t automatically make you less likely to enforce household rules, comb your kids’ hair or remember pediatrician appointments. We’re all on the same team, really, trying to raise great kids and live meaningfully. Co-MVPs for life?
Also read: 12 Things Not to Say to a Stay-at-Home Dad by Mark Greene
Photo of dad fixing daughter’s shoe courtesy of Shutterstock
About Heather Davey Fusco
The father in question was actually inadequate. That is, the comment affected him. He was not confident in his role. Were he complete, he would have nodded agreeably at the old standing joke and gone on his way thinking of something else. Matching outfits…. Substituting for confidence. Control of detail because of anxiety about things going every which way. Every which way is healthier for kids. But…. Man, I like pshrinking people I never met. Thing is, I might be right.
The “we” as editorial or imperial is old. It implies that practically everybody does this or that bad thing the writer has done/seen. Until we have something empirical to share, keep it to the first-person single.
Matter of fact, the writer’s view, or the writer’s one-off mistake, is immaterial. SAHD do what they’re going to do and what other people think is, or ought to be, monumentally irrelevant.
For sexism, see Peggy Noonan, “Welcome back, Duke”, written in the shadow of 9-11. She doesn’t say “we”. She says “I”, which is proper.
I can come across as being a sexist bigot but I am mainly mirroring the opinions of women that men are and it seems that this article enforces that. I think that it is called becoming what you are called. Like a label can stick to the most unlikely of people. Yep I was indifferent to peoples differences until people made me form an opinion about things cos they wanted to know what I thought about the things that I never thought about in any way other than for a brief moment to conclude that there are people like that what I thought about it amounted to nothing.
Some people who claim to be different and included caused offence in me. Not because I thought of them as being different, they forced me to think of what they are. I declared that I had no wish to think of them in any way other than to accept what was before me.
I did not have to agree nor disagree with anything unless I chose to do so. They said I had to and in doing that they went against the way that I was and could still be, indifferent to difference and accepting of all that is. I would include; all that could be, but they could not accept me without changing me so being me could not be for me.
I think that my ideas were too simple for their liking and they wanted to complicate and confuse my thinking, and they did. I also think that this was because of their practices.
Some people “Get on a Hi” when you score a goal or point and go on a frenzy. When you do that, you make more enemies.
This leads back to a Sept. article by Mark Greene about the dark side of women’s wishes for progressive men.
That is, does going progressive–SAHD, ex–cause a woman to think less of a man, including losing sexual attraction for him?
Hannah Rosin, interviewed by Tucker Carlson on CSpan, got, inevitably, to the question of the restaurant. Yes, with some hemming and hawing, if the guy isn’t forthright and foreceful about which restaurant, the woman will despise him, no matter how she claims to want equality and progressivism. I believe the invevitable “restaurant” question stands for a good deal else.
@Richard: “The father in question was actually inadequate.” It is normal for people, in whatever occupation they may toil, to expect to be taken seriouly and be respected just as their peers are.Secondarily, this father’s reaction to the slight seemed well within the boundaries of social acceptance.Certainly,it was far more diplomatic than I would have been in his stead. The unfortunate truth is many women are territorial and bristle at being seen as an equal in parenting.Some women even lose attraction for their husbands when husbands become SAHD’s. I can speak for me and say that I wish someone had told me this shit BEFORE I got married?!
As a SAHD I’d like to say Thank You for this article.