Twilight of the Mediocre Dad
Lots of men are caring and competent fathers. Let's stop making excuses for those who aren't.
Nobody benefits from the existence of very, very bad men like mediocre men.
How many times, after the story of Harvey Weinstein’s sexual predation broke, did we hear people defend the actions of other men by declaring that shitty behaviors weren’t so bad, compared to Harvey Weinstein? “He tried to kiss her at an office happy hour, it’s not like he’s Harvey Weinstein…” “He just flashed his penis… and he didn’t even touch her. It’s not like he’s Harvey Weinstein.”-- as though the only way something a man does can be considered bad at all is if it is equal or greater to the worst possible thing.
I’ve never seen that logic used to apply to anything but bad male behavior toward women. If I hit a bicyclist with my car and fled the scene, I can’t imagine anybody would minimize the immorality of my actions by saying that at least I didn’t crash a plane into the World Trade Center.
“I apologize on behalf of my gender” is a phrase I’ve heard a lot, from men who may find the heights of their gender’s depravity repugnant, but whose stock would fall if the average guy was just a little bit better behaved. Hetero men get graded on a generous curve.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the way we assume that the average dad is a mediocre parent.
Moms who go out to socialize without their children in tow often get asked who is watching the kids, a question rarely asked of dads. Dad watching his own children is described as “babysitting,” as though he’s earning a little pocket money. When moms do it, it’s just “parenting.” Men sometimes describe cleaning their own houses as “helping out,” as though the home is by default their wives’ responsibility, even if their wife works just as many hours outside the home as they do.
But, compared to the worst men on the planet, these adequate male roommates are not doing too bad! The dad who considers caring for his own children “babysitting”-- hey, at least he didn’t abandon his family! At least he’s not out golfing every weekend! The man who considers washing his own dishes to be a form of helping his wife– hey, at least he’s not just leaving the dirty ones in the sink! At least he’s not hitting her!
It is just assumed that the home and children are the woman’s responsibility, and that when men do it, they’re going above and beyond what they should ever be expected to do. In some families, that’s the case, sure, but it’s silly to assume it’s the case in most families. Accolades aren’t extended to women when they deviate from traditional roles, like, say, earning money from a job. “Your wife is so lucky to be married to such a hands-on dad.” Imagine telling a female coworker with children that it’s “your husband is so lucky to have a wife who takes such good care of her career.” You’d literally be used in an anti-sexism-in-the-workplace training video.
A quick, depressing stroll through Instagram or TikTok shows that there are a lot of people who think it’s funny when dads act like giant unreliable babies and their wives shrug their shoulders and say “Whaddayagonnado?” while laughing good-naturedly. There’s the trope that when a mom leaves her children at home with their father, she will return to find her house– the one that she normally keeps in order by herself, while caring for the kids– has descended into chaos, the children running around unbathed and feral while the dad watches sports or plays video games. There’s the trope that dads don’t know what their children eat for meals, don’t know the names of their kids’ teachers or pediatricians, don’t know how to properly dress their children or can’t change diapers, even though the mom and dad became parents at the exact same time and have thus had the exact same amount of time to learn how to do all this stuff.
Hey, at least dad is trying!
I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news to the semi-mediocre dads out there, but the gig is up. The standard for dads is no longer “sufficient but disappointing.” Women talk to each other, and we know you’re capable of more, because many of us are married to men who are, in fact, doing more.
While it’s true that division of household labor and care duties during the the COVID-19 pandemic laid bare ongoing disparities between who does what around the house, enough mothers are talking to each other now–over social media, The Groupchat, whatever– that it’s going to be a lot more difficult for dads who aspire to do as little as possible to get away with doing the bare minimum.
Turns out, there are plenty of dads out there who are engaged fathers, competent caregivers, and active participants in the upkeep of their homes. Men who do not need to be coddled and have excuses made for them. I sometimes take my daughter to “Mommy & Me” classes at a local baby gym, and half of the “mommies” are dads, and the dads don’t seem annoyed or embarrassed. Some dads actually seem to enjoy spending time with and caring for their children. The “women are natural caregivers and men are natural providers” line of bullshit doesn’t fly. There are too many counterexamples for it to hold as a valid generalization.
And look: we can still joke around about our different parenting styles, even when the dad isn’t himself a giant baby. My husband (not a giant baby), for example, picks out Juniper’s clothes most days. He puts her in the wildest shit. Is she going to story hour at the library or is she going to Coachella? Who can say. The other day he put jean short overalls over a pair of loudly patterned tights. He bought her a shirt in Little Tokyo that has a giant baby head on it that looks a lot like her, and so when my daughter wears it, she appears to be wearing a shirt of her own face. But I also know that if I leave for a few hours, when I come back, the kid is just as likely to be clean, fed, and happy as she would be if I were looking after her.
That should be what we expect of dads. Screw the curve. You’ve got to get at least 90 to get an A.