Tuesday, June 29, 2004

"Meet Today's Dad" Article

First of all, many thanks to Rebel Dad for the awesome resource his site represents in terms of collecting and summarizing SAHD relevant media. While reading his site the other day, I ended up visiting the Catherine Seipp piece entitled Meet Today's Dad: A Model to Avoid. I started to read it and then got pulled away to attend to something. Before I got back, my wife sat down at the computer and began to read the article. I ended up coming back as she was reading it from the point where I had left off (therefore didn't see the by-line). We read it together silently. Silently, until my wife asked, "What's his problem?" I told her that it was a woman writing the article. When we got to the sentence, "My ex-husband was a great diaper-changer, but he left when our daughter was just ten months old." We both knew what her problem was. I have to give Ms. Seipp credit though, her gender stereotyping seems equally entrenched regardless of X or Y chromosomes. Her comment about "women and parallel parking" seemed inappropriate and flat out unnecesary. It seems it doesn't matter who's watching small children, attention MUST be paid.

This article further fails to recognize the scores of at-home moms, who are struggling to do their job well. Believe me, they're out there. Just today, I was waiting in a line to make a return, and two boys were standing on and jumping off a bench seat it the waiting area. Mom didn't say a thing until the one boy started dancing - should I say shaking his bottom - in my one-year olds face, and singing "Shaking my butt". While decrying the fact that the "wife slaves away at an office job", Ms. Seipp also fails to recognize that the husbands of at-home moms have been doing this for years. I suppose that if the man works outside the home, Seipp would accuse the man of escaping domestic duties.

It is truly unfortunate that Ms. Seipp's experience was what it was, but to bash an entire group of men who make time for their children is out of line.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I've read a few Seipp columns before but that one takes the cake. Not only does she offer stark stereotypes women and men, she seems to hate everything. I guess you could say that her anger Seipps into all her writing.

brettdl
www.dadtalk.net