I hear, “You’re a good dad,” and feel empowered. I smile back, brimming with pride, and say thanks as I move along with my almost-two-year-old son. Today he’s in the shopping trolley as we look into each other’s faces. We speak a kind of almost language as his words are still forming — but we understand each other perfectly. I secretly tell him to wave back to the complimenter and she gushes. They always do. It’s a neat trick we have, so why stop now?
There is, however, something that feels quite wrong: The bar for a “good dad” is set too low — way too low.
I only have to be out with my son, without the chaperone of a woman, and people stare. If I want to ramp up the attention, I’ll put him in the baby carrier and wear him — although he’s a bit too heavy for that now. Girls and women whisper around corners and try to hide when pointing. The dadbod is completely forgiven when shielded by a charismatic toddler.
… And charismatic he is. My son, Signor Fantastico, is, in fact, the most adorable baby ever. I know everyone thinks their kid is the best, but my guy actually is. Someone’s gotta be. He is the happiest toddler I’ve ever met. There is a spotlight on him wherever he goes, and everyone is looking.
Our latest cute-wow-show is the bicycle wagon. I’m not sure what people are expecting me to carry, but nobody expects Mr. Fantastic to eject himself like a jack-in-the-box. This time, other men show their interest too, “That’s so cool!” they say with irrepressible smiles. I pull him out and play up to the audience, performing our rubbing noses game. We are on stage and loving it.
This is very cute, and people may theorize that Dad is “babysitting,” or it’s Mum’s day off. No, in fact, Dad is the primary carer while Mum is working full time. This is the twist in the plot that nobody sees coming because we live in Australia. It is still uncommon.
My wife says, “There is no such thing as a man’s job or a woman’s job if you aren’t using your penis or vagina.”
Let that sink in for a moment.
Re-read everything above. Swap the roles. Imagine I’m a woman doing all of that ostentatious play exactly the same. It is expected. We’d get almost no attention, nobody would point and whisper, “How cute.” Nobody would say, “You’re a good mum.”
* * *
There are plenty of good mums, but their bar is set much higher. They are encumbered with this unrealistic culture of perfection perpetuated on the Instagram propaganda machine. When I, look at that stuff, albeit rarely, I scoff with derision and cough/censor myself saying “Bulls…”
When asked by male friends what do I do all day, I explain that it’s about 12 hours of being busy with the little legend. It’s nothing to spend three hours doing housework every day. I reveal to them that toddlers are little hurricanes who throw all your stuff everywhere. They rearrange items and take them on adventures. My little dude is a true team player, fighting my boredom by extending my to-do list with his art of anti-Feng Shui.
Women never ask — they already know.
While others may complain, I absolutely love it. I love him, and I enjoy being with him every day. People ask if I change nappies. Yes, of course I do, but women still outperform men in this area.
Why are things still so unbalanced? Most of the time the decision of who will spend the most time with their children comes down to money. Society’s expectation that women continue to be the “housewife” goes back to when women had limited job opportunities. Job opportunities for women have progressed significantly, but there is still a glass ceiling. Parenting responsibilities have been historically preserved.
Take a look at parental leave. In Australia, generally speaking, men receive much less in comparison to women. The Australian Government Workplace Gender Equality Agency states;
“43.8% of employers offered paid parental leave for secondary carers.”
“Women account for 93.5% (down 1.4pp from 2017–18) of all primary carer’s leave utilized with men accounting for only 6.5% (up 1.4pp).”
We’ve changed the name to parental leave, but mum’s the word on eligibility. According to these statistics, 56.2% of employers are only offering paid maternity leave to the primary carer. Despite having more and more progressive employers, the massive majority of parental responsibility still falls to women.
The expectation remains that men won’t access parental leave because women will. This is rubbish.
In Sweden, there is equal access to parental leave for men and women who can take 240 days each. They share from a total of 480 days of paid leave with exclusive rights to 90 days each.
There is also the phenomenon of the latte papa that eclipses our little duet act. Imagine a bunch of good looking Swedish dudes, fashionably dressed, trim and tall with their high cheekbones and light blue eyes talking baby talk in cool accents. (I know this sounds like a generalization, but when I was in Sweden I met the entire population and everyone was as described).
Fortunately for me, I live in Australia, so while the A-league papas battle it out in Gothenberg, it’s much easier for me in Ballarat. It’s like I’m shooting hoops all alone on a half-court. There is no sport. Whenever I see another dad here running rogue, alone with his kid, we give each other a knowing nod — as if we are members of a secret fatherhood.
It sounds like a great deal for me and rogue daddy over there. We receive praise everywhere we go, just for pushing a pram unsupervised. It’s unjustified. I could be off to spend my last twenty dollars on the pokies or heading to my drug dealer’s house. The assumption is that I must be an amazing father because I can wipe food off my kid’s face, nevermind what other crumbs and mysteries I shall excavate from the pram seat when we get home.
However, I’m not welcomed everywhere. I am a man in a women’s space, and while that doesn’t bother me, it can bother other people. Baby change tables are mostly available wherever I go (although some places still only have them in the female toilets), but I have seen the non-verbal reactions from some mothers when they find me in the parents’ room in shopping centers. I’ve used a table at a playground to do a fast nappy change when a car pulled up and watched me do the whole thing. Watching me, just to make sure. At the greengrocer, a woman asked me if I had a job. I responded, “I work about 30 hours a week.” The implication was accusatory; that I am a deadbeat dad. The first time I did the pick up at childcare they called my wife to see if I was who I said I was.
An Australian idiosyncrasy is the parents’ group — renamed from the mother’s group. When you have your first baby in Australia you are linked to a group of other parents who have children of the same age, in the same area. You attend some group meetings together, somewhat educational, partly social. It’s a supportive community. Despite the progressive name, I realized mine was actually a mothers’ group plus me.
In this group, I was considered an intruder by some of the mothers. My wife assured me that it was because I was a man in their space.
Why the hell is this guy here?
Who can blame them? How did I expect to be received? These were women not getting a full night’s sleep, trying to live up to their Instaspectations, learning to be a good parent, navigate a new world that included vomit, feeding, poosplosions, and their suddenly-foreign bodies. They understand what it takes to be a good parent — being a dad and with a child was not enough to impress them.
Society has told women, this is their job. You can’t work full time when you have to look after your children. You won’t be able to earn as much as a man, but you get the privilege of raising your children. This is the deal, right?
I came to understand there was some resentment and jealousy because their own partners were less involved with their children.
It’s a sad situation. I’m surfing a glacial wave of change that for some is an unintended threat. It’s easy to misunderstand the importance of equal and paid parental leave. The argument that mothers provide most of the care for their children, therefore they are the ones who need the leave is a self-perpetuating belief. Men get plenty of benefits already, however, equal and paid parental leave would pave the way to empower everyone.
It is not a zero-sum game; equality empowers everyone.
I had international friends visit who were amazed by the female traffic light signals. They thought them unnecessary. I once hadn’t understood why the Swedes decided to rebalance the ratio of female to male named streets. The important thing is, traffic lights or street names do not stop men nor women from using them. They do, however, reset our unconscious bias.
In Leunig’s much-criticized cartoon, a mother is glued to her phone while her baby fell out of its pram. Some argue it is misogynistic while supporters say we aren’t paying enough attention to our children. In defense of the cartoon, Leunig said,
“What the father can do best at this point is to protect and nourish the flourishing of this early mother-child connection.”
Suits me. I’ll get on my phone while my wife pushes the pram.
I think it would be more nourishing to have more dads pushing prams. Unourished dads out there, give it a go. The father-child connection is important.
* * *
Trust me, parents. Nobody has got it all together — no matter what they say, no matter what you see on Instagram; everyone is struggling. We have all been distracted at some stage by our phones. It’s time that the ankle-high bar for dads were raised. The sky-high bar for mums — set somewhere in the clouds — needs to come way down. Those bars should meet.
My little guy has taught me how to be a good parent. He has explained to me that I have to give him attention, even though he doesn’t have all the words. I need to sit on the floor with him to play Duplo. I must touch all the fences as we walk along, feeling their textures, letting him copy me.
Children need presence.
He needs me. I have to pick him up when he reaches out with his peanut butter hands. I’ll have to wear that same jumper, with little oily prints all over it, everywhere we go until we get home. Our life together is wonderfully imperfect. I have learned to wear it, own it, and accept it. This is who I am now.
There’ll be things damaged, immediately followed by a sweet-sounding “Oh-oh.” Things won’t always be smooth sailing on the HMAS Dad. When he’s at childcare, I use my much needed free time by looking at videos of him on my phone. When I pick him up, the only person who matters will tell me in his kind of almost language, “I missed you. You’re a good Dad.”
—
Previously published on “A Parent Is Born”, a Medium publication.
—
***
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project and want to join our calls on a regular basis, please join us as a Premium Member, today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
Talk to you soon.
—
Photo credit: Author
