Yesterday morning during a long phone conversation with my mother, I described my week at hand - a week where my wife, Laura, returned to work, and I stayed at home to care for our two children, Audra, age 4, and Aliza, age 4 months. A week of laundry, house cleaning, feedings, baths, diaper changes, and more baths, reading books, playing games, rocking to sleep at nap time, shopping at the grocery store, cooking a meal for dinner guests ... you get the drift. At one point during our phone call my mother remarked "You are such a great Mr. Mom!" I replied "No thanks, not Mr. Mom - just dad."
I hear this sort of comment often, usually from women, but also from men who have come to believe that being a good father is becoming a good mother. It is an archaic and slow-dying assumption in our culture, one that implies that IF a man does good primary care of young children, he is simply performing as a Super Mom, having traded in his testicles for his new feminine side.
Twenty some years ago, poet, James Kavanaugh included this verse in his poem, 'Recently'
'Wondering all the while
what it would be like for a boy
to grow up without a role model
who is often gruff,
raucous, bigoted, unshowered
and unshaven
and as tender
as any woman in the world ...'
When I love my two young daughters, I love them as a man, not as a woman who is somehow more tender and loving and nurturing. I love them in, with, and through all of my maleness. You see, I am the other side of the coin from the mother of my daughters, who, by the way, is a mother of unparalleled enchantment. But I do not bring her gifts. I bring mine. Hopefully, in the end, my little girls receive, from both of us, a powerful offering of the rich possibilities of life.
Later in the day, while still musing about my morning phone conversation, the girls and I went to the grocery store for a few last things needed for our dinner party. As we walked through the parking lot toward the front door of the store, I held Aliza in her car seat with one hand, and held Audra's with the other. Good thing I had firm hold of Audra, for a new white SUV came speeding through the lot, doing a good 30 to 40 mph, almost clipping my girls and me, not stopping to apologize or see if we were okay. Behind the wheel of the SUV was a woman, along with her 4 passenger children.
Thought for the day -
Not all violence is the property of men,
nor is all tenderness the property of the women
4 comments:
Awesome entry bro! Couldn't agree more. You have taught me much about being a man and for that I am grateful!
Send that SUV our way in Chicago...we'll take care of her. Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
We have a few of those homicidal SUV drivers in Petaluma. Iwas nearly run over by one who slammed straight across the sidewalk and nearly took off my foot. On the other side of the car (also missed by her) was a kid on a bike.
She wanted to know why I was "such an angry person."
As they say in the South... "Be Sweet."
This is beautiful, Zach. Dads do bring special gifts. Often quite different from the gifts of a mother, but every bit as valuable and necessary.
And regarding the more mudane tasks of parenthood: I was surprised at how many times, when my babies were babies, I heard, "Oh, you're so lucky your husband changes diapers!" My reply was usually a cheerful, "Yep, we have an equal opportunity baby." Happily, I did note that I most often heard that comment from older women, not very often -- if at all -- from women my age. Whew.
Boo-hiss to the SUV.
Where were you when I was raising my family? I sure needed that perspective on parenting than the one I received from both a "parentless" childhood, a male-role world of "getting ahead" in my profession, and a profession that allowed me to be much more skilled in preaching and teaching parenting skills than learning them and living them with my four kids!
My dear eldest son, Zachary....you teach me new things every day, and in my 75 years that has given me a lot of time and space to learn. Keep on writing! I'll keep on learning.
Your Pops
Post a Comment