Wanted: A Small Step for Fathering

OK, I'm not sure if this will all come out and make logical sense right now, but I wanted to begin posting my growing questions and concerns about the stereotyping of fathers' roles in parenting (I reserve the right to revise my comments later as I have more time to think). As we've been going to baby stores, reading about pregnancy and raising a child, etc., I've been noticing what a rather small minority of new fathers must notice -- there is a lot of gender stereotyping going on. Is this world really more open to men who share the parenting commitment with their spouses? How many small (and large) barriers and annoyances will I encounter as I take a shared role in raising our son?

What sparked this? Well, for one thing, we really wanted to find an outfit for our son-to-be that said something connecting Father and Son (you know, for Father's Day). With the exception of a couple obnoxiously masculine baseball outfits with sayings like "Daddy's Hero" and things like that, there was pretty much nothing. However, lots of "Daddy's Little Girl." Is there something wrong in this society with a father connecting to his son as a parent? On the flip side, is there something wrong with a mother connecting with her daughter (there were also no Mommy-Daughter sayings on clothing)? So the corporate clothing manufacturers/designers are already determining parenting roles and parent-child relationships before the child is even born. And the color split in the stores is really annoying: blue and brown to the right, pink and yellow to the left . . . and DON'T CROSS THE STREAMS!

OK, so clothing is really insignificant in the whole scheme of things. What else sparked this? Here's a great NY-Times blog post I read recently which sums up a lot of my existing concerns and frustrations: "Changing the Language of Fatherhood." More power to you. I agree with the "Mommy & Me" focus of most parent-child classes (although our local YMCA does offer some general classes that do not specify "mommy," which I was happy to see). I would go a bit farther than Mr. Dreilsma and complain about the lack of expectant father and father parenting blogs that actually talk about anything real (other than tech gadgets and unrealistic gear). There are a couple good ones out there, but nothing in comparison to all the sites geared completely towards expectant and new mothers. I'm not expecting any level of equality on this, but would love to see more fathers blog about just parenting (and nix the tech-centric, BoBo, witty postings -- something I'm admittedly working on myself).

One final hurdle for new fathers -- lack of changing tables in men's public restrooms. Andrew Newman wrote a good piece on this recently in the NY Times, with blogger Greg Allen doing some field research on how many restrooms for men really had changing stations . . . not many.

So I'll keep posting any thoughts I have on this male parent gender role thing. Maybe I'll make more sense the next time.