Let the contest begin. Again, get your letter published, and I'm buying. Here's my entry:

Dear Ms. Chan,

In “The Parenting Skills You Really Need … For Your Marriage,” Fernanda Moore asks “would a cranky toddler and a cranky 34-year-old scientist respond to the same things”? She goes on to answer her own question in the affirmative, finding that telling her husband to go to his room, asking him to “use his words” and speaking in terse semi-orders worked wonders on her marriage.

But jettisoning the idea of mutual respect between husband and wife doesn’t have the ring of sound marital advice, and treating a spouse like a three-year-old probably isn’t a wise childrearing move, either. I, too, have a toddler, and she gets sometimes gets treated like a toddler because she’s learning boundaries and can’t always talk through her feelings. As she grows up, I hope to teach her – by example – that adults gain the option of choosing discussion over discipline.

Finally, Moore’s piece is the latest to push the idea that men are utterly unwilling to do anything around the house without being goaded, guilted, tricked or otherwise forced into it, a dated stereotype that ought to be on the way out. More fathers are finding more ways to be involved than ever, a transformation that has nothing to do with receiving “time outs.”

Sincerely,
Rebel Dad