Discriminating against Mr. Mom
This is the last entry you can comment on for the first half of May.
Are men just as capable of raising children as women? Is it understandable that stay at home moms are leery of stay at home dads, or is this just unjustifiable prejudice? Should we try to make things easier for stay at home dads in our society? If you are/were a man, would you be willing to take care of the kids so your wife could bring home the bacon?
Firstly, I really like the idea of men staying at home, taking care of the child and doing all the duties which are usually done by women. I like it because it proves that both genders are equal, and therefore you can do whatever you want. If a woman wants to be an auto-mechanic, it is her choice and no one can stop her. If a man wants to stay at home and spend some time with his children, while his wife is at work, it is his only his and no one else’s choice. I think that fathers shouldn’t care at all what people think of them.
ReplyDeleteFor me, when a father decides to stay at home and take care of his children, it proves that he loves them really much. So much that he will rather stay at home and spend time with them, rather than go to work.
I appreciate that men finally realize how hard all the duties which a woman must do at home are hard and exhausting. Staying at home taking care of kids seems to be as ideal as a holiday. However, it is really strenuous.
I feel really sorry for Russ, who had to leave several support networks because the women were being mean to him. They excluded him from one group and after seeing how mean they were in the second group he rather left even the second one. It is immature from the women not to realize how nice it is from the men when they try so hard. In my opinion it is completely sexist and unmoral to discriminate men who stay at home to take care of their children. I completely agree with Ryan when he said in the article: “My wife needs her work. Knowing her, and knowing me, this was a natural fit.” I agree that what’s natural isn’t always what’s traditional. It’s what works best and what creates the most nurturing environment for each member of a family.
I think that neither men nor women should be discriminated according to their gender. We were all born equal and it should stay like that.
My mother stopped working and devoted herself to taking care of my siblings and I until I, the youngest, started attending elementary school. After that it was also my mother that went to various parent-teacher conferences and watched us at school performances. She was the one I cried out to when I was thirsty in the middle of the night and was too scared to get out of bed because it was dark (the most cruel habit I ever had) or the one that I went to first when I wanted to brag about something that happened at school. However, this does not mean that my father did not devote to taking care of me; he just did it in his own way. After he came from work we would always go play some sport and it was him that was cheering me on at every soccer or basketball game I ever had. He is the one I always have deep conversations about life with and the one that constantly inspires me and motivates me to be better. While my mom can be viewed as my comforter, my dad always provided the fuel for my aspirations. It is impossible to say which had a greater influence on my upbringing; I would not have been able to have such an amazing childhood without one or the other.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I have to say that I cannot imagine my dad sacrificing his whole career to stay at home and take care of the kids while my mom was out working. My mother would not have been able to work so much and concentrate on her job since she would have been constantly thinking about what could have been going on at home, and my father (being the workaholic that he is) would self-destruct because he would feel as if he was not being as ‘useful’ as he could be and consequently feel guilty for allowing my mother to work while he ‘slacks off’ at home (at least he would believe that is what he was doing). But, the fact that it worked like this in my parent’s relationship does not mean that this is true for all. Similarly to Barbora, I also believe that it completely depends on the couple and what works best for them. If, in a relationship, it is obvious that the woman is a careerist while the man is completely family-oriented, it would be utterly absurd for each of them to be left unhappy just because of traditional thinking.
Most people have an extremely hard time not taking into consideration what is traditional and just doing what makes them happy and fulfilled. Since the population becomes so accustomed to the habits that have been done a certain way for centuries, they view these customs as the ‘natural way’ of doing them, and thus these methods are considered better than the others. However, I think that individuals are becoming more open-minded and more and more of such traditions are fading away (even though the process is quite slow) and the prejudices and discrimination of the people that choose to ignore them (e.g. stay-at-home fathers) along with them.
@ Jana
DeleteI just have to agree with everything Jana said in her comment on this topic. Only the fact that something is the way it has always been, does not necessarily make it the right thing (if you see what I mean). Those traditional habits are there to be overcome by the new ones, or at least alternate ones. It is not fair to discriminate against someone, just because he has a different way of doing things. It is their own personal choice. Nonetheless, I think it would be almost impossible for me to stay at home and take care of the kids. It’s not that I would not like them, but my feelings would be very much the same as those of Jana’s father. I would just feel guilty for not bringing any resources into the household.