That’s a constructive message. But since few American women have French mothers sitting around their homes, ready to show them the way, they may do better to take their cues from a model that’s more readily available: the good fathers they know. Who may in fact be their own husbands. Because odds are, these men have something valuable to teach. Here’s why: unencumbered by outsized cultural expectations about what does or doesn’t constitute good parenting, and free from cultural judgments over their participation in the workforce, good fathers tend to judge themselves less harshly, bring less
That’s a constructive message. But since few American women have French mothers sitting around their homes, ready to show them the way, they may do better to take their cues from a model that’s more readily available: the good fathers they know. Who may in fact be their own husbands. Because odds are, these men have something valuable to teach. Here’s why: unencumbered by outsized cultural expectations about what does or doesn’t constitute good parenting, and free from cultural judgments over their participation in the workforce, good fathers tend to judge themselves less harshly, bring less anguished perfectionism to parenting their children (“Sit in this Bumbo while I unload the dishwasher, would ya?”), and—at least while their kids are young—more aggressively protect their free time. None of this means they love their children any less than their wives do. None of this means they care any less about their children’s fates. Mothers may not, of course, be fully able to follow their husbands’ examples. If women make more forceful claims on their husbands’ free time, their husbands could well push back. This is also, admittedly, a private solution to something that in a civilized world would be a public problem, as Judith Warner argues so fiercely in Perfect Madness. It would be far better if the government kicked in the support that parents needed. But considering that the last Republican presidential primary was briefly derailed by a debate over the legitimacy of birth co...
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I thought this was very interesting having seen these patterns. Because fathers don't have an impossible standard to live up to we are happier with ourselves and our work. It also seems to lead to different boundary setting with children by different parents.
