My friend, Erin, sparked something in me that she had no intention of sparking in her blog, A Day in the Life, when she asked "already mommies" for advice on parenting stuff. Those two words or one's similar to them get me inappropriately angry. Why you may ask? When I see those statements that ask only for other women's advice on parenting I see that as saying that we dad's are useless or at best second class parenting citizens. Who died and made women the only one's who know how to parent? I get it that there are a lot of men out there that stink at being dad's and prefer for their wives to make all of the decisions and to deal with all of the parenting, but that isn't all of us. I am a completely involved Dad and I know more about parenting than many people want to give us men credit for. I may forget to give my kid his medicine from time to time. I may let my kids stay up later than Mommy would. I may let Jack pee off the deck once in a while. I may encourage them to do dumb things from time to time. I may try to sit on the couch as long as possible and hope that Annie will change a diaper, clean up the toys, get the kids their baths, vacuum the house and whatever she does. But, when it comes to the nitty gritty stuff of parenting I am there and I am involved every step of the way.
I actually have heard a few women say, "Well I pushed him out so I get the final say!" Um, no you don't. I give women all the credit in the world for being able to give birth to enormous things and I respect that it is an experience that can't truly be understood by us dudes. However, that does not give the mom a special veto in all parenting decisions. My own wife tried to play this card when we were debating what to name Ryan. She didn't win that argument, but she did try! Ryan will thank me one day for fighting the good fight on this one as his mother wanted to name Elijah...not a bad name...for someone else's kid! Anyway, the point here is this...we men want to have a say in the lives of our children and if you ladies would listen to us once in a while I bet you would be pleasantly surprised by what we have to say. Rant concluded!
You're right. That was a mistake to word it the way I did. It is the unfortunate "stigma" attached to parenting...that you address the mother. I agree that pushing a child out is challenging (a challenge I will soon face), but my husband has to deal with my being lazy and tired and most recently sick. He makes his own dinner, he cleans the house, he gets me a bowl of ice cream before going to the gym. He's going to be an amazing and active father and not a single medium or big decision will be made by me just because I pushed the kid out. Although...I will use that line with my in-laws because I'm responsible for carrying on their family name.
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