It's not exactly, a *new* book, but the folks over at the M.O.T.H.E.R. Book Bag blog (a mommy-lit-book-group-support-site, or something like that) are reading Ann Crittenden's "If You've Raised Kids, You Can Manage Anything". Included in the package of info up on the site is this note from Ann. It contains five discussion points, but the one that gripped me (obviously) was the last one:

5. Is the denigration of parenting skills a particular problem for women, or does this bias also affect stay-at-home fathers?

What's remarkable is that Crittenden's book doesn't answer the question, or even try to, nor does any other serious piece of writing. I've long held that SAHDs are held to a much different standard at home: our parenting is somehow (and undeservedly) more praiseworthy, and foibles are not judged as harshly.

Of course, Crittenden was interested in how parenting skills were viewed in the workplace, too. That's a harder question, but I think men might get the benefit of the doubt there more, too. Can anyone explain why, or point to any literature that does?

Like a Whack-a-Mole game, Brian of Being Daddy (abandoned) fame keeps popping up. This time, it's with a kid-centric blog titled Callooh. It's good to have him back.

Also: The blogroll is likely to increase as I play more with Blogger's new search function. I'm stumbling across some SAHD blogs I've never seen before. It's not a perfect tool, but I'm pretty impressed so far ...

Tags: SAHD blog dad mom