Gen X Daddies

When I read the article, Gen X Dad by Patricia Wen, it felt (for lack of a less cloying and overused word) affirming to see this cultural trend, of which my nuclear family is a part, being recognized in "the media." It seems to me that in the Baby Boom generation, fathers already tended to want to reject the Distant Dad role, as they felt wounded by their own fathers' adherence to this type. To some extent, Baby Boomer dads did revise the script by spending more time with their families, but, for the most part, they remained the designated family breadwinners, content to continue defining themselves in terms of their careers and forcing wives/mothers to do most of the crappy, day-to-day housework and childrearing. GenX men seem to have (as a broad, sweeping generalization) taken this one step further and assumed an active role in actually running their households, probably partially due to new economic realities; if both parents are working full-time to just have a sporting chance at maintaining the standard of living their parents were accustomed to, then no one has an excuse to opt out of a full share of the parenting responsibilities. (Or maybe it's more that our cultural expectations have finally caught up with what has been the prevailing economic reality for the past 20-30 years).

Lately, I've noticed how much our (or at least my) expectations for how men and women behave within relationships and family systems have truly changed over the past thirty years by observing the portrayal of the marriages in a couple of recent films based on books. In AWidow for One Year by John Irving and We Don't Live Here Anymore by Andre Dubus, the stormy, troubled marriages that were depicted made sense in terms of the time period in which they were set, the 1960's and 1970's; the families feature the husband/father as provider primarily defined by his career with wife/mother who manages the household and children's needs. Both The Door in the Floor, a 2004 film starring Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger which is based on AWidow for One Year, and We Don't Live Here Anymore, which is based on the novella of the same name, were shifted to the present day in their movie versions, and, I would argue, suffered as a result. The problems in the three marriages all share fairly common contributing factors which make more sense in context of the Baby Boom and earlier generations, such as the wives' boredom and frustrations with the limitations of their roles as well as the stress involved in being the culturally prescribed primary caregiver of the children. When these factors and characters are transplanted from the era in which they were written or set by the writer into the current generational context, I think the stories, in spite of their universal themes and the interest generated by the plots and characters, ring a bit hollow. Especially while watching We Don't Live Here Anymore, when the husband (played by Mark Ruffalo) was berating his wife (played by Laura Dern) for her poor housekeeping, I kept thinking, "That bastard... why doesn't he do some cleaning if he feels that strongly about it and stop trying to make her feel bad about her shortcomings in that area? Why is it only her job?" Whereas in the novella from the 1970's, I saw it (okay, probably with a bit of that smug, don't-we-know-better-now feeling) as a reflection of its time, I was constantly questioning the motivation of the same characters in the movie who seemed a bit out of step with their millenium-era surroundings.

I suppose this whole "new dad" phenomenon could be overblown, and I could be part of a small trend that will fade and make way for more "traditional" male/female gender roles, but I hope not. I think another important issue the article skims over is the idea of both parents wanting to build in more time with their children in spite of the need for both parents to work to support the family. As someone who currently works a crazy, part-time overnight schedule in order to be able to be around during the days with my kids, I also identify with this desire among the parents profiled in the article. I think the best be might be the idea of both parents working a combined 60 hours per week (articulated here). Of course, for such a plan to be workable, we'd have to see the return of "big government" with all of the supposedly-evil regulations and government-sponsored programs that entails. So, I guess I'm also hoping for a shift over to the left that could make such plans a widespread reality.

Pink or Blue?

I wrote this a couple of years ago, but it still rings true in terms of my occasional discomfort with my usually-proud liberal tendencies:

While waiting for my husband A to renew his driver’s license at the bureau of motor vehicles last week, I took our two sons into a discount department store in the adjoining strip mall. As an inveterate impulse buyer, I was attracted to a rack of ugly, thin beach towels dyed garish, bright colors. My three and a half year-old son C was similarly drawn to a nearby display of white beach towels imprinted with cartoon characters, such as Clifford the Big Red Dog, one of his PBS favorites. Before letting on to him, I had already decided to relent and buy him one if he asked, in spite of some discomfort on my part about the ethics of marketing products to young children. For who could really argue with the wholesome goodness of Clifford, the hero of a series of children’s books as well as the television series that does, after all, run on the unassailable public television station. (Besides, C runs around the house all the time wearing nothing but one too-small Cookie Monster slipper, and I don’t really have a problem with that). However, after looking over his choices, C said, without hesitation, “I want the Dragon Tales one.” Fine, you say, Dragon Tales. Although it is somewhat insipid and Carebearsesque, and I’ve always found it difficult to determine exactly what makes it educational, except for some vague agenda it seems to have around teaching emotional intelligence, it’s relatively inoffensive. But the quality of the program was not my problem; the crux of the issue was that it was a Cassie towel. Little, pink Cassie, the shy female dragon who loomed large on this towel that is taller than my son. What, I immediately thought, will the neighbors think?

There is an exquisite torture awaiting all the young liberals like myself who espouse gender neutrality and who promote androgyny in the rearing of children. Hell is, after all, other people: those well-meaning (and not-so-well-meaning) strangers, acquaintances, and even friends who pass silent or vocal judgment on our parenting. Children who are discouraged from being limited by strict interpretations of gender roles will have to withstand disapproval from peers and their parents, and it is only through experience and a thorough assessment of what you and your child can tolerate that it is possible to decide how much or how little to buckle in the face of pressure from without and to what level to submit to contemporary norms. Finally, I have reached a point in my life where I think I am willing to subject myself to some discomfort with the opinions of others, but I can vividly recall my childhood fear and loathing at the idea of being different from other kids; it is the idea of C having to explain the pink towel to his friends that bothers me.

I remember very clearly a fascinating experience I had as a college student, long before either of my children arrived, working at a summer job as a cashier at an outlet store in Freeport, Maine. A young father was standing near the counter next to the stroller his twin son and daughter occupied, showing them off to me and to anyone in the vicinity who seemed interested. I did not object to the boasting; they were, indeed, very cute, and it seemed a testament to his love and infatuation with them that he wanted the world to recognize their beauty. What turned me off was their wardrobe: the boy was dressed in a miniature Yankees uniform, little blue baseball cap and all, and the girl was decked out in a frilly, lacy, satiny, pink-and-white dress with matching bonnet. If that was not a loud enough statement of gender stereotyping, the father was saying simultaneously, sotto voce, “And, you know, he’s all boy. He’s got a really strong little grip. And she’s just the sweetest, gentlest little girl. She just loves to cuddle.” I was alarmed by what I saw as not just reflecting but directing the development of their personalities based on some stereotype of what girls and boys should be. I added this to my ever-growing mental list of things not to do as a parent and went back to my work. Through that experience, other similar ones, and my own personal cultural critique, I came to the conclusion that I would prefer to do less programming of my children in terms of their traits related to gender and let them find their own way.

Of course, it’s not so easy now to pass judgment on others and take the moral high road myself. I have replaced too many windows already at too much expense to throw any more stones. As my real-life children get older and assert their individuality and my easily manipulated, hypothetical children recede, I find myself forced into making daily choices about what behaviors and ideas to reinforce as reflective of my values, which to ignore, and which to discourage. Early on, C picked up an enjoyment of cooking through imitation of his father, who cooks almost all of our meals. For his last birthday, he asked for and received a toy stove. For Christmas, he wanted a dollhouse. We encourage him in the pursuits he seems to take pleasure in without regard for traditional gender roles. Recently, I heard A refer to C in conversation with a friend as “all boy.” I laughed nervously, and said, “Well, if you mean the kind of boy who sleeps with his baby doll and likes to cook.” A smiled sagely and said, “Yeah. All boy. His kind of boy.”

Would it be okay with me if C came to identify himself on the female end of the continuum? I don’t know how I’d feel about it, but I hope I could be supportive. And I can’t help but want to save him from that kind of internal confusion that would only be complicated by external reactions to it. George Sand, an excellent eighteenth-century French writer who is now famous mostly for cross-dressing and having an affair with composer Frederick Chopin, wrote a novel about a wealthy young orphan who is brought up in an isolated estate as a gentleman, only to find, at age eighteen, that she is biologically female. The story ends in tragedy, and the implication is that it must be so when one is so confused about gender or truly gender-less in a gendered world. True androgyny is an unattainable and, perhaps, undesirable goal in contemporary culture as it was in France two hundred years ago. It seems that everyone, no matter what his or her level of traditional femininity or masculinity, comes down at least slightly on one side or another, the old character of “Pat” on “Saturday Night Live” notwithstanding. Of course, I bought the Dragon Tales towel and tried not to betray my ambivalence about it. “Are you sure that’s the one you want?” I asked, nonchalantly (I think). “Yes, mama,” C impatiently replied. He knows me and my wavering on such important decisions as buying four dollar towels and clearly wanted to put any debate to rest quickly. So, I picked up the towel, put it in the cart next to my younger son E, said, “Okay,” and moved on.

AG Backs Legalizing Same Sex Marriage

Interesting...