The parenting blog Motherlode – which, I’m not gonna lie, sounds like a MILF porn site – has a new article questioning the value of working fathers in our society. We’ve become conditioned to honor working mothers, women who balance a career with children. But a dad who works, well, we call him a “dad.” Is that fair? Author Ken Gordon makes the case for “working dads”:
A working mom, after all, is a term of approval. She is a master of multitasking. A mistress of multitasking. She is capable and competent on numerous fronts, and while her carpool-board-meeting-spaghetti-dinner-toothbrushing-book-bedtime lifestyle may mean that she sometimes forgets an orthodontist appointment or misses the annoying 2 p.m. staff confab, it also means that she is a kind of real-life superhero. The whole bring-home-the-bacon-and-fry-it-up-in-a-pan shtick commands our respect and admiration. The adjective “working” means that whatever else she’s doing, she’s also on the job.
My fellow dads and I deserve the same kind of respect, no?
I chose wrong in life. Let me explain. When I was single, my girl-space-friends would always talk about the guys they were dating, how the guy surprised them with some extravagant gift, or how they were up until 3 in the morning talking on the phone. Which made me think, that guy's a tool. But when people get married, apparently all guys cash out their relationship chips, because every one of these "working mother" articles I read assumes that females do all of the childcare and housework. Are they all exaggerating their role in the household, or is every husband terrible? I was a horrible boyfriend because I didn't want to talk on the phone for two hours, but apparently I'll go down in history as the greatest husband who ever lived, because I split the housework 50/50. (I don't have kids, but when I do, I'll split that work 50/50 as well.) Instead of congratulating women who manage careers while doing all the housework and childcare, I would ask them, why did you marry such a lazy jerk? If I had just put in a little more effort when I was single, I could have a wife fanning me and feeding me grapes right now. Which would have been way better than what I'm actually doing today, trying to get steak residue off of a cutting board. These grease stains are as frustrating as the societal inequality between men and women!
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