Welcome to June! That time of year when we celebrate fathers and all of the things that they do to help out in the raising of their children. Although actually, “help out” makes it sound like they are not required to do any child raising and are strictly volunteering on a benevolent basis. “Hey, you didn’t have to do that! But thanks!”
This idea, that fathers are over-praised for doing the most basic of tasks (taking kids to the store, reading a bedtime story, living in the same house as the rest of the family), has led some to dismissively call out “Dad Privilege,” claiming that fathers have it much easier and don’t have to put in half the work mothers do to be deemed a success.
Let me be very clear. What you are thinking of as “Dad Privilege” has another name in the dad community. We call it “Mom Privilege.”
We are so sick of being labeled as idiot meatheads who can’t tell a pull-up from a pack-n-play. Being showered with compliments for doing the bare minimum is not something we enjoy because it tells us one thing: you don’t trust us.
Even when we dads are the primary caregiver or stay-at-home parent, we are much more likely to be ignored in favor of moms when speaking with teachers, doctors, cashiers, or anyone else who might be speaking to us about why our child was having cart races down the cereal aisle.
I can drop my child off at school and pick him up again for months, and yet still when we sit down to those parent teacher conferences, all eyes go to Mom. It is inbred into our cultural consciousness that moms are the parents and dads are “Plan B.”
So why is this “Mom Privilege” status quo?
Because in terms of parental rights, mothers have it in the bag. In custody situations, mothers are far more likely to get the children than fathers. In fact, in custody cases where both parents wanted custody and the court decided for them, fathers get the kids only 6% of the time in mediation and 11% of the time in a trial, according to divorcepeers.com.
Mothers get the targeted advertising, mothers get the preferential treatment, and mothers get the sympathy from society, because parenting is “the hardest job in the world” and mothers are expected to do that job.
Dad Privilege is not a thing.
Or, at least it is a made-up thing by bitter moms who resent the fact that they are not more valued for what they do. And all the Mom Privilege in the world can’t make up for the fact that what is really taking place is Male Privilege.
Mothers, do you know why society works so hard to make sure that Mom Privilege stays strong and healthy? Do you know why we can’t have fathers seen as equals in the parenting world? Why we must mock and ridicule fathers, the dopey dads, for having the audacity to have children? Because if men are equal at home, women might become more equal everywhere else.
We like having women be moms. Supermoms, stay-at-home moms, even working moms, they all are part of the system which keeps women in a societal slot below men. Did you know that even working moms tend to do more housework and childcare than working dads? When both parents are working, women still do nearly twice as much “family work” as men. Why? Because we taught them to!
No matter how hard we try to break that mold, there is still extra guilt passed on to women whose house is not clean, whose children are not behaving perfectly, and whose personal life is not ready for the cover of Better Homes and Gardens.
I can tell you from experience that, even though I am the stay-at-home parent – the one who spends the most time with the kids – if we are out somewhere as a family and the kids are getting into trouble, it is not me that the powers that be come to. There seems to be a path beaten to my wife’s feet that is traveled by all who want to discuss the children. Moms get the privilege, but it is not a choice. They are often forced into that role, even by themselves.
I feel terrible when I miss something important in the children’s lives. But, I know that, as deeply as I feel that guilt and loss, my wife feels it more deeply when she misses something. She has faced judgment from friends, family, and even her employer when she makes the occasional choice to prioritize work over family. (She had one boss who continually passed her over for work travel, special projects, and promotions. When she left that job she asked him about it directly, after trying for years to get more opportunities, and he told her that he assumed she would want to do less because she had children.)
I can tell you that the other men in her department who also had children were not denied any of these things due to their parental status. Thanks for thinking of our family, buddy. Hooray for privilege.
This year, on Father’s Day, please be nice to Dad. Give him a present. Make him breakfast. But, do not ooh and aah over the tiniest things that he does. It’s condescending and he probably doesn’t like it.
Instead, give him the respect he deserves as an equal partner in parenting, and maybe some extra responsibility too. He can handle it. He’s not an idiot. And besides, once he’s off with the kids, it will give you moms the chance to do other things too, as equal partners in the rest of the world.