"Paternity leave: why we should stop romanticising fatherhood"

Submitted by Mastodon on Tue, 2015-03-17 17:55

Article here. Excerpt:

'And yet I am, tentatively, pleased that Labour is proposing an increase in paternity leave and paternity pay. It could have done without the “father’s month” branding, which makes me think of a big, macho version of Woman’s Hour, but it is a step in the right direction (which is the kind of things mums always say, whether it’s to do with politicians mentioning parenting at all, or children getting halfway round Sainsbury’s without the first tantrum). I find myself cringing slightly at the notion that “more fathers want to play a hands-on role in childcare particularly in those first crucial weeks of a child’s life” (what, you mean while it’s still a novelty?).

Four weeks is nothing, a heartbeat. If it matters for anything, it’s more for the support that a partner – male or female – can offer a new mother during those initial dark nights and zombie days. Indeed, part of me wonders why can’t it be framed as “partner” or “co-parent leave.” What, after all, is fatherhood? Is it some unique, mystical role, involving a special kinship with the fruit of one’s loins? Or is it something both more magical and more mundane, a chosen self-sacrifice that might sometimes make you less of yourself, not more? You know, a bit like motherhood?

In What Should We Tell Our Daughters? Melissa Benn asks whether today’s young men “are being brought up to see that the work of the home is work, a form of labour they should recognise, value and share”. I’d count parenting and caring work as part of that, but the answer to Benn’s question is, I think, no. If anything, I doubt young men really think about it at all. Perhaps I underestimate them, but simply failing to anticipate the need to perform a role can be much the same as expecting someone else (a mother, a woman, not you) to do it. And when such unspoken assumptions and expectations have embedded themselves, it can be hard to challenge them without seeming to be asking far too much. Even so, we can’t offer up fatherhood as a glittering prize when it is something else; it is what it is – love, care and work – and that should be enough. And perhaps four weeks is a start.'

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Comments

That's how I feel when I read misandrist stream-of-hatefulness blatherings like this. It also shows why feminism's need to get "changed men" if "changed women" can exist has fallen short by miles, not meters. After all, when the sales job reads "You suck!", how can anyone but the most sales-pitch-illiterate feminist expect any results she will like? (Well, endemically unhappy feminists are far from abnormal for the breed.)

Aside from the foregoing, she cruelly takes a hatchet job to fathers all the while arguing against her supposed own goal of enabling men to be present with their newborns. It reinforces my belief that despite their stated goal of getting 50/50 childcare legally supported, feminists don't really want dad involved with the kids that much. This'd undermine moms' claims to moral authority as primary caregiver and their claims to gaining full custody or primary residence in cases of divorce or child support order conflicts. But even more than this, what scares the bejeesus out of them is a real, actual shift in society's expectations and POV on the matter of sex roles re kids: if one day society actually does come to believe dads are as fully competent as moms to take care of kids, the degree to which this whole "motherhood and apple pie" line has been a crock will be revealed. Then the whining about how hard it is to be a mom, how much moooore hard it is to raise kids than, hmm, I dunno, do brain surgery, etc., will be no longer tolerated. And that'd really annoy feminists because half their platform'd be pulled out from under them.

Too bad.

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Submitted by Matt on Sat, 2015-03-21 16:47