Moms and Dads

Although I'm not a parent, one thing that really bugs me is seeing the way moms and dads are treated so differently. It's insulting to men and unfair to women.

A church I drive by had a sign up this week for Father's Day: "Honor your fathers. Fathers: Be honorable."

I reflected on whether a church would put up a parallel sign for Mother's Day. And I highly doubt it. A Mother's Day sign would be more apt to read: "Honor your mothers. Mothers are honorable."

You see the difference there? It's typically assumed on Mother's Day that moms are already doing a great job. But dads, they need to be admonished and taught to be better fathers.

And perhaps they do. No one is a perfect parent. It's the gap that bothers me. You see it in the media, too. On sitcoms fathers are always bumbling idiots who have no clue how to parent. If they're left alone with their children, chaos ensues because really, they can't be trusted. T-shirts are made for babies to wear that reflect a similar concept: only moms really know how to parent.

Around Mother's Day a video was circulating about a job posting for the world's hardest job. Its description included long hours, being at constant beck and call, having no bathroom breaks, and so on. Not surprisingly, the job turned out to be a mother (although the people in the video were shocked). But it outraged me that the job was mother, not parent. Dads don't work hard at parenting, too?

We emasculate fathers, we lecture them to do better and assume they really can't, but then we complain that many fathers are absent or partly absent from their kids lives. But why wouldn't they be? We've reduced their role to sperm-giver and babysitter. While the reality is that they're extremely important to raising a child, the message we send is that we really could do it better without them. So why should they stay?

I've been making perpetual calendars lately with squares for Father's Day and Mother's Day. I used a heart as the pictogram on both of them. Many might use a heart for moms and a tie for dads. But dads are so much more than suits making the money so moms can raise the kids right. I believe they should be equal to mothers in child rearing. That raising a child is best done in partnership. I believe good dads are represented by love just as good moms are.

Not only is this unequal treatment insulting to men, but it sets women in a light that has often made motherhood seem very unappealing to me. While dads can be people who have lives, a part of which is being a dad, moms are often seen solely in the role of a mother. That's an ugly flip side to this coin. Dads are idiots; moms have no life. Neither is a picture anyone wants to be.

There are certain roles in parenting that only women are physically equipped to do. But those represent a small and short-term portion of a child's life. This Father's Day, I'm celebrating all the dads I've seen who take an active role in their child's lives. The dads who aren't bumbling idiots who sometimes "babysit" their children. I'm celebrating real dads.