Daniel makes stuff, and, in his spare time, writes about things like movies, kid culture, and geek stuff.
"Judgy Horseshit" and the Kid- and Parent-Haters

In retrospect, I was apparently far too tame in my response to Details Magazine’s “Is your kid a douchebag?” article.

To compensate, Kelly Hogaboom has the “modern, earnestly-tries parent who’s sick of the Hate” perspective down. She delightfully unravels some of the more absurd generalisations of the Details Magazine piece – and the countless others that have gone before it – and she (fairly) calls foul on its general lack of truthiness.

I know what you’re thinking: Why fuss? It’s a blip on the screen. Yet, I see so much of this sort of thing: an author inexpert on the topic, gathering up a bunch of “authorities” to make a bunch of sweeping claims about Parents and Kids Today, as if today’s parenting culture was a monolith of Borg-like assholes going through the motions, rather than a complex, heavily nuanced series of mores, values, and traditions being fought in the trenches by, you know, real people.

I think that’s just it. Kelly’s response calls out the damaging nature of our society’s apparent infatuation with so-called “Experts” and authority figures who tell us how we’re getting our kids’ lives “wrong” – and it highlights the need for us to acknowledge the overwhelming complexities of parenting (cf. Ayelet Waldman’s “Bad Mother”).

Very rarely is anything in this life simple… and I would say that the Parent-Child relationship is about the furthest thing yet from that.

Feb 19, 2010 :: Tagged under: , , , :: #

"Are You Raising a Douchebag?"

By Daniel Bigler :: Friday February 19, 2010

That’s what Details Magazine is asking you … but admittedly, the entire question seems oddly familar.

Over-indulgent parenting, kids-need-parents-not-buddies, don’t spawn hipster douchebags… bla bla bla. I’m going to go out on a limb and say we have heard it all before. Many times.

To be fair, there’s actually a decent level of fair-minded reporting within this latest backlash-against-helicopter-parenting article, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s one on top of a whole heap of similar articles – and you have to wonder when it’ll stop. Perhaps more prudent than this endless stream of criticism, it’s important we keep a bit of perspective when raging against these “awful, uncaring” parents.

Why? Because, quite simply, there aren’t as many overindulgent, douchebag-raising helicopter parents out there as you may think.

I recently revisited an old 2006 article entitled “Baby Einstein Vs. Barbie,” by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman (authors of the excellent new book “Nurtureshock”); in it – and in their followup piece – Bronson and Merryman found that the media elite wildly overportrayed this type of helicopter parenting when reporting about the problems of the typical American family. They point to one crucial factor often overlooked by the media in the discussion: that is, quite simply, social class. To a large degree, Bronson and Merryman argue, the helicopter parenting problems are only problems of the highly affluent – those who can afford the outrageously expensive birthday parties and have the luxury of buying $400 Marc Jacobs hoodies for their kids. That might certainly include those who fall into Details magazine’s readership – but it sure as heck doesn’t necessarily include everyone else. As Bronson and Merryman write: “Most families in America aren’t doing too much for their children. They’re doing everything they can, and it’s just barely enough.”

While it’s great to be aware and mindful of the sociological issues surrounding parenting, it’s crucial we also be smart about them and view things with a bit of perspective.

If you wonder how these facts can so often get misrepresented, remember what Claude Fisher said. He’s a Professor of Sociology at UC Berkeley. “A social trend is whatever is happening to a newspaper editor and the editor’s friends.” […]

The media needs a reality check. Mountains are being made of molehills. This new paranoia that we’re all smothering our kids is a myth.

– Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

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President Obama's Role as Father-in-Chief

There will always be fires to put out – and no matter our work or its importance, there will always be a point where we need to check back in with our real values and priorities.

I think it speaks volumes about his character and wisdom that President Obama maximises the flexibility of his office to structure his work around what’s ultimately far more longstanding – family.

Feb 18, 2010 :: Tagged under: , , :: #

More Ways for Dads to Change the World

So as it ends up, that piece that Jeremy Adam Smith wrote that I linked to last week – the “Ways for Dads to Change the World” piece – was actually originally published last October. I know, I should really start paying attention to post dates.

All the better, though, because you can now peruse a whole slew of additional ways that dads can change the world – including fighting for paternity leave and playing video games with your kids. Jeremy’s up to number 12 of 25 right now.

Also interesting is Jeremy’s motivation for why he – a father – should write for Mothering magazine, which one commentator saw as possibly being inherently disenfranchising toward fathers.

Jeremy’s response to this:

The fact that I write for Mothering magazine should tell you that Mothering has made a deliberate decision to start including fathers in their pages, in pictures and articles. Not because they’re shifting the focus away from moms — it’s still very much a magazine about the special issues moms face — but because they want to depict parenting as a cooperative activity, a partnership. As the editor, Peggy O’Mara, has made clear, that’s come about because they’ve seen fathers change and become more cooperative, more like co-parents. Fathers need examples of caring fatherhood, but women need to see those examples, too. Father involvement is something all of us have to value. There is nothing in the magazine, however, that says you do not exist–quite the opposite is true. Mothering embraces fathering, don’t doubt it for a second.

Why did I choose Mothering as a venue for the series? Mainly because I think it’s world-changing for a mom magazine to welcome father’s voice. The context seemed right.

That, I think, is the real meaning behind the Daddy Shift. It isn’t about all or nothing, one way or the other, or fathers replacing mothers, or even doing the same things as traditionally mothers have done – but about both coming to an equally shared, coordinated way of parenting.

Feb 14, 2010 :: Tagged under: , , , :: #

The Virtues of a Slow-Moving Dad

Michael Winerip, of the New York Times, considers the growing cadre of men who are experiencing fatherhood late in life. For many, it’s the first time being a dad – but for others, it’s a second round of fatherhood, with the new perk of ample time to be with their young children as they grow.

This time, Mr. Fliegelman, whose wife, Josephine, 50, is a speech therapist, is anchoring the household. When his first child, Bessie, now 33, was born, he was literally coming up from the underground, from a life on the edge as a radical activist with the Weathermen. He was a single father sharing custody of Bessie, working at a private school and studying nights to become certified to teach in the public schools. “A struggle,” Mr. Fliegelman said. “A very harried life.”

Three years ago, when Isaac was 2, Mr. Fliegelman retired, after 25 years as a New York City special education teacher. “The thing that’s most amazing to me this time,” he said, “there are days I can think about Isaac and nothing else. I mean, I think about making dinner, but I can give him an enormous amount of undivided attention.”

The real value of Presence… Maybe we don’t understand its importance in parenting until we’re old.

(Via The Evolution of Dad.)

Feb 14, 2010 :: Tagged under: , , :: #

Fifty Way for Dads to Change the World

A new series of columns for Mothering.com, by “The Daddy Shift” author Jeremy Adam Smith, about the “personal and political ways dads can make a difference in their communities.”

The first way: attend every prenatal class and doctor’s appointment. It’s something Jeremy fails miserably at, too. (Hey, nobody’s perfect.)

Feb 11, 2010 :: Tagged under: , , , :: #

'Mr. Mom's World'

A Salon article from a full ten years ago that shares the stories and stereotypes of Stay at Home Dads. Interesting to see what’s changed, and what’s stayed the same.

(Via Playground Dad.)

Feb 08, 2010 :: Tagged under: , , , , :: #

‘Plastic Baby’ Goes to School

Boy takes a baby doll off to Kindergarten. Dad sweats bullets, wondering if Boy will face mass ridicule. Guess what? He doesn’t!

I love stories like this. They just poke so many great holes into our reliance/fear of gender stereotypes.

Jan 23, 2010 :: Tagged under: , , :: #

Do Children Need Both a Mother and a Father?

The short answer: No.

The long answer, as reiterated in a new comprehensive meta-study of past research: Utterly not. As we’ve seen before, stability in relationships and parenting is the number one factor in the outcomes and wellbeing of children. The gender and even the number of parents have very little to do with it. As noted:

In their analysis, the researchers found no evidence of gender-based parenting abilities, with the “partial exception of lactation,” noting that very little about the gender of the parent has significance for children’s psychological adjustment and social success.

While this has important implications for opponents to same-sex marriages and adoption (basically deflating any argument against same-sex parenting on the basis that “children need a mother and a father”), it also backs up the Daddy Shift notion that mothers and fathers can share more egalitarian parenting and caregiving roles. With no distinct gender-based difference in parenting abilities, what’s left defining parenting roles is only cultural. The researcher says it best: “The gender of parents only matters in ways that don’t matter.”

Not to skim over another important conclusion from the study, though: The number of parents equally doesn’t have to matter. Single parents can often do as equally well as two-parents – although it is noted that, on average, two-parent households generally fare better. This one’s a bit tricky, since it really is down to the individual level of parenting – and practicalities play a part. Single parents have more up against them time-wise (having to juggle work and being a sole caregiver), whereas couples have an advantage practically, able to trade off caregiving and work. Still it’s important to remember that it’s about the quality of parenting, not how many people are providing it: “One really good parent is better than two not-so-good ones,” the researcher claims.

Jan 21, 2010 :: Tagged under: , , :: #

Four Observations on the 'Bad Parenting' Movement

Speaking of, Jeremy Adam Smith recently shared four observations in response to the increasing social discussion and media coverage of what’s been labeled the “Bad Parenting” trend – a sentiment perhaps encapsulated best in author Ayelet Waldman’s new book, “Bad Mother”.

Smith’s first observation on the matter is, I’m beginning to think, the biggest elephant in the room:

Fathers are pretty much defined as “bad parents,” as the term is being popularly used. When we talk about proud “bad parents,” most of the time we’re really talking about “bad mothers” who are rebelling against the idea that they must be perfect to be good. […] Waldman’s “Bad Mother” is a reaction against the unrealistic, cognitively dissonant standards to which mothers are held. Meanwhile, fathers are not held, and do not hold themselves, to the same standards. When fathers reveal their foibles and failures as parents, they do it, by and large, with a laugh. They are allowed to be human.

I think Scott Hick’s upcoming movie “The Boys Are Back” (featuring actor Clive Owen) is a great example of this: the implicit assumption in the film’s reality, and what motivates the story’s drama, is this notion that “Dads Can’t Raise Kids Alone.” Through the course of the film, though, Clive Owen’s character must expectedly prove, against all odds, that it can be done – that the boys are, indeed, back and the world is still going to be alright with that.

Movies like this, and books like Waldman’s “Bad Mother”, Michael Chabon’s “Manhood for Amateurs”, Jeremy Adam Smith’s “The Daddy Shift”, and, to an extent, Lenore Skenazy’s “Free Range Kids” all seem to grasp at what might be considered a social splintering of gender expectations and family roles. The West – and America – has traditionally always had a very rigid, simplified structure concerning gender and family roles – and now we’re beginning to see this structure opened up and diversified.

Naturally as with any social change in values and beliefs, this splintering has generated controversy, public hesitation, and drama along the way. But I think it’s important to realise that change isn’t always necessarily a bad thing.

Nov 30, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , , , :: #

Forecasting the 'End' of the Nuclear Family

Putting the grandparents-raising-grandchildren trend into context: Additional statistics and overall trends in a new report by the British Family and Parenting Institute.

Chief executive of the institute, Dr Katherine Rake, said “families were pulling society in multiple directions, between work and home life, singleness and cohabitation and marriage, between growing older and forming families across our many cultural divides”. Families’ adaptability constantly amazed, she said.

But it was fathers who were predicted to lead the coming change, Dr Rake argued. “The role of fathers is set to change dramatically over the next decades in the way that women’s roles have changed since the 1950s.”

I’ve not read the report yet, but it appears FPI’s analysis echoes what Jeremy Adam Smith calls “The Daddy Shift”; we’re now beginning to see a new definition of fatherhood emerge, where dads embrace more “caregiving and egalitarian relationships.”

As FPI concludes, this broadening of the caregiving role to more prominently include fathers – and, increasingly, also grandparents and extended family – is clearly redefining the roles and structures of the family. The “non-traditional” family is increasingly becoming the traditional, as we see what could well be the end of the nuclear family.

Nov 30, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , :: #

Texting, Surfing, Studying?

This pretty much sums up the state of adults’ understanding of children and their relationship with the new digital age we live in.

The New York Times:

Parents are digital immigrants, Dr. Christakis said; children are digital natives. “In the 20th century, you worried about a digital divide separating rich from poor,” he said. “That’s narrowed, and the one that’s emerging is separating parents from their children. We’re fairly clueless about the digital world they inhabit.”

Oct 18, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , , , , , , :: #

Jeremy Adam Smith Reviews "Manhood for Amateurs"

Jeremy Adam Smith, author of “The Daddy Shift” and blogger at Daddy Dialectic, reviews classic novelist Michael Chabon’s new book, “Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son.”

In short, manhood collapsed because men stopped believing in it – and it shattered, as did the formerly communist countries, into a Babel of smaller nations: patriarchal conservatism, metrosexualism, hip-hop hedonism, stay-at-home fatherhood, a dozen gay subcultures and more.

Across this ruined landscape strides Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist Michael Chabon, a nebbish colossus, essays in hand. But in “Manhood for Amateurs,” Chabon is not concerned with why manhood fell. No utopian, he is not even explicitly interested in building some shiny new city on the ruins of the old.

He’d rather play the role of pith-helmeted archaeologist, excavating the sites of his own private Sahara in search of fragments – Lego bricks, Wacky Packages, baseball cards, Jack Kirby comic books, his father’s stethoscope – around which he can weave clever little stories.

Leave it to the rather brilliant Chabon to tackle a subject so personally and poignantly. Oh, and: the book also features the now-trademark-Chabon style of cover art. Just breathtaking.

Oct 12, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , , , :: #

Enforcing Bedtimes Improves Kids' Health

CNN.com:

Setting bedtimes can improve sleep quality and quantity for infants and toddlers, according to a growing body of research. Not getting enough sleep affects children’s behavior, memory, attention, and emotional well-being, experts said.

Important research, but I might also draw attention to this comment from a reader named Karen:

Every human has a different sleep pattern and circadian rhythm. I don’t believe in rigidly enforced bedtimes for anyone. I find that, speaking to other parents, rigidly enforced bedtimes are typically more about the convenience of the parents, who want “an evening”, than it is about children’s well-being.

I’d propose that a child having a stable, trust-based relationship with an adult who recognises and can appropriately respond to the child’s body cues probably has a much more positive impact on that child’s development and well-being than arbitrarily set bedtimes.

Sep 20, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , :: #

The Daddy Identity Crisis

Lisa Belkin, from the New York Times’ Motherlode Blog, interviews Jeremy Adam Smith – whose new book, “The Daddy Shift,” chronicles both his own personal journey to becoming a stay-at-home dad and is a sociological examination of the growing social trend for more and more new fathers to stay at home with their children.

Belkin conducted a great Q&A, and the piece is a fine introduction to Smith’s work if you’re not already familiar with his blog, Daddy Dialectic.

Q. Do men and women see “taking care of the family” as meaning different things? Traditionally? How about now?

A. For centuries, men have seen breadwinning as the most important part of parenting. When my grandfather went to work at a quarry every day, he saw himself as being a good father. Indeed, to men of his generation, breadwinning was parenting.

So when working-class men organized themselves into unions and fought for pay, respect and benefits, they were fighting for their families. Parenthood drove middle-class men to jockey for promotions. For men of all social classes, parenting was all about a paycheck, not care, and their families needed that paycheck. Their jobs set the limits for their worlds, both inner and outer. Depriving a man of employment could destroy him and cut him off from his wife and children.

That dynamic has changed. Today, 80 percent of mothers work and a third of wives make more money than their husbands. In response, men have evolved, though many people fail to see it. Since 1965 the number of hours that men spend on childcare has tripled. Since 1995 it has nearly doubled. Fathers now spend more time with their children than at any time since researchers started collecting longitudinally comparable data.

I call it “the daddy shift” — the gradual movement away from a definition of fatherhood as breadwinning to one that encompasses a capacity of caregiving. Stay-at-home dads are the leading edge of the shift, but even sole-breadwinning dads are taking on more care than they did in the past.

May 27, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , :: #