Anti-Anti Feminists

It could be argued that advocates of at-home fatherhood should have a lot in common with the traditionalists who exault at-home motherhood as the highest calling of women. But the staunchly pro-1950s-parenting forces seem to have a whole agenda that goes way beyond the basic kids-should-spend-lots-of-time-with-their-parents ethos that SAHDs generally promote. I've never been certain of what the neo-traditionalists are trying to accomplish -- I don't see a whole lot of need to roll back gender roles a half century. All I am certain about is there is a pronouced, unexplained hostility to men as caregivers.

Case in point: Kate O'Beirne, the woman who wrote the hot antifeminist screed "Women Who Make the World Worse." Here's what she told Salon (author in bold, O'Beirne in plaintext):

But why is that [caregiving] parent necessarily the mother? Why can't we get used to the idea that it would be just as good for kids to be home with dads?

Who wants that? Why would we do that?

I know lots of men and women who --

I think women who really want that ought to find a guy who wants it. I don't see why there's any big movement needed for this. If some woman really feels very strongly that things ought to be divvied up that way I think she ought to do what that woman [Hirshman] suggested in the American Prospect: marry a starving artist or marry a liberal. Marry the guy who feels that way and do your own thing!

But social expectations make that --

Society will never, ever, ever, ever validate it. Ever. Ever. So, next question. [Because] now we're baying at the moon: Damn, life's unfair! Damn! Life's unfair!

You're accepting that society won't ever validate a man who stays home! That's a big trade-off!

But it's not my opinion! Find me one. Find me one in the history of recorded mankind. You know what's funny to me? Whatever men do, as I understand it, is the status job in that society. Like if they gathered [instead of hunted] in some damn society, then gathering would be the status job because men were doing it.

It's also worth reading this take on Darla Shine, the author of "Happy Housewives," from the blog "the imponderabilia of actual life." Sample grab from Shine's book:

“And ladies, I advise you to leave the baby with your girlfriend or your mother instead of your husband [snipped out story about her getting highlights and getting called by her dh five times] .... You get the idea, girls? I would have had a very peaceful afternoon if my mother or Dana had taken care of the kids. They would have improvised. Men are just not capable of that. Sorry, guys.” p. 174, HH.

Look, I find the cult of the perfect parent in modern America a little over-the-top, but I tolerate the Martha Stewartesque one-upsmanship. Just leave your retrograde, gender roles out of it.