A collection of thoughts by some of the most important dads around the internet, reacting to Mary Elizabeth Williams’ article on ‘Dad Wars’.
In a controversial take on the new face of fatherhood, Salon.com’s Mary Elizabeth Williams’ explored the idea that with the increasing numbers of fathers staying home with their children while their partners work outside the home, there is correlating increase in conflict between fathers and the outside world.
Williams interviewed a number of men who are the primary parents of their kids, and many expressed frustrations with the challenges of being a Primary Parent Dad—such as the struggle to have it all: career, relationship and time with kids, the presumption that they don’t know how to handle and raise their own children, and the sideways glances from those who assume stay-at-home dads haven’t chosen this as their careers, but rather landed home with their kids as a result of failing in the outside job market.
We here at The Good Men Project wanted to know whether some of the most important Dad Bloggers on the Internet agreed with the fathers in Wiliams’ Salon article. Here is a collection of their thoughts on Williams’ article, fatherhood, and being a Primary Parent Dad.
—photo: phamduythao / flickr
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Now this is good writing about real life. Five great pieces on fatherhood in one place. I’m not a dad, but if I were, I would hope to be like one of these guys. Thanks, gentlemen.
I’m just curious if you see a change in demands or expectations about “staying at home” versus “working outside the home” as your kids get older? Specifically, I’m wondering if, as your kids grow up a little, you feel the same need to be already at home when they get out of school. I was a latchkey kid from a pretty young age, and neither of my parents was quite a “stay-at-home” mom or dad. (And I turned out okay, according to most of my therapists….) Has your SAHD-ness changed over time as they get older and slightly more independent?
I have worked from home for the better part of the last five years. Does that make me the “Primary Parent?” Or, is Mrs. Eric M. the “primary parent” since she has chosen to not work? Do our kids know that one of us is primary and the other is secondary? That term and concept is seriously demeaning to the “secondary parent.”
Why does it seem that in so many articles on fatherhood that full time stay at home fathers are implied to be better/superior fathers compared to those of us who work full time? Neither of my daughters would consider me a secondary parent or any less important or involved in their lives. They know that bills don’t pay themselves and they are happy to be well cared for.
I, for one, have just as much, if not more, respect for fathers who commute, work full time, and still find time to be just as involved and important in our children’s lives. I don’t regard them as any less than stay at home fathers.
Every home is different. In yours, both you and your wife seem to be a constant physical presence in your kids’ everyday lives. That’s great for them. My husband works very hard, in an office outside the home. He has to leave the house before the rest of us wake up and usually isn’t home until dinnertime. He sometimes has to be out of town for a week at a time traveling. This week that meant that — though I’ve been sick for days and my doctor would have preferred that I be in bed trying to recover — I did everything I normally do for the kids. Today that also included trips to two doctors so my daughter could get a cast on her fractured ankle, plus driving to three pharmacies in search of one that had the right medicine in stock, despite the fact that I had a fever and was wiped out myself. It doesn’t mean I’m better, just here. My father was a doctor who worked long hours and my mother stayed at home. The fact that we saw more of my mother didn’t make us feel she was “primary” or “secondary” or any other kind of gary. We just knew she was the one to call when we needed stuff. I’m that guy.
You’re wife works outside the home, you stay at home full time with the kids. I get it. Hope you feel better soon.
Eric, I can see how the articles imply that working in an office somehow delineates you from parenthood. It seems like they’re all saying they became better parents as a result of staying home. However, don’t forget that they have partners who DO work in some remote area. Taking that into account, I doubt they’re diminishing their partners’ – or any parent’s – role in their children’s lives. I think the article’s main contention is that society as a whole should not generalize any individual’s lifestyle when it comes to parenting – NOT that parents who work and raise their kids are lesser people.
