By Guest Blogger ? Charlie East-West
After picking up the kids from school I took them for a spot of tennis practice at the local tennis club. One of the ladies at the club opened her conversation with me by stating:- ?Don?t you work?? ? My response to her could have been:- ?It is called being self employed, and not living in a 1960?s Mad Men model of parenting where you expect the darling husband to work from 8am ? 6pm while you stay at home.? ? I did not say that to her because I would have descended towards her incongruous views on parenting gender roles.
Parenting roles rightly differ according to personal circumstances. But if she flippantly generalises at me, I am probably entitled to flippantly generalise at her. Thankfully, I bit my tongue. I then spent the next 10 minutes trying to squeeze my car past her ridiculous 4?4 Chelsea tractor. By this stage I needed cellophane to be wrapped around my mouth to stop the anger from seeping out.
I absolutely hate gender pigeonholing when it comes to parenting. I was raised single-handedly by my father and as result, I have always had a pretty open mind about the gender roles of parents. My father fought an uphill battle as a full time single parent in the 1980s, when he was a rarity. He would get odd looks on the school run, and his less enlightened male friends would often find it a source of comedy.
Thankfully, the world has moved on somewhat, but the gender cliche to parenting remains. In this day and age, where most families are being squeezed financially, parents are rightfully juggling daily responsibility between work and child care, yet, are still bombarded with advertising and media messaging that highlights a male hunter gatherer and female domestic goddess. Such cliches are lazy, outdated and borderline offensive.
Luckily, my children?s school has a number of fathers who participate in the school run. This is quite possibility as a result of the ever increasing number of people who are becoming self employed or are adopting flexible work place hours to share child care responsibilities.
Such parental ball juggling occurs even at Westminster. Louise Mensch recently gave up her political position in order to focus on her family and sparked a continuation of this debate. Fellow Tory MP Nadine Dorries accused her of destroying the reputation of female MPs when she left a select committee hearing, questioning James Murdoch, in order to pick her children up from school. Dorries remarked: ?This was stomach-turning for female MPs, who act in a professional manner in order not to be judged lacking against our male peers, knowing that hell would freeze over before any male MP would behave in the same way.?
Whilst many would admire Mensch?s decision to direct her attention to her children, there is some validity in Dorries? observation that no male MP has ever made a similar sacrifice. This example showcases a continuation of an appalling double standard when it comes to our collective view of parenting. This is also shown in the recent publication of ?The End of Men and The Rise of Women? by Hanna Rosin. According to Rosin, even as men slip towards marketplace obsolescence, those of us with families continue to be slacker manchildren in the home, unable to overcome sloppy parenting, haphazard home economics, and gender betrayal. The reality is hopefully somewhat different. Any man who shares, or is predominantly responsible for child care should feel proud of contributing towards a new and relevant gender landscape.
How a family is run is a matter only for that family. It is a private decision and no one, absolutely no one should have anything to say about it. It does not mean a thing if the wife works and the husband is at home with the kids. It just means that that was their decision when confronted with their reality. Hopefully society will finally recognise this fact, and consign the traditional Mad Men model of parenting to where it should be ? a fantastic TV period drama.
Source: http://www.allthatsleft.co.uk/2012/10/the-politics-of-parenting-part-one/
syracuse ohio state girl with the dragon tattoo ohio state basketball collateral dick cheney heart umf
কোন মন্তব্য নেই:
একটি মন্তব্য পোস্ট করুন