Tuesday, May 10, 2005

I have to admit: it was pretty weird to see the Boston Globe run a "whither fathers?" piece on Mother's Day. As much as I love writing about dads, and even though the piece tried to ask the question of whether today's fathers are responsible for their wives' desperation, it just didn't seem to fit quite right.

Read the first-person article -- it is pretty hard to abstract. Essentially, the writer, Scott Stossel, wonders aloud if all the headaches experienced by the mothers of Desperate Housewives and Judith Warner's "Perfect Madness" is linked somehow to absentee husbands. Disturbingly, he comes to the conclusion that yes, many men are doing a slack-ass job of supporting their wives, but that he is better than average.

I'm wary of being an apologist for all fathers, many of whom are indeed leaving mom twisting alone when it comes to childrearing. But contrary to what Desperate Housewives (or Judith Warner) would have you believe, men have never picked up more of the slack at home. Time with the kids is up, time spent on housework is up, and that's a point that was lost a bit in the piece.

ALSO: my friends at Mothers Ought to Have Equal Rights have emerged from a long slumber (or so it would seem from looking at their web site) to announce they are launching ... a blog! MOTHERS Book Bag is designed to support mommy-lit oriented book groups. I wish them the best of luck with that effort.

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