Stay-at-home dads look forward to a time when there are no articles about stay-at-home dads, because there is nothing seen as unusual about it.
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Editor’s note: Jenna Karvunidis’ article on the ChicagoNow website, (a subsidiary of the Chicago Tribune), has since been taken down, but the content of her article is posted below.
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So Jenna Karvunidis from High Gloss and Sauce is mad at stay at home dads.
What great crime against society did they do this time?
Was it daring to volunteer as a helper at school?
Was it asking if her kids wanted to play together?
Oh no, much worse than that, they were featured in a story in the newspaper.
Oh, the humanity.
Karvunidis writes, “I love how they throw that in there like dads are extra special for momming AND doing things men traditionally do (I guess.)”
She has to say, I guess, because the article doesn’t say these are men’s jobs. But she does refer to a man taking care of his own kids as “momming.” She is blind to her own prejudice.
Most stay-at-home dads I know look forward to a time when the bar isn’t so ridiculously low for men. We look forward to a time when there are not articles about stay-at-home dads because there is nothing seen as unusual about it.
but…
1) We’re Not There Yet
Because stay-at-home dads are not valued the same as stay-at-home moms.
2) We’re Not There Yet
Because dads don’t have equal access to play groups.
And while some groups are working on that.
3) We’re Not There Yet
Because dads don’t have equal access to parental leave.
4) We’re Not There Yet
Because PBS Parents showed this right before father’s day.
But would never think of showing this right before mother’s day.
5) We’re Not There Yet
Because a children’s television channel devotes itself to jokes like this and women think it is funny.
6) We’re Not There Yet
Because dads are still shown as the incompetent parent and the butt of jokes in the media.
7) We’re Not There Yet
Because dads are still told they are going to hell for raising their kids rather than a salary.
(Editor’s note: At .58 seconds: “Its hard to respect a man who’s not willing to provide.” and thats just the beginning.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WPVxndUcHQ
8) We’re Not There Yet
Because men have to worry about taking the baby out because a place may only have a changing station in the women’s restroom.
9) We’re Not There Yet
It is true what stay-at-home dads do is not all that special. Women have been doing it for years and many still do it today. The bar for fatherhood shouldn’t be “showing up” and stay-at-home dads is one group trying to raise the bar. But until we value parenting when a man does it as much as we do when a mommy does it, until we include dads when we talk about parenting issues, until we get past this idea that moms are naturally better parents, we’re not there yet.
What is particularly frustrating about Jenna Karvunidis complaining about this article is that she has complained about dads volunteering at her kids school. She has said she is not comfortable having men in her playgroup. She is the problem
The original post by Karvunidis has been removed from the ChicagoNow Website so the text is below if you care to read it.
Get your buckets out, I’m about to rage vomit. Did you see the cover of the Trib today? ChicagoNow’s very own stay-at-home-dad is on the cover for his stay-at-home-dad gig, the hardships of which are praised mightily. Of course they’re praised now that a man is doing it. All hail the mighty stay-at-home dad! Dads! They so amazing!
I’ve got news, people. Women have been doing this job for centuries. Show me a cover of the Sunday Tribune about a mom doing the exact same thing. Has a mother ever been praised in all of history – genuinely praised, not condescended, but legitimized – for doing this job in all of its mundane facets? He’s grocery shopping on the cover. A mom does it – a billion moms a day do it – and she’s “spoiled” to be home with her kids. I live a life of “leisure” full of bon bons and soap operas. Sure, we traded our mothers moo-moos for yoga pants, but the same dismissal is there. But the second a man does it? A stay-at-home-dad? Oh, hell, it’s a damn hardship on the front page of the Chicago Tribune. Yes, journalism is dead.
“[The stay-at-home-dad] scrambles to find time to work out, install a sink, do laundry, clean the play room and get dinner started”. IT SAYS THIS. Yes, please, tell us how you struggle. Isn’t it just “adorable” how a dad does “mom” stuff and it’s a real accomplishment and we’re supposed to pat his head? And please, yes, tell us how many sinks you installed. I love how they throw that in there like dads are extra special for momming AND doing things men traditionally do (I guess.) I refinished all the furniture upstairs when I was behemoth pregnant and had two children in my care. My mother-in-law shingled a roof during my husband’s nap time. Where are our lollipops?
Listen to this, “[these dads] care much less about being perfect”. Hmmmm, guess why? Guess why dads don’t have to worry about being perfect? Because they’re praised just for showing up. I’m sick of this! If a mom were quoted in the paper as wiping her child’s mouth with the sock she is currently wearing, well, I can’t even imagine.
