Poor Moms, Poor Dads

"Choosy Moms Choose Jif"

"Kid tested, Mother Approved." -Kix

"Recommended by Dr. Mom" - Robitussin

"Moms depend on Kool-Aid like kids depend on Moms."

"Kid delicious. Mom nutritious." - Nestle Nesquik

Have you ever thought about how society views mothers? If you know me, you know I have - and a lot! The above ads came to me pretty quickly when I thought about how TV commercials help perpetuate the way we view parents. More than how this affects mothers, I've thought about how this affects fathers. I asked Sam the other night, after several "parenting" conversations that had come up last weekend with friends and with family, if he ever gets annoyed that most people tend to look to me when it comes to decisions about our child. It kind of annoys me, so I wondered if it annoyed him. I recognize that women are seen as the primary care-takers of their children, but should we just accept that stereotype/assumption without questioning it? The concern is definitely a feminist one - that men and women should be equals. I'm not complaining about how it makes me feel as a woman; I'm worried about how it makes our men feel as fathers.

The fact is that I want Sam to be just as active in our child's life as I am. I want him to make decisions with me; I want his input and his help; I want him to be just as involved in child-rearing and care-taking as I am. It bothers me when people assume he doesn't care or doesn't have an opinion about something. It also bothers me when people assume I DO. It's kind of the same way I felt with the wedding planning - the original reason I started this blog in the first place. I was not one of those women who had envisioned my wedding day with the minute details already planned out since I was 2 years old. I hated when the vendors would look at me (and not at Sam) with the expectation that I knew the answers to their questions when I may have never thought about what I would like/want. I desperately needed Sam to talk about what he wanted as well. It's pretty much the same thing now. . . our friends and family ask us questions and look to me for the answers - not to Sam.

The worst part is that I understand the stereotype. I work in a school with children, and when there's a problem or I need to talk to a parent, the first one I'd rather talk to is the mother. Is that because fathers, in general, are not expected to know the answers about their own children? Is that because they really aren't involved? Or, is that because I find it easier to talk to a woman? So many internal questions with this one... and, again, what's worse is that my own brother is extremely active in his kids' lives. He is with them more than their mother is. I know many dads who attend parent/teacher conferences and are more communicative than the moms are. And, I know many single dads who are raising their kids on their own, so why would I feel that I can't talk to a dad as easily as I could talk to a mom? I guess I blame society for these messages that dads just don't know what's going on with their kids or don't care - - even though I KNOW that message is not true.

I want Sam and I to be the parents who show up to the pediatrician together, who attend parent/teacher conferences together, who would know all of Baby's friends, his grades, when his next soccer game is, etc. without having to consult with each other. I don't want Sam to feel left out of decision-making when it comes to our child or our family. I just don't want everyone to assume that I'm the only one with knowledge of our child or that I'm the only one making the decisions for our kids.

During our conversation last weekend, we talked about how sexist our society is. The wedding was just as much Sam's as it was mine - and who did people look to when asking questions about what we wanted to happen at this event? Me. This baby is just as much Sam's as he is mine - and who do people look to when asking questions about how we will raise him, care for him, etc? Me. Yet, when this house belonged solely to me, and Sam was in town from school helping me with some house maintenance, we'd go to Home Depot, and who did people look to when asking questions about the house? Sam! The same is true when we were looking at buying a new car last summer. The car was for me, but who did the salesperson ask questions to when discussing preferences or payment plans? Sam!

We both decided, after this interesting conversation, that we really haven't come as far as we think we have (as a society) since the 1950s. This is a problem, in my opinion, for both moms and dads when it comes to parenting. Moms feel the pressure to know everything, to have decisions made, to be the primary care-taker. Dads feel left-out, as if they don't know or care.

I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong, but those ad slogans seem to really favor moms as the primary care-taker and decision-maker. Just watch TV commercials more closely - you might start to notice, if you haven't already, how dads are treated as additional children or non-existent in their kids' lives. Poor Moms. Poor Dads.