Escape the Library

Here's the deal: It's the frickin New York Times and every reader (and non-readers as well, for all it matters to them) should be able to expect better than a story about one dad providing diversity at a library storytime. Instead of another complaint about how a stay-at-home dad feels out of things in the mommy/nanny dominated daytime world, why not send a real reporter and talk to the people about their troglodytic thinking.

Fathers can take care of their children. Even during the daytime. They don't need librarians rereading a story to replace "daddy" every time the text says "mommy" to make them feel like "real parents." The only good part of the story was when the kid decided she had had enough and demanded to escape the idiocy of the event and go outside to play — maybe something the NYT editors should have thought about when the story arrived in the office.

Old News

"It's another manic Monday" is how NPR began today's take on the booming cohort of stay-at-home-dads. There are the standard explanations (i.e., economic transformations; changing social attitudes). Still, most of the story is the same one having been told for years (and years) now — for comparison compare (there's not much contrast) between the NPR's Yuki Noguchi's take and the Washington Post's look-see via Katherine Shaver.

It is nice that pops as tops in child care can belie headlines and plaints like "Laid-Off Dad Won't Help at Home." However, once again, we look forward to the day when dads taking care of kids doesn't qualify on radio or in print as "news."

For what it's worth, another "Manic Monday" that's nicely told, but also doesn't qualify as news

Let It Rest

Oops. Almost let slip by the annual revelation — times to run before and on father's day — throughout much media that there are such things at fathers who choose to raise kids (aka, stay at home dads, SAHDs).

A new wrinkle on an old story this year came from the whiny father (NB: not WD) who said what would really warm his heart's cockles would be for his wife to help the kids make him a schlocky art project for father's day. More traditional is the reporter who writes like an amazed anthropologist about a father who finds himself by loving his children and not acting like robotman at work. And then, of course, there's the trend piece of daddies who prove just as capable as mommies.

Once again, what's needed is some daditude and the best (as almost always) taken on sacharine (or over-) looks at fathers comes from Daddy Dialectic, this year on the FD Daddy Shift Quiz.

And now we can put FD 2009 to rest. Amen.

Glad SAHDs

Somehow, Garth Brooks seems to be stretching the definition of "stay at home dad" in announcing the release of his new album.

The mega-selling country star had three daughters with first wife Sandy Mahl Brooks (they announced their divorce in 2000 and he is now married to singer Trisha Yearwood) and vowed with his 2001 "retirement" to stay at home to care for the girls until the youngest, Allie Colleen who was born in 1996, graduates high school. But there will be live performances and maybe even limited touring in support of this self-distributed collection of "Ultimate Hits."

Someone who might have taken a page out of his book — for purposes of self-definition only — is Cincinnati Reds rookie starter Tom Shearn, 30, who had to return to baseball and his major league debut after 11 seasons in the minors because his wife wouldn't let him live the SAHD life with his 18-month-old daughter... as if playing baseball were really a full time job.

** If a stay-at-home-mommy includes the women with maids and nannies, why shouldn't fathers be granted some flexibility as well? **

Running for Home

Is the father at work the same man as the father at home? What if his home is (say) The White House? So what do you learn about how a president will govern by the way a man campaigns?

Today's New York Times offers a look at fathers (and mothers) and children on the campaign trail. Whatever you thought about your favored candidate and the others will most likely be reinforced by what you read about the extraordinary compromises made by dads (and kids) in the hunt. However, you might pick up something on another candidate you can always use against them when arguing with hour friends.

** In reality, the president is just another stay-at-home-dad, who just doesn't stay at home that much. **

Make It A SAHD Day

What's a hausherr to do with the downtime? Dadstock 2007 is over and little more than a date is posted for Nov.'s 12th Annual Stay at Home Dad convention. (2006 info is available here.) One project for creating some "us" time — starting the neighborhood dad's club — comes courtesy of SAHD-focused (stay-at-home-dad focused, for the acronym-challenged) web site Rebeldad.

** Can't reasonable men gather to whinge if they don't have to pretend it is more than that? **

What's In a Name

Except for contactors, what dad will call himself a homemaker?

The Washington Post reported (registration required) Father's Day that the number of stay-at-home dads as triple the number of the 1990s, about 2.7 percent of stay-at-home parents, compared to the distaff side's 97.3 percent. Of course, the men in the article all worked outside the home (consulting, freelance, etc.) in addition to being the first line of support for their children.

Such men are the unwitting combatants in a fight between women — isn't it always the way? 1970s Women's Lib "theology" suggested to many women they were failures if they did nothing more than bear and raise children. Then came the backlash and the rejection of the philosophy by loudly (if defensively) claiming one's status in the home and out of the workplace. So, "housewife" (who is actually married to a house?) and "homemaker" (really, shouldn't this refer only to the builder?) both became politically loaded names.

Neither the reporter nor anybody interviewed seemed comfortable referring to such men as "homemakers," "househusband" promotes giggling and "stay-at-home dad" doesn't really seem to fit for men working so much. So, a new moniker is needed — for if the number triples every decade, men will be the primary caregivers in the 30s and given that status, it only seems fair we give them a name of which they can be proud. Suggestions invited.

** If only "dad" or "mom" were enough to explain what one "did." **