Yea. this is a big reason why I am not interested in having kids. I would be terrible at dealing with all that stuff because people getting emotional stresses me out and I don't know what to do to help. I am broken and and I don't want to inflict that on anyone else.
I wish this was just an old stereotype (and for many men, it is) but you wouldn't believe how many men still come in my office with their family and their wives do all the paperwork and try to wrangle the kids while the dad plays on his phone and ignores them. I do see a lot more actively engaged dads but it's by no means universal, unfortunately.
I don't think they're making judgments about every single dad, they're just saying that the stereotype of many fathers not interacting much with their kids holds true for more fathers than one might expect.
They're here to apply for a passport so both parents generally have to be here, and I really don't think I'm asking too much for men to interact with their kids for 15 minutes if they're not going to help with any of the paperwork. At least pay enough attention to keep them from running around getting into people's stuff.
And that is great. Do you think everybody else also has a household as comfortable with this kind of division labor?
I also noticed you didn’t say anything about who raises kids. That’s fine but it’s what this whole discussion is about ultimately. Caregivers are typically women by a large margin.
I’m not sure where you live, but I know plenty of guys who operate like this unfortunately. Parenting/caregiving is still deeply gendered and a lot of men do not equally share the burden, which also translates into more frustration when things “aren’t working” because they aren’t used to dealing with kids (in particular tantrums at any age, but broader emotional needs as well) as much as their partners generally are.
There has definitely been a lot of progress lately sure but we have a long way to go.
They should've said "tired" instead of "outdated", but otherwise I agree with them: The Onion should do better than basic stereotypes. I mean, unless there's some bad dad news I've missed that'd make the parody more timely and creative, but....