I’m not criticizing dads staying home. Families all have to make decisions that work for them. Childcare and income responsibilities don’t need to be assigned by gender. The problem I have is that women who stay home are perceived as pampered and their work is invisible, but a man in such a role is celebrated with a front-page article. Why is it suddenly such a hard job when a man has to do it? Why is staying home a legitimate contribution when the contributor has a penis?
Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad freeIf you want to remove the stigma from stay-at-home-dads, then don’t treat them like special snowflakes. Legitimize the work women do and there will be no stigma when a man does it.
Rage. Beast. Angry. It especially smarts they chose this man, who put my maternity pictures on his Facebook page and solicited “thoughts” about my body. Remember? The pictures I posted when I wrote about being pregnant with a dead baby? Cool times.
I guess the Tribune is right: stay-at-home dads don’t have to worry about being perfect. (They just have to show up.)
OMG you put her pregnancy pictures on your site when she was pregnant with a still born? No wonder she’s disgusted. She should be.
I know how this works. My post won’t get approved if there is a pre-publish moderator..
That reply from the mom is HORRIFYING.
The single biggest reason this kind of stuff still exist is because stay at home dads in general are too damn passive! They ask to be appreciated instead of demanding to be treated fairly and with respect, instead of demanding to be respected. I am a single father and was a SAHD thirty years ago. My friends abandoned me, the females in my family- I have six sisters-did nothing to support me .nor did my mother and members of my extended family openly questioned my sexuality. It was not until I stood up to the bs and called these people… Read more »
What is needed is, in a word … emancipation.
I don’t think the bar is that low for stay at home dads. I think it’s because people make the assumption that he also works, which is maybe not an assumption they make when seeing women daddy. I mean parent. I remember women making similar complaints when entering the work force in the early stages. Employers assumed that they were also mothers or were also going to be mothers and it was expected that they would produce less. The bar is equally high. The gender assumptions are different. Still, the solution is to change the assumptions and for that to… Read more »
Rubbish. It’s rubbish and always will be. Men don’t give a rats tail what other people think of them by nature, so the basic premise of this article falls flat. Of course, an article written by a woman’s perspective would autobiographically project that onto men – who really couldn’t cares less anyway. Think of it this way: The Bee – According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway because bees… Read more »
Now, now, Matthew. I’m going to politely ask that you speak for yourself. I care deeply about what other people think of me, and, what’s more, I suspect you do, too. 😉
When I read through the list of reasons in the post, I agreed with each one. But then I read the original blog post you referenced, and I agreed with her, too. I’m not sure what media you’re reading that makes you think stay at home moms have it easy in the press. You know what? Mothers have it hard and Fathers have it hard, but I’m really tired of everyone being a martyr. Yes, parenting is difficult and thankless, but humans have been doing it forever. And while one of your reasons is that stay at home moms are… Read more »
One of the interesting points you’re missing, Amy, is the way in which stay at home dad’s are shamed by the public, and ostracized by mom’s. And this comes from someone who was a stay at home dad for awhile. Take your kid(s) out somewhere, and you’re looked at like a cute pet who was doing his master a favor. Take your kid(s) the park by yourself, and those oh so lovable stay at home moms look at you like you’re a damn child molester who is there to steal their children. It’s a double standard of gargantuan like proportions.… Read more »
Yes I agree the culture is generally hostile to the idea of the ‘ stay at home dads ‘ (and this also explains the hostile reaction of some women) more than ‘working moms’.
But its a poor effort to concentrate only in changing the view of men, women need also to be updated and encouraged to support the change. Dinosaurs are exint you know? 😉
Like Amy I agree to both! Sahd should be equal have fair recognition and acceptance, which includes not mean a front page for doing this job as awesome and challenging it is. I am a stay home mum from the UK and maybe things are different here but I have never seen any issues with sahd. There are two at my toddler group who get on just fine and another who doesn’t live locally is my husbands best friend. His only issue was adjusting to being a minority and the shyness when presented as the only male in a room… Read more »
Men are often feared as predators because guess what many of them are? That’s just reality, dude. This reminds me of an argument raging on old Yahoo Answers how it was women’s fault people don’t take male-r@pe seriously. And he used prison statistics. I simply asked “Who’s doing the r@ping?” and within minutes the trolls who used to power-up their moderation “trust” removed my post. We can’t solve these problems if men insist and insist on refusing to examine their ground-zero role in so many social ills. I mean honestly examine, not drag women in as the “both sides-ism” and… Read more »
Amy, it’s not a matter of “valued” but a matter of “respect” and “fairness” within the context of acceptance. In 2008 there was an estimated 150,000 SAHD’s. Let’s double or quintuple that and even go as far as giving it 500,000 today. There is no geographic area where you’ll find a lot of SAHD’s to make up groups as you suggest. That’s not to say there aren’t any but let’s be realistic. And then it raises the question as to why “dad’s” have to have their own group(s)? Why is it that women feel uncomfortable with dads in the first… Read more »
Men don’t feel marginalized for doing a job women have done for years, Amy—a job, by the way, that men were not remotely welcome to, generally able to, take on, and not just because their job was supporting their families. What stings is that they’re so often caught between the idea that there’s something unnatural about them, and ideas like the ludicrous one you’re expressing, which is that there is an equivalency in the way stay-at-home moms and stay-at-home dads are diminished in society and in the media.
Men were welcome to it. After all.. those children were 100% his, 0% hers. Yes she had to raise them but they were his seed, his chidren, his property (remember she was the dirt that he planted his seed into.) He did with them as he pleased. You don’t need to be welcomed into your own home/possessions. Men were as involved or uninvolved as they wished to be with family. Men are taught that for anything to be worthy there must be rewards. No rewards, no worth. they want that cookie, that trophy. The don’t want to be looked on… Read more »
#8 … I should note that although there may be some grumbling about McD’s, They were the first fast food that put changing tables in the men’s room.
I think the true test is when a stay at home “husband” is acceptable. IMO, that will be the one of the signs that men are on thrie way. Then our playing field will truly be level. The movement truly starts with the dad’s though. But it has to go much further where it all comes down to men’s rights and fairnes to men.
This is, at its core, about gender bias. And its about the freedom with which some people feel free to attack others because of their gender or race. A two way street, that one.
About your fourth point. I think Obama made it clear when back when he was running for office in 2008 he chose Father’s Day, of all the days out of the year, to go to a church and give a speech on how men needed to “step up” and be fathers (he also did it Father’s Day 2009). Anyone that’s ever paid attention to advertising and events around Father’s Day and Mother’s Day will notice that mothers are considered to be untouchable paragons of virtue (but mind you there are problems with that as well) while dads are irredeemable screw… Read more »
It’s amazing how they never seem to employ the carrot even when the carrot has proven more effective than the stick.
Well written, Chad.
Notice that a lot of the slams against dads are based on pretty awful views of children, or pretty negative things about parenting in general. This animosity towards dads flows from some pretty negative views of parenthood, not just positive stereotypes about mothers, but harsh perspectives on kids. With that list of practical jokes from the kids channel: the number one way to ruin his day is to leave the kids alone with him? That’s a pretty harsh view of children….. Good call on the Fathers Day vs. Mothers Day contrast. You are absolutely right, not one would circulate the… Read more »
wellokaythen … you’re on the right track. Taking this a step further, society hasn’t made it comfortable for men to be educated in these matters. Beyind the idea that mom is the “boss, where men are clearly capable of making decisions, why is it that men even second guess themselves? And not to minimize the stay at home dad, what about dad’s in general? The working dad just as there are many working mom’s in the same household. I wouldn’t want to see progress for men be limited to the stay at home dad’s. It’s an overall attitude about men… Read more »
Good point. Men in our society may not have been given the same information about babies and children that bombards women all the time. That being said, let’s keep in mind that what mothers are told about baby food may not be the best “education” either. One of the greatest gender biases about men vs. women in general is the tendency to think that when it comes to parenting women do it correctly and men have to do it that same way if they want to do it right. Childrearing and parent education are shaped by the same forces that… Read more »
@wellokaythen- First, disclosure: my husband and I are in “typical” gender roles- he works, I’m a stay-at-home mom. He works and travels a LOT, so I spend a great majority of time with our son. This gives me insights into caring for him that I have due to the sheer amount of time I spend with him; they have nothing to do with our genders. Therefore, I expect my husband to defer to my experience for certain things he may not understand. I know, and have to deal with, the consequences of actions he may take. That doesn’t mean I’m… Read more »
I wish there was a “like” button. The bottom line is respect. To defer to someone is to show respect to that person experience/knowledge. To defer is to show respect. to show submission. Ah.. there’s the problem. A man is willing to sumbit to other men but NEVER to a woman. To show respect for a woman by deferring to her is to put yourself in the submissive role. the weaker role. the lesser role. a role for females, not males. This is why, as a woman, you can tell a man a scientific fact and he will question you… Read more »
Wow, you two have a lot of hate. And -plain wrong- prejudices (generalisation).
So how you expect anyone to respect you or to contribute ?