Offended, Part 2: Closure

Props to you

Before we begin, Mojo and I would like to thank all of you who took the time to read the first part of our post on the perception of fathers in the U.S.  It was the most popular post to date and garnered quite a bit of reaction via text and email.  I'll share some of that below.

What follows is Mojo's longer take from our original conversations on the topic.  If you missed Part 1, click here.  Mojo, the floor is yours.

First, I agree the comment, "You're such a good Dad" catches you off guard when you are not doing anything special. The Super Bowl commercial is disturbing.

USA Today opened its article on the commercial with the following, "The maker of Barbie sent a clear message during the NFL playoff game Sunday night: Real men play with Barbies."  Let's back up one step since the problem is not men playing Barbie during football; it's that it is not clear to fathers that is what real men do.  How did children fall below football?  The dad actor said "Sundays were always about football, but now they get interrupted with Barbie time".  I think intertupted might be the wrong word dad actor.   It's hard to say you will do anything to make her happy, yet the special time is 'disruptive'.  Now, let me say every person needs personal time and family members need to be respectful of that, that much I believe.  However, keep in mind the child's perspective. If you don't tell them that ahead of time, they feel rejection whether you meant it or not.  Plan ahead, go out to watch the game or play with your kid the 30 minutes prior and tell her, 'Dad is going to watch his football game now would you like to learn about football or play with something else?'. 

On the subject of being told, "Oh, you're such a good Dad"...

Two emotional reactions: First: Why are we even talking about this?

When did basic parenting become something needing incentives? Take for example the current run of commercials about taking a moment to be a dad. It comes from the website fatherhood.gov.  You know, it used to be a two person agency: momanddad.gov.  It makes me stir crazy to think that the government is needed to solve this problem. As if  adding bureaucracy will create intrinsic motivation.  I have found bureaucracy creates dependency and an outlet for others to criticize.  By the way, why do we have to focus on one set of parents since we know a child must be born from two?  I might be OK with parenthood.org, but having to single out one of the two is odd.  But there are some reasons to not think it's odd.  (LB Note - I'm gonna get to that at the end).

Second reaction: I know why we are talking about this.

Trying to keep the mood light

I know it contradicts itself, but the reason it does for me is because, like so many people, I was raised in that nuclear family that we love each other, respect others, and have faith.  This is not true for far too many kids.  Politifact reports 40-50% of kids are born out of wedlock.  And, one of the most shocking statistics I've ever heard in my life, is that four out of five African-American children are born without a father. 80%. That takes a moment to sink in. Maybe my anger in the concept of being told you're such a good dad should really be my source of gratitude for what I received as a son.  (LB Note - Can you tell who the voice of reason is in our duo?  Damn, that was brilliant).  

Balance

The military is an interesting place because it's dominated by a male culture that works itself hard and long because the work is meaningful. As a military guy, you often do here 'oh that's so neat that you can bring your daughter to school' or other comments typically seen as a "pink task."  The military, after seeing the effects of multiple deployments and multiple long days at work over the weekends, stresses that the leader's responsibility is to ensure his or her subordinates have a work-life balance.  It is a dang near holiday the morning of the first day of school. I've had leaders tell me if you have a child going to school tomorrow for the first day I sure hope you're not here at work. When leaders espouse and live family values they percolate down to their subordinates.  Take Gen. Odierno's tag line "The strength of our nation is our Army, the strength of Army are our Soldiers, the strength of our Soldiers are our FAMILES".  I heard that commercial over and over and know he meant it.

So what are the things I would love to see? It is not what one set of parents should do; put the emphasis on the family. I know it's not a perfect world for every kid, certainly not for mine every day as I make parental mistakes, too.  But if you don't emphasize the family the message gets garbled or the responsibility gets watered down. 

So I propose a toast to mothers and fathers everywhere who sacrifice great and small to be parents. I welcome all comments that say, "oh, you're such a good family."  It takes two to tango!

LB here.  Lots to react to, gonna try and take these in order.

1.  When did spending time with your kid become a cause for celebration for Dads?

Good Mommy!