Stating by inference (using the term primary parent) that ones spouse is the secondary parent DOES diminish them. There is simply no getting around that. Glorifying men who stay at home as somehow superior to those of us who work and still maintain equally strong relationships with our children does imply that we are lesser. I get that it’s a reaction to feeling looked down upon but still.
They need to stop worrying about what other people think so much. If they can’t do that themselves, how are they going to teach their kids to deal with peer pressure?
From my personal experience with my husband and his brother in dealing with the family court, which IMHO is all important. Asking your wife NOW who is primary parent is unimportant. Ask her just before you step into court during your divorce. Pretty sure her answer will change. AND so will the courts opinion.
My Bob Geldof right a great piece a while back about his experience where he was told by a court clerk to NEVER tell the judge he loves his kids.
“Bob Geldof: “Going into the court, litterally opening the door, a well meaning clerk passed me by, and he tapped me on the shoulder and he said: “Good luck Bob.” And I said: “Yeah, thanks mate.” And he said: “Listen, can I give you a bit of advise?” And I said: “Yeah please.” And he said: “Whatever you do, don’t say you love your children.” I was taken it back, that was the sole defense I had…defense is the correct word … and I said: “Why not.”And he said: “Well, the court think it is extreme if a man articulates his love for his child.”””
h ttp://parental-alienation-syndrome.blogspot.ca/2006/10/love-that-dare-not-speak-its-name-bob.html
Now you men ought to understand how women feel when you all try to paint dads as more important to daughters’ self esteem. It’s funny how in this country, we say ouch when someone steops on that big toe.
Now, can we all just agree, that the role of stay at home parent is good when mom or dad does it. And which ever parent communicates, talks to, and spends time with the daughter and the son is the one who helps there self esteem. The mom does not have control over the stay at home job and the dad does not have control over the teen’s self esteem job. It’s which ever and anyone who fills those roles.
As my sister and I grew up, my mom worked and stayed at home during some years, and other years, she worked. She still was he one who spent one- on- one self esteem time with my sisters and I. My dad was loving, and he worked hard, but my mom is the one who did EVERY thing. So we need to get away from painting dads or moms by these broad brush strokes. A dad can be the primary care parent and the mom can help the daughters’ self esteem and teach them that they are worthy. Dads don’t have this dominance over self esteem and mom is not over primary care!! Every family can be different.
You’ve missed the point. It’s not a diss of moms.
The point is, neither mothers nor fathers are to be considered spare, as if kids do just as well with one of them, as opposed to having both of them. They don’t. Fathers are not dispensible. If girls don’t have their dads in their lives, if they only have their moms, they are missing out on a relationship that has unique benefits. Statistics show that girls benefit from having both a mother AND a father, not just a mother.
Single moms, sometimes through no fault of their own, carry the entire load, doing the very best they, or any single person, could. However, that is not best for the children.
I think Eric M. has some good points here. Calling someone a “primary parent” can sound a little dismissive to whoever the “other” parent is, or at the very least it is too big a term to be fair to every situation. If two parents are divorced and one has custody 90% of the time, I’d call that person a “primary parent.” If there are two parents in the same house who work for a paycheck and both get home about the same time the kids get out of school, then it’s hard to say that one is the “primary” parent just because he or she is the first one the kids go to with a question.
Okay, maybe it’s very rare for there to be a parenting team in which they are exactly equally responsible and do exactly the same amount of work on childrearing. But even if one does a little more hands-on childcare than the other doesn’t really mean that one is “the primary.”
Excellent terminology question: what would be the term for a parent who’s not the “primary” parent? Secondary? Auxiliary? Assistant? Associate? The Spare?
Jean: “Now you men ought to understand how women feel when you all try to paint dads as more important to daughters’ self esteem.”
What do you by “you men”? Who here has been trying to paint dads as more important to daughters’s self esteem?
I struggled to read the rest of your comment thanks to your generalizations. Next time, don’t paint “us men” with a broad brushstroke.
Why is my comment under moder….
Oh never mind.