Friday, April 18, 2003

Below is a letter I just sent along to the editor in chief of Parenting on my reaction to the mag's May issue.

Dear Janet,

I just put down the new issue of Parenting -- the first issue of the redesign -- and I wanted to let you know that it looks great. I only wish it read as well. It wasn't that the articles were poorly researched or written sloppily. They were just aimed at mothers, not at me.

I'm a stay-at-home father. I take the parenting role seriously. I believe firmly that all fathers -- working dads or home dads -- should be equal partners in the child rearing, and I despair when I see the idea of fathers as caregivers dismissed, whether in seriousness or in good fun.

So I felt a little sick to my stomach when I reached the new section, ominously titled "the mom exchange," and saw a little box suggesting that dads are impatient diaper avoiders. That's a stereotype I can do without. And though my peers are probably vaguely flattered at being dubbed "cute dads at dropoff," I'm not sure we want our presence at school distilled to that of a "charmingly muddled" "passel of babes," either.

I kept turning the pages, hoping that you'd make it up to dads and throw us a bone. The cover story -- "Work? Stay Home? How to be happy with your choice" -- was a piece about the mommy wars, not about the choices that modern fathers, increasingly are also forced to make. By the time I reached "the truth about fatherhood," I was spent. Here was journalism ostensibly about XY chromosome guys -- but not written by or for us.

I've never before begrudged the mom-centric slant of Parenting, and I have slogged through the Beauty section for months with nary a word of protest. I have no doubt that your write to your primarily female subscription demographic. But in writing for that crowd -- pointedly so in May -- the magazine marginalizes half of the country's parents. At a time when more people than ever are advocating the idea of the involved father, from Yale prof Kyle Pruett's Fatherneed to James Levine's Fatherhood Project, Parenting has us pegged as "sweetly confused," diaper-ducking dads. I know it's all in good fun, but aren't those low blows nowadays?

I wish you the best of luck in the months to come, and, above bluster aside, I appreciate the magazine's effort to better meet the needs of parents. Best of luck in that endeavor.

Sincerely,
Rebel Dad

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