Welcome, say our tired husbands and fathers, to the age of the neglected male. Harried and hurrying from school drop-offs to breakfast meetings before rushing home for baby’s bath time, these tired and tetchy men are left wondering why – unlike their hard-working female partners – they are failing to receive what they believe to be rightful recognition for their efforts.
From ‘the {invisible }men’ by Sarina Lewis in The Sydney Morning Herald.
Hmmmm?
(And just spotted this rather wonderful observation over at eglantine’s cake).
Gosh, I seem to be reading an awful lot about these New Men, given how invisible and ignored they are.
Oh gosh. Fancy taking on your responsibilities – must need to be showered with praise and presents.
And consider the recent study from (I believe) Sweden where men were vastly overestimating the equality of their household/childcare work split with their wives, so maybe these guys really want to be rewarded for doing 1/3 of the work they think they’re doing.
To be fair, I think it’s altogether plausible that men get less flexibility from their employers when it comes to balancing work and family. It would not at all surprise me if men labour under more of an expectation that they will work insane hours etc. and be the Good Provider.
It’s not just a workplace pressure, either. Here in Canada the system makes provisions for parental leave as well as maternity leave, and I’ve seen a couple of male coworkers take advantage of it…but when my friend’s husband did the same thing, his family flipped out on him and declared he was ruining his career (and there would have been no such concerns had my friend taken the leave, of course.)
The system is with it, or at least it is here, but the culture has yet to truly come around…
We should erect monuments for these poor unrecognized men, one right beside each of the monuments for women doing housework. I think it’s only fair.
I have never been called a saint for changing my kids diapers but my husband sure has
Yes, the article took as its starting point the surprising notion that women are hugely appreciated for every bit of work they do and that men’s contribution goes unnoticed. Whereas the reality is the other way around. A man will still be remarked on as “babysitting” if he’s shouldering some of the childcare work. It isn’t so long since the days when a man who “lost his wife” through death or divorce would have local women turning up on his doorstep with casseroles and offers of childminding.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot. On the one hand, I reckon it’s a fine thing that child care and related work should be seen, in fact, as work – something requiring effort, practice and expertise. Yay to that. Not sure why, if men deserve to be acknowledged and celebrated for it, the praise doesn’t flow on to women, as it were ‘naturally’. There’s no accompanying a-ha moment for the man or (often) woman seeking praise for the man doing this work, that if the work is worthy, whoever is doing it deserves praise. And that in most families it’s still the woman doing the bulk of it.
It used to drive me crazy that my husband would be all loved up for doing any baby or house related work, when only weeks before I’d been as out in the world doing stuff just as much as he was, but now there was an instant expectation that I’d be on home duties as the default setting. It’s hard for me to de-personalise this, because my husband is presently doing most of th echild-related work at home, including learning how to should those invisible but all-important maintenance responsibilities that mums are supposed to just know how to do.
I saw that article BM, and didn’t make it past the communication skills fail in the second or third para. so yeah, there isn’t a vast amount written about the dad side of the parenting equation, but i want to ask anyone dad who thinks there ought to be more, just what part of their lives they are willing to commodify? and it better be something a damn sight more attractive than feeling tired, neglected and skiving off for a round of company golf. actually skiving off for a round of golf does sound attractive, i can see the glossies now, gaggles of dads working off their post baby fat while golfing for work or charity, meet the new dad (same as the old dad). 😉
Oohh the sun is out, time for the laundry.
“It isn’t so long since the days when a man who “lost his wife” through death or divorce would have local women turning up on his doorstep with casseroles and offers of childminding.”
Very true. My father received all of those things (and more – I believe I was showered with toys and thrown a birthday party and we were invited around for dinners quite regularly) when he became a single father through divorce. On the other hand, when he died and my stepmother was widowed, there was little of that type of help forthcoming. I doubt anyone offered to help care for my school-aged sisters.
It is a real pet peeve of mine that when I am out somewhere without my daughter, people ask where she is, as if it isn’t highly likely she’s at home with her father. When my husband is out without us? It’s like normal. There are no questions. It’s the default.
I went to a meeting for work the other night and after picking up the kids told them I had a meeting to go to. My son asked “but who is going to look after us?” Um, that would be your Dad. Remember him?
[…] these days, and the last time I dipped into it it, it exceeded all expectations for Terrible. Blue Milk and Eglantine’s Cake have already written about the article by Sarina Lewis on “The […]
Let me guess: In this study, people are considered to be performing professional tasks from the moment they step foot inside their workplace until the moment they leave (coffee breaks, chats, and all), whereas parenting tasks only count during “active” face-to-face hard yakka, not counting the other periods of time during which parents are in charge of children?
Tell me who stays and looks after the kids while they’re sick and home from school, who sleeps lightly listening out for them when they have nightmares, who books their immunisations and plans their lunches and sews on their name labels and frets about their maths struggles. Not just who runs the bath and reads to them at storytime.
[…] these days, and the last time I dipped into it it, it exceeded all expectations for Terrible. Blue Milk and Eglantine’s Cake have already written about the article by Sarina Lewis on “The […]
[…] Dad Feels as Stressed as Mom’) from The New York Times has very similar themes to that piece from the Sydney Morning Herald that I just linked to here a while back about the angry dads – essentially that men are being […]