I love my kids, I just hate parenting
We all want to be woke. Especially parents.
We all want to raise our kids with the right values, free from any of society’s toxic baggage, aware of the systemic inequalities and inherent biases that are afforded to certain people for no reasons besides genetic makeup and the circumstances of their birth.
We all want to raise individuals. But what if our kids are stereotypes?
So you’re a stay-at-home dad? Or a single dad? Or a dad out with his kids with no mom in sight? If so, I bet someone has called you Mr. Mom, or a babysitter, or given you awkward, unnecessary kudos for doing nothing besides being a half-decent parent, or something like that.
As a one-time/sometime Stay-at-home dad myself, I’ve never had a problem with any of that stuff, not even being called “Mr. Mom”, despite the clear double-standard (no one ever calls women “Mrs. Dad”), but I know plenty of attentive fathers who do.
Some dads take to their blogs to voice their frustration, some dads boycott offending brands and advertisers, some dads use their influence to try to change things. I’m none of those dads. But I understand the struggle.
And I say: if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em!
This morning Detective Munch handed me an old iPod he’d been playing with and asked me to fix it. I told him I couldn’t, and he wanted to know why.
“You fix my trains!”
“Sometimes.”
“Why can’t you fix this?”
This doesn’t offend me; he’s only three. Plus, iPods aren’t exactly the easiest devices to dissect and MacGyver back to life. But “fixing” his trains mostly involves replacing the batteries, and the truth is he could ask me to fix almost anything and I’d be at a loss. I’m not a handy man.
A common male stereotype is that men can fix things. Kids expect dads to fix things. But – unless you count breakfast, which, don’t, because I can’t even make decent pancakes – I can’t fix shit.
Am I failing my son?
My son is over two years old now, and aside from a very minor trim session (not a double-entendre), he’s never had his hair cut. His hair is quite long and very curly, and as a result, strangers occasionally mistake him for a girl.
The first ten times it happened, I was annoyed. But eventually it got me thinking:
Would my son make a good-looking girl? Would my life be different if I had a daughter instead of a son?
The other day when I went to pick my son up from daycare, I saw a little girl in his class wearing a super-cool Wonder Woman dress. It wasn’t a Wonder Woman costume; it was a dress emblazoned with a drawing of Wonder Woman. And it was awesome.
I’ve written before about how much I like superheroes and that I want my son to grow up liking them too. Which I think will probably happen.
But what if I had a daughter? When I was a kid, the likelihood of a little girl liking superheroes wasn’t great. But I wasn’t a kid in this day and age. Girls can be geeks too!