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
What Our Dads Say
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“As we stay at home dad’s know, being a SAHD is not really sad at all.” — Mark Greene
“I titled my site MEGA SAHD, as a tongue in cheek play on the unfortunate sound you make when you speak the abbreviation for Stay At Home Dad (SAHD). As in, “You are a stay at home dad. How SAD for you.” So I pretty much had to add MEGA, which is some kind of children’s animated fighting toy reference. Its meant to conjure brightly colored body armor and a big glowing sword while doing the dishes. Anyway, I went with it.
As we stay at home dad’s know, being a SAHD is not really sad at all. It’s insane. It’s alarming. It’s exhausting. It’s hilarious. It generates a MASSIVE amount of personal growth. It’s frustrating. It’s isolating. It’s gender ANNOYING. It’s deeply satisfying. But no, not really sad. Sad is for funerals. This is a self-improvement boot camp amazing-kid carnival of dirty dishes.
Who qualifies as a stay at home dad, anyway? Is it about not having a paying job? Is it about some sort of cleaning fetish? Or is it something simpler? Is it about not knowing how to find the door? I supposed the title SAHD initially implies something akin to “house husband.” Or, “person who seems out of place at play dates.” One FEELS that the Mr. Mom question is floating out there. IE: Why doesn’t that poor man have a job? Is he developmentally disabled?
But the fact is, a lot of stay at home Dads are freelancing or running home businesses. Which means, stay at home dads can even be the primary breadwinner. So, lets just broaden our point of view a little, okay?
Aside from the INSANE amount of work it takes to raise a child and keep a house in order which is a big political issue in itself, I think the most fundamental issue here is this: deep and significant growth has happened in my life. Changes so vast, that I scarcely can imagine who I was before my son Sam was born. It has been a baptism by fire. It has changed me into a person I like a lot more than that guy I used to be. And more than anything else, it has created a real understanding of what work, love, family and joy can be.
As for the Daddy Wars. I’m going to let the snooty moms down at the park and the captains of industry on Fifth Avenue go on about their business. Because the little hand that is holding mine means more to me than all the worn out, status quo, bullshit societal norms they’re peddling. Its a new world. And for men there is finally space for us to raise our children every single day if thats what we want to do. We can get down into the scuffed knees and dirty socks ebb and flow of our children’s lives instead of watching them grow up from some detached corner office a million miles away. And for this particular man, that is the difference between living a full life or not.”
What Our Dads Say
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“I’m the stay-at-home parent in a two-dad family. Please don’t call it gay-at-home.” –William Lucas Walker
As the stay-at-home (please don’t call it gay-at-home) parent in a two-dad family, who does the bulk of lunch-packing, chauffeuring, extracurricularing, costume-sewing, cooking, feeding, disciplining, showering, putting-to-bedding, school-related anythinging, I can only say: I asked for it. And I’m glad I did. I wouldn’t trade anything for the time I’ve gotten to spend watching my children grow, every day and close-up.
Yes, it can get frustrating. And overwhelming. And yes, I yell and make mistakes and miss being around adults doing adult things and having adult conversations. But I chose to bring these kids into the world and they deserve the best I have to offer, as flawed as that can sometimes be.
I feel lucky and grateful that financially we are able to give this to our kids. They know that if they have a playdate or call home sick from school, it’s not a nanny or assistant who’s going to drive them or pick them up from school because Daddy’s too busy working. I believe it was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis who said of parenting, “If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do well matters very much.” Words I try to live by. We all bungle parts of it; there are days I feel like I bungle most of it. But I’ve never bungled it by not being there.
Oddly enough, my own stay-at-home mom was one of the most alarmed that I planned to step back from my career when our daughter was born 11 years ago. “You’re not going back to work?” Until I put it to her like this: “So how do you see this working? Kelly and I both keep working and what? Leave our kids to be raised by a pack of wolves?” She never mentioned it again, especially after I told her one of the reason I’d chosen to stay home was because of how much I valued all she’d brought to my life by being there for me. Every day. When I got home from school.
Still, society still expects men to bring home the bacon. But when there are two of you, somebody has to throw in the microwave and press COOK. I waited a long time before the world was ready for me to be parent; no way I’m outsourcing that job.
Check out “Spilled Milk,” a recurring humor column by William Lucas Walker in The Huffington Post.
What Our Dads Say
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“Let’s save the real war metaphors for Hemingway and jingoists. They do a better job with them and fatherhood is more beautifully complex than that.” — Charlie Capen
The polarization and amped-up war metaphors used in the article are tabloid and lack depth, regardless of whether or not the quoted fathers’ experiences exist. The intent becomes more about drawing in readers through provocative headlines than a real examination. I’d rather see the conversation elevated through honest discussion instead of taunting headlines (says the guy who wrote “Why Won’t My Wife Have Sex with Me?”). Why do we have to be sensationalist? Why use aristotelian think in these types of articles when it’s just not that simple. I’ve encountered strange reactions to my being an engaged father who isn’t afraid to solo-parent. They’ve ranged from absurd, vocal criticism to people practically kidnapping my son when he’s hurt himself at the park. But I have other father friends that have NEVER had those experiences and think I’m just paranoid.
Let’s save the real war metaphors for Hemingway and jingoists. They do a better job with them and fatherhood is more beautifully complex than that.
— Charlie Capen is a colorblind actor/musician/ writer/dad living near the outskirts of Los Angeles. Raised in captivity atop the hills of San Francisco as the son of a roaming radio DJ father and executive power mom, he knew as a child that children were more important than adults. Though he has played many roles as an actor, his biggest part and hardest gig will be to pass himself off as a decent father. Charlie blogs at HowToBeADad.com
What Our Dads Say
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“Dads want to be more involved with their children but many are trapped in a false reality of what it means to be a man…It’s a battle to fight through these obstacles, but we’re winning.” — Al Watts
The common belief, especially with the religious right, is that a man’s job is to provide for his family. There are many bible passage that support this view. Most people assume this means financial; I believe it means to provide whatever the family needs. In our family, we decided one of us should stay home with the children. My wife made good enough money and had better long-term career options than me so we decided I should stay home. I began providing for our family in a physical and emotional way instead of a financial way. Nine years and four kids later, it is still working out just fine.
There are still many men and women who think child care is naturally a job for women. I have discovered this is a myth. Dads can be just as good, and sometimes even better, than women at child care. Increasingly, dads want to be more involved with their children but many are trapped in a false reality of what it means to be a man or their employer is unsympathetic to his desire to be a better parent or his wife is unnecessarily critical of the way he parents. It’s a battle to fight through these obstacles but winning and becoming a more involved father means happier, healthier, more confident children.
— Al Watts, Co-Editor, “Dads Behaving Dadly: Chronicles of the Fatherhood Revolution”
What Our Dads Say
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“Wouldn’t it have been great if the author had asked some questions that opened up the possibility that, socially, things aren’t so terrible for dads?” — Andy Hines
The main problem with this piece is the title: Rise of the Dad Wars. As if the late reemergence of the ridiculous coinage “Mommy Wars” weren’t enough, the author (or maybe her editor) trotted out a version with TruckNutz attached. The use of the war metaphor has the opposite if its intended effect in this case. Instead of making the ‘controversy’ seem more serious, it just draws attention to its relative frivolity.
The article itself isn’t bad, just superficial. There is a narrative–that dads are treated as second-class parents in our society–and it never wavers from the course. It may be helpful for someone who had never heard of a stay-at-home-dad, or for whom the idea of an involved father was foreign, but otherwise it’s a collection of the standard gripes that dads have about playground isolation.
Although as a SAHD myself I’ve very seldom felt singled out in a negative way among moms, I don’t doubt that the stories of the dads quoted were true. But wouldn’t it have been great if the author had asked some questions that opened up the possibility that, socially, things aren’t so terrible for dads? I can’t imagine that it would have been too difficult to find some outliers who felt comfortable and accepted among moms, or who actually had networks of dads that they hung out with.
What Our Dads Say
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“I’ve definitely felt ostracized by moms I’ve run into, but once they learn I’m gay, most seem a lot friendlier. I think straight stay-home dads have it worse in that respect.” — Jerry Mahoney
“As gay dads, my partner and I approached the question of staying home a little differently. We’d just spent two years of our lives, not to mention a fortune, trying to have kids. It seemed silly that we would then hire a woman to be their nanny while we worked all day and barely got to see them. We knew we could raise our twins without a woman’s help, or we wouldn’t have had them. Not that my decision to stay home was politically motivated. It was just something I really wanted to do, and I haven’t regretted it for a moment.
I’ve definitely felt ostracized at times by the moms I’ve run into, but once they learn I’m gay, most of them seem a lot friendlier toward me. I think straight stay-home dads have it worse in that respect.”
— Jerry Mahoney is a stay-home gay dad, writer, sporadic tweeter and a frequent Bowser in Mario Kart. This piece probably appeared originally on his blog, Mommy Man.