Just read an article about a sniny new study about gay parenting, with a conclusion that probably shouldn’t be surprising, but still kinda was, at least to me: children of lesbian couples do better than than children of straight couples. The article makes the obvious point that women still do more housework, and still are raised to be nurturers, while men are actively discouraged from showing interest in, learning, and performing those skills. Hence, two mommies are better than one, because more people actually do the parenting. This is bad for the children. It is also bad for the fathers; I can’t imagine that all of them are callous assholes who don’t want to be good parents. Instead, they want to, but don’t have the skill; or feel they can’t express their feelings towards their children; or they don’t even know that they aren’t as nurturing and close to their kids as they could be.
What the article above misses though is not simply that women are still raised to be better nurturers. Modern women are taught to be both “mommy” and “daddy”: they will both teach you how to ride a bike, help you with sport practice, [insert other traditional daddy thing here], and kiss your knee better when you scrape it and cheer you up when the other kids are mean to you. Modern men OTOH are still subject to toxic masculinity which deprives them of the “mommy” skill set completely; and the more of the “daddy” skill-set women adopt, the more toxic masculinity will push men out of those as well. Men are thus deprived of what they should be entitled to just as much as women are: the lessons on how to be a well-rounded parent, and the right to not be ostracized or attacked for being a caring parent.
And on average their children would benefit, too, if their fathers were on average as well-rounded and well-trained at parenting as their mothers on average are.
Interesting and a little sad.
An old thread, I know, but I’ve only recently discovered Jadehawks excellent blog, so will allow myself to comment old posts – they are after all, new to me.
I think a thing that is incredibly sad in this discussion, are the infinite number of times I see mothers who unconsciously push their husbands/SOs/father’s-of-their-kids away from their own children. “No – dearest, don’t change the diaper like that”, “I think I’ll read to him tonight. He likes it better” etcetcetc. It must be so demeaning for these men, many of whom really wants to play a more defining role in their childrens’ lives.
comment away; i consider all posts on here as current anyway, since they’re all on issues that won’t go away anytime soon.
and you’re right. women refusing to let men be a parent and push them out into a secondary positions. A lot of this has probably to do with the internalized stereotype that men can’t be good at taking care of kids. which isn’t true at all: they often lack the knowledge and experience, but then can be just as good at it as women.