As previously stated... I have no f**ing idea.  Social media awareness?  Old school sit-coms featuring the goofy, clueless Dad?  Back in the day, raising kids was "a mother's job."  I think this still holds on some level.  More importantly, I think the fact we consider birth control the woman's responsibility is a key piece to where this idea comes from.  Mojo notes, "why do we have to focus on one set of parents since we know a child must be born of two?"  If we were to consider some sort of outreach emphasizing "parenthood" vs. "fatherhood," I think it would need to have a strong bend towards the idea that women don't impregnate themselves unintentionally (I'm allowing for mothers who choose to be single parents via donors).  There's a saying, "women become moms when they find out they are pregnant and men become fathers once the baby is born."  If we were to somehow change that dynamic, I think we'd have an uptick in present fathers/two-parent homes and the beginnings of a change in societal attitudes towards fathers.  Keeping in mind this would take at least a generation to change.

2.  I know why we are talking about this.

Me, too.  I think it's sociological.  And I think it's cause for celebration due to an important stat Mojo brings up... 80% of African-American children are born without a father present.  My guess is this stat is similar for other races in impoverished areas.  And all the data shows that youth raised by single parents fare worse than their peers.  So on some level, we need to incentive-ize anything that brings both parents into the home, i.e., as Mojo states, an emphasis on the family.  Shout out here to my hero, who sent a long text in response.  He teaches Sunday school at his church and noted a significant rise in the absence of fathers.  Whether it be church or whatever it is your family does (we love the park and late breakfast on a Sunday), both parents being involved in the traditions is the key.  How do we get to that?  As my hero noted, "glad some of us dads are still doing the dang thing just cause we should, not cause we can."

3.  Work-life balance

At some point in the last 15-20 years or so, it became more socially acceptable for women to have both a solid career and be the primary caretaker of kids.  This allowed for more advancement in the workforce for women and increases in the number who out-earn their male spouses.  Coupled with increases in unemployment rates for men during the Great Recession, there has been an increase in the number of families with stay at home dads, who now make up about 16% of families with a stay at home parent.

Data is gold

More telling is that the "traditional" family with a working father and stay at home mother is really no longer "traditional" or normal.  They now make up just 14% of all families with children under 18, with even lower numbers among minority populations.  To me, this plays a significant role in where this offensive stereotype about fathers comes from.  The families where this stereotype was born (perhaps rightfully so back in the day) simply rarely exist anymore.  But for whatever reason, pop culture (most notably s**tty sitcoms and Super Bowl commercials) seems to think it's either prevalent or funny.  It's not.

This is where I'm torn on Mojo's take that we should go from "fatherhood.gov" to "parenthood.gov."  I see his point.  That's what our ultimate goal should be, therefore, that's where we should go.  My counter is, do we have a problem with "motherhood" or is the societal norm, expectation, stereotype, etc. of fathers that's the real issue?  If we renamed it "motherhood," would we see a change in Super Bowl commercials and pictures like the one in our first post of the "come on Dad, you can do it" onesie?  Would there be an outcry about that onesie the same way there would be if it said "Mom" if we held all parents to that expectation?

I know those Super Bowl commercials, and that Disney brochure, and pictures of onesies are supposed to be cute and funny.  I know they are not malicious.  However, I do not find them funny at all, and I think there are a lot of silent fathers out there who agree and may even be somewhat afraid to say anything.  While the intent is good, the results are anything but.  When you put these things out there, you're excusing the behavior and setting up an expectation that's too low and, quite frankly, very unfair.  And in my world, offensive.

4.  "I'm not perfect" and the fathers react

As Mojo said, he and we make mistakes as parents.  Mistakes, IMHO, are the best way to learn.  None of the fathers I talked to claimed to be even close to perfect.  They just wanted credit for being a part of their child's life.  I'll disclose my own recent imperfection... LB, Jr. has invented literally the worst game in history, "pretend hockey."  It involves 2 play hockey sticks, an imaginary puck (we have a play hockey ball and puck, mind you, he just chooses not to use them), and two imaginary goals.  When he and ARG play, it's 10 minutes of arguing and hitting each other with the sticks since you can't see the puck when you try and get possession.  No one ever has fun except LB, Jr., which only happens when he wins.  To top it off, he likes to play right before bath time, when he and ARG are at their peak tiredness.  Good times.

In an effort to end this debacle, I decided to dominate the game.  Mind you, it's basically whoever is the most convincing that they have the puck and scored who wins.  So I had myself win like 10-0, never gave up the puck.  He starts bawling his face off and I basically told him we don't always win.  Thought for sure I put an end to this garbage.  Nope.  He was right back at it the next night.  And, as I type this on a Saturday morning about 2 weeks later, we played again last night.  F**k me.

I got A LOT of reaction from fathers after this post.  Turns out I'm not even close to the only one offended by these stereotypes.  I had too many to share and thank here, but I'll put these two out here as an example of what I think is the truth about fathers today.

- "Loved your blog.  I read it while holding my sleeping daughter in the pediatric ICU.  Yay, Dads!"

Daddy?

- "I just chased down my daughter's bus to give her materials for a class project she forgot.  Avoided that crisis!  Sounds like something only a good mommy would do, right?  I get that same s**t (from the blog) all the time from the ladies at work who have grown children.  They look at me like a space alien because they have no frame of reference for what an involved father is.  It's a foreign concept."

- Mojo - "I have Monday off, having surprise lunch with C that day.  Lunch.  So easy a dad can do it."

5.  Just as I was about to let it go...

As I was Googling to get that pic of Barbie up top, I came across this little diddy... THERE IS A DADS WHO PLAY BARBIE CHALLENGE WHERE THE WINNER GETS $25,000 ARE YOU F**ING SERIOUS RIGHT NOW???  I told Mojo to Google it after I found it, but he chose to wait til he'd had a few drinks, stating "is this gonna make me mad, I'm off to a good start and pretty happy today so far."  I told him to wait til later.

$25,000!!!

Mojo asked early on, when did parenting become something that needed big incentives.  Well, apparently it started some time in the last year.  This disappoints me on so many levels.  I would have preferred a headline like, "On behalf of good fathers everywhere, we are donating $25,000 to raise awareness of..." domestic violence prevention?  Education opportunities for women in poor countries?  Small business start ups owned by women?  Honestly, it could have been anything else.  So when is Mattel going to launch their "Moms who play basketball" challenge and give $25,000 to a mom and son?  Wait, what?  That's just "normal?"  What would the reaction be if Mattel had that contest?  Probably an uproar.  But for Dads, it's cool.  What kind of message is that?  Just flat out disappointing, Mattel.

And we get it.  The intentions are good.  We don't dispute that.  But until we, as a society, both people and corporations, start changing the narrative around this, it will never change.  As many of my friends can now tell you, thanks to their "poking the bear" texts, it doesn't take much to anger me about this.  But I think I'm accepting it now.  I'm happy to be around nothing but fathers who don't accept that stereotype and are proud to be who they are with their sons and daughters.  They are setting an example for the next generation and the next.  And that's how we'll kick Disney and Mattel's a**.  (Sorry, just couldn't help myself, it was too tempting and funny to find a way to write that sentence and have it make sense in a post).

6.  End on a high note

Much like George Constanza, we like to go out on a high note.  Let's turn to one of the two resident child experts in LB world, ARG, for some final words.  We set the scene as ARG is interviewing me like the kids in her class are interviewed (think, what's your favorite food) when they are picked to bring home the class teddy bear and be student of the week.

ARG - Okay, daddy, what's your favorite thing to do?  Oh wait, I already know that.  Spend time with me and LB, Jr.
Me (surprised) - That's right, spend time with our family.  How did you know that?
ARG (smiling big) - I don't know.  You just always do.
Me - Okay, I have a question for you.  What advice would you give adults about being a good mommy or daddy?
ARG (zero hesitation) - Love them and spend time with them and take care of them when they don't feel good.  Oh, and one more thing.  They should learn about lots of things, like how to take care of kids, and lot of things for when we have questions.

These last posts about fatherhood were our most popular yet, and I can't thank all of you enough for reading, sharing your thoughts, sharing the post, and contributed to the conversation.  Mojo, JB, JW, and I have a bunch of less serious topics in the hopper.  Not sure when we'll see you again, since all of us are dedicated fathers and JB has his 2nd on the way!  In the meantime, enjoy the tourney and follow us on Twitter.  Cypress Hill will see you out.  See you when we see you.  Hasta.