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Remember that poster? The one of a naked male torso with hugely developed muscles and arms that cradle a tiny little baby? It is a poster that many women of my generation hung on their university dorm room walls.
I am remembering that poster now to try and remember the surge of feel-good hormones it used to give me. Nope. It’s not working.
In today’s Guardian/Observer, there’s an essay by Rafael Behr that claims to ask, Can Fathers Have it All?
Here’s a quote taken from Behr’s recollections of a meeting he had with his cousin, a three-time father, as Behr was preparing for fatherhood.
- …my partner, now my wife, was 10 weeks pregnant, which apparently left me six months to realise all of my unfulfilled ambitions. In that time I also had to get my head around the idea of being a father. Before I had even waved goodbye at passport control I had started the mental audit of projects to abandon. A few unwritten novels had been pulped by the time I was on the tube, my future induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was cancelled.
- When you’re about to be a dad, nothing brings you down like the bleak testimony of other dads. ‘You’re about to enter a world of pain,’ they told me. They conjured the spectre of sleepless nights and irreversible estrangement from the pub. It reminded me of school, standing outside the headmaster’s office waiting to be called in for punishment. Your imminent pain was entertainment for everyone who passed. A lot of men clearly saw fatherhood as discipline, as responsibility foisted on you from above – ultimately necessary, but preferably postponed.
The article then continues to discuss the career threats men who choose to take paternity leave, reduce their work hours or even take a few years out to spend time with their children experience. The overall effect is to caution men against taking career risks once the babies arrive.
I have no doubt that all Behr’s essay is absolutely and completely true. His essay is not going to encourage any more men to spend more time with the kids which, as most women know, has no career benefit whatsoever. That said, father’s who choose to stay home for few years, who reduce their hours and play an active role in their children’s lives are not heroes. They are fathers. The men who don’t reduce their hours, who continue to spend every waking hour at work or doing “work-related” golfing, drinking or video gaming are just dinosaurs who need a good kick (I really, really held back on the language I wanted to use in that last sentence).
That said, my heart did soften toward Behr when I read this passage:
- So it’s up to us to change our culture, take time off for school plays, and go home early for bedtime stories, to take the maximum paternity leave available and demand more. The age at which we tend to have kids – mostly early thirties – is also the point at which we have most value in the labour market, which means we can negotiate our terms from a position of strength.
Dads either need to learn a few lessons from the women’s movement and join the struggle for workplace fairness in a vocal, active way, or they need to just shut up and suck up the sacrifices.
2150 days ago
[...] “There’s Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day, so how come there is no Children’s Day? [...]
Yes. Celebrity dad is a problem here. Imagine never having to say No to your own child?
That is the major reason I want to get back to work.
I used to be bitter about the Celebrity Dad phenomenon. C wanted to spend time with us, but work took up most of the waking hours of the weekdays. When he came in, the room lit up, the kids flocked to him, and mom was chopped liver. To be honest, I think that is what motivated a tiny bit of my desire to return to work (well, that, a paycheck, mental stimulation, a break from the house, financial independence, etc etc). Not that I wanted to leave the kids, but that I wanted some equality and not to be taken for granted — by them, by him, etc.
It always kills me that when I man takes the afternoon off with a sick kid or changes a diaper he’s a hero, while we’re at home doing it all day everyday. Even for the more evolved dads, there are miles to go.
Helen, I really do wish my huband were a bit more family-oriented. Your family is lucky to have a man who is part of the family instead of an occassional playmate.
I guess my children are really really lucky and blessed because their father spends every waking moment he can with them, with all of us. I could not cope with someone who simply was not there and away working and doing all the work related things that you mention like golfing, drinking, video games etc.
Years ago when I was younger that sort of thing would probably have impressed me enough to get me hooked into that sort of life and I even would have been keen to cook dinner parties for the weekends and such.
Now I expect more, much much more when it comes to the attention that children need from their mother’s and father’s. It is the little things like sitting talking with the little ones for a while which does not take up loads of time but is a lasting calming and comforting thing to do for the child and for me as it is something lovely to see happen. More men should be active and involved in the normal day to day things that come with having children.
Not trips out like to the park or zoo but the mundane things that go on within a household with children every single day.
Being a father may not be the perfect career choice but the family benefits far outweight the lack of corperate benefits. Most would argue that there is nothing like being a Dad even those hardened career minded people who spend most of their waking hours in the office and doing work related things.
Helen
Miles and miles to go, Mama, but I think I see some movement on the horizon.
Just heard a great debate on ABC News about the Family Medical Leave Act. The host was stating it should be completely ok for employers to ask a woman if and when she is going to start a family, but the same question did not apply to men. A female caller then debated successfully that both men and women should be ask because men’s priorities and lives also change drastically with the birth of a child. This was of course a more conservative show as I don’t believe anyone should be asked and the workplace should change to be more accepting of working parents. We have a long way to go!