Manly Man/Stay-At-Home Dad
… doth protest a little much about his manliness. Should have stopped at the “low mordant chuckle.”
People who talk about masculinity — especially conservatives, who seem to obsess about it, but in a peculiarly juvenile way — have always seemed a little weird to me … You see, for the past six years, while I’ve been editing my blog and writing my books, my primary job description has been stay-at-home father for my daughter, Fiona. She turned six earlier this summer and will start first grade this fall, so I’ve gotten a real job again and have spent much of the summer ruminating on what it’s all meant … The idea that it is not a masculine thing to do just seems absurd and incomprehensible to me … I’ve never encountered anything that came close to making me feel like a “real man” as being a daddy …
Hey, Neiwert, you want to be a real man … try having more kids. One’s like a hobby. That’s like boutique parenthood. I’m kicking myself because we stopped at three. What was I thinking?
We love our kids. We told ourselves we were exhausted and broke. Now I wish we had more. I know she does. Major baby lust. You should have seen her with that baby the other night at the neighbors’ house. I think we’re actually pretty good at this. We’re giving our kids a good childhood. We expect them to be good citizens, and we’re doing everything we can to make that happen. So far, so good.
The people down the street had six. Lost one, it was tragic. They love their kids. They do a great job. The house is a chaotic disaster area, and they love it. What happened to people like that? I know a couple of families with four. Not too many like that any more. Not around here.
If you’ve only produced one, and you’re healthy and capable and married and sane and you belong to the educated, responsible, job-holding classes, then you’re a drain on society. Who’s supposed to pay for your social security and Medicaid? Who’s going to keep civilized society going? Who’s going to produce citizens who know how to read, write, tie their shoes, show up on time, chew with their mouths closed, be respectful to their elders, say please and thank you, not litter and pay the frikkin taxes? The government? Some mythical village? Do you know what’s happening in Europe and Japan? They are unbreeding themselves into irrelevance. Guess who’s next.
Now, to start doing your duty … as a man, as an American … you’ll need to swap jobs with your wife. She’s the one with the uterus and the breasts, after all, and if you’re going to be pumping out kids, she’s going to be using those. Let’s face it, while any real man can wipe a kid’s ass, do the dishes and the laundry, read kids bedtime stories, cook dinner, all that, moms tend to make better mothers. You know why? Because they do. Some of them are horrible failures at motherhood, and some guys are better at it than women. Some guys are horrible failures at fatherhood, and some women are better at it than men. So what. Most guys I know make better dads than moms, and its all they can do to manage that.
This guy wants more men to be stay-at-home dads like him so they can grok their nurturing sides and be real men, and introduce a balance of power to their marriages. How’s this for a balance of power. If I don’t go to work and mow the lawn and do the dishes, cook dinner, do laundry on weekends and do carpentry and plumbing jobs and a bunch of other things, maybe instead just sit around blathering with strangers on the Internet and drinking beer and playing video games and spending too much of our money on stupid stuff, then my wife will get extremely pissed off at me. At least I’m pretty sure she would, because she gets wicked pissed if I even think about that. Then my life becomes miserable. If I don’t do stuff with my kids and for my kids, I don’t enjoy myself. Also, I lose my self-respect. Because I’m a man, and doing stuff for my family is what I do. Do you think the wife needs a nine-to-five job and a salary to earn my respect? Are you kidding? I know what she does for work, and I’m grateful to be able to escape five days a week. Not only that, I know what she’s doing is more important than what I do. I’m just bringing home a paycheck and having a career. Big deal. She not only bore these kids, now she’s raising them, doing what she does better than I could hope to. Equalize the balance of power in the relationship? I’ve got two words for you: “Yes, dear.”
Look, staying home with the kids is fine, if that’s what you want to do. Nothing wrong with it. If your wife can take six months off every two years to squeeze another one out and breastfeed it, then fine. But for God’s sake stop whining about your manliness and use it. I have bad news for you. The people doing all the breeding around the world aren’t interested in consciousness-expanding gender neutrality and growing as New Age androgenoids or reducing their carbon footprints or trying to understand you in order to respect your differences or any of that. They are interested in your stuff, however, and sooner or later, they will swamp your kind out of existence. And a lot of them might not even bothering sticking around to be fathers at all while they’re at it.
Here are a couple of particularly idiotic things Neiwert wrote, no doubt thinking they sounded good:
Caring for children teaches us patience and generosity — forces it upon us, really — and that makes better men, regardless of what John Wayne or Dr. Helen might say. Masculine men (that is, if your notion of maleness is about strength and drive) also bring a groundedness and confidence to the table that I think nurtures children in ways that women often do not.
I need to quit my job for that?
Encouraging stay-at-home fatherhood makes for a healthier society in a lot of ways. It makes better men of us because it makes us better fathers. That in turn makes for better-rounded children who are going to be better citizens. It also helps women whose goals might extend beyond family-rearing reach those goals. It makes more equal partners out of us, and I think makes for a stronger marriage.
I’m a worse father and my kids are going to be less rounded, lousier citizens because I go to work? Good thing this guy’s too busy to freelance, or he might be writing more of this nonsense.
But it gets better.
Raising children — especially in their first six years — is something that a sane and healthy society should celebrate as one of its most cherished and celebrated jobs. It’s how we shape our future, and that is a task for men and women alike, equally. It’s a task to be embraced, not delegated to the back bench, as do so many boorish, insecure men — the half-men I’ve known since childhood — and the women who enable them. Women like Dr. Helen.
Along the way, I hope, we’ll learn to discard foolish old notions of masculinity — the kind you get in half-baked reactionary books and articles, as though reading such things could actually make a man out of you — that have more to do with insensate petulance and self-absorption than with being a real, whole man.
And it will be the children themselves who show us how.
Well, that’s kind of ass backwards. We’re supposed to show them. It’s our job. I know, very clever, very progressive. Very … John Lennony.
I have to say, one thing I agree with this guy on. Someone should stay home with the kids … Hold on … The kid’s six and he’s back at work? A real man shows more commitment than that. Who’s going to bake the damn cookies? This is what I always wonder about people who stick their kids in daycare. What the heck did you have them for if you don’t intend to raise them? Stuff’s more important to you than your kids?
Well, we do agree on something else. If you have to read a book to figure out how to be a real man, you’re probably out of luck.
OK, I’ll shut up now.
No. One more thing. If you’re a real man, then you’ll be glad you clicked this link.
Big welcome to FireDogLake readers! What the heck is a FireDogLake, anyway? Sounds like someone in search of some empowerment. Anyway, you may want to stop hanging out with racists like that Trex and the Sadly No guy who think there aren’t any “brown people” and “darkies” among our responsible, educated, tax-paying citizens and use derogatory terms like that. That is very degrading.
You guys still coming in? You’ve got a lot of time on your hands. Might as well examine your own navels. You might be surprised what you find. That leftie racism can be insidious and disturbing. Such a long history of it. For all that talking the talk, so much trouble walking the walk.
Turns out Neiwert’s a racist just like those other two … he thinks only white Americans are capable of being educated responsible law-abiding citizens with good table manners! I thought these people were supposed to be progressive. Whatever that means. Anyway, Neiwert’s progressed from mordant chuckles to throat-clearing to chest-thumping penis-measurement to excess energy expenditure, so I suppose that’s something.
Stick around, you might learn something. Come on in, join the Punditeers, Surberistas, etal. Remember when? Speaking of Iran, they’ve let some stray. Bad Iran. Guess what, American grunts in Iraq have minds of their own. Free country. Not sure media they’re talking about that is so pro-war, but here’s a start. Try some new media. Here’s some. But whatever you do, you’ll want to check out this “Beauty in the Dirt.” Especially you lefties. You know, “support the troops” and all that. Meanwhile, let’s check in with the Party of Rage: Here’s a dysfunctional Congress leader offering advice to a nonfunctional parliament.
Topics: moms and dads
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:35 am on Monday, August 20, 2007
15 Responses to “Manly Man/Stay-At-Home Dad”
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August 20th, 2007 at 4:10 am
Sheesh, you should have left him at least the quarter testicle he had left.
August 20th, 2007 at 4:23 am
[...] Jules Crittenden: Hey, Niewert, you want to be a real man … try having more kids. One’s like a hobby. That’s like boutique parenthood. I’m kicking myself because we stopped at three. What was I thinking? [...]
August 20th, 2007 at 9:26 am
Neiwart should go to Tehran and do a little cruising. Now there those guys are real men.
August 20th, 2007 at 10:25 am
The kids question
The estimable Jules Crittenden takes on the questions stay-at-home-dads and of having kids, as in more than one.
August 20th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
This is what I always wonder about people who stick their kids in daycare. What the heck did you have them for if you don’t intend to raise them?
I don’t care if Neiwert is a stay-at-home dad. Good for him if he and his wife agree and can afford for him to do it, but he can keep his self-congratulatory, mewling attempt to justify his manhood out of it. So what, who cares?
But not everyone can afford for one spouse to stay home with the kids. For that matter, no everyone has a spouse to stay home. My children spent a fair amount of time in daycare, and I still consider that Mr. H and I “raised” them. We were there with them every night, having dinner, helping with homework, making sure they brushed their teeth and washed behind their ears, and addressing any problems they wanted to share with us. They turned out pretty well if I do say so. They are happy, functioning members of society with families of their own, and a sense that you don’t get anything in this life unless you’re willing to work for it. I refuse to feel guilty because I wasn’t a stay-at-home, cookie-baking mom. For most of my marriage, that wasn’t even an option, nor was it for my mother, nor is it for my daughter. Sometimes life isn’t fair, deal with it.
August 20th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
I did my part.
4 Children. One U Chicago graduate - with honors.
I tell any one remotely interested: “raising children is the greatest adventure life offers.
August 20th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
He seems to feel a great need to justify himself and reinforce his manliness. Is that what passes for his “confidence?”
I do hate it when adults start talking about learning from children, treating a child’s ignorant innocence as though it were some kind of innate wisdom we all gave up as we grew. It puts a terrible burden on children, and shows adults to be a bunch of no-nothing phonies. No wonder children of such parents cease paying attention at an early age, and no longer yearn to be adults.
August 20th, 2007 at 5:31 pm
Damn! Make that “know-nothing.” I can’t believe I said that!
August 21st, 2007 at 11:56 am
You might want to try raising a kid all by yourself before you start crowing about what the stud you are.
August 21st, 2007 at 1:44 pm
“The [gentleman] doth protest too much, methinks”
That’s exