This must be an interesting household to live in: a year or so ago, Cathi Hanauer got together a bunch of women to write about modern motherhood, and the provocatively titled book, The Bitch in the House became a much-talked about tome in certain quarters. Now, Hanauer's husband has assembled what I suppose is a companion tome: The Bastard on the Couch : 27 Men Try Really Hard to Explain Their Feelings About Love, Loss, Fatherhood, and Freedom. It comes out next week, and I'll give you the full review as soon as I get the book and actually, y'know, read it.
A posting at the New Republic's site brought "The Bastard on the Couch" to my attention, and the take of the piece -- penned by senior editor Ruth Franklin -- is worth looking at. Her conclusion from looking at "Bitch," "Bastard" and all of the silly "mommy wars" crap foisted on the public in the last year (see this post from last week for more on the war that isn't) is certainly unique. And it bears amplification.
Her point, boiled down, is this. If there's one thing that all these writer parents -- moms and dads, working and at-home -- seem to agree about, it's that kids are a royal pain in the ass. Franklin nicely harvests the best examples of writers trying to top each other with descriptions of how dirty and utterly boring children are. "With all this focus on parental self-pity, it's hardly surprising that while their paraphernalia is ubiquitous in these pieces, the children are virtually absent," Franklin writes. "When the little cherubs do make an appearance, they are savaged."
This is a heckuva good point that has been lost: in the quest for martyrdom, these parents have lost sight of what fun it is to parent. Sure, kids are capable of being difficult, but the benefits outweigh the costs by a staggering amount. So thank you Ruth, for giving me a new quick-and-easy rule when it comes to evaluating writings on motherhood and fatherhood: Any book, any article on parenting that ignores or belittles kids should be viewed with extreme caution. After all, isn't this gig about the kids?
A posting at the New Republic's site brought "The Bastard on the Couch" to my attention, and the take of the piece -- penned by senior editor Ruth Franklin -- is worth looking at. Her conclusion from looking at "Bitch," "Bastard" and all of the silly "mommy wars" crap foisted on the public in the last year (see this post from last week for more on the war that isn't) is certainly unique. And it bears amplification.
Her point, boiled down, is this. If there's one thing that all these writer parents -- moms and dads, working and at-home -- seem to agree about, it's that kids are a royal pain in the ass. Franklin nicely harvests the best examples of writers trying to top each other with descriptions of how dirty and utterly boring children are. "With all this focus on parental self-pity, it's hardly surprising that while their paraphernalia is ubiquitous in these pieces, the children are virtually absent," Franklin writes. "When the little cherubs do make an appearance, they are savaged."
This is a heckuva good point that has been lost: in the quest for martyrdom, these parents have lost sight of what fun it is to parent. Sure, kids are capable of being difficult, but the benefits outweigh the costs by a staggering amount. So thank you Ruth, for giving me a new quick-and-easy rule when it comes to evaluating writings on motherhood and fatherhood: Any book, any article on parenting that ignores or belittles kids should be viewed with extreme caution. After all, isn't this gig about the kids?
posted by Rebel Dad at
2:14 PM
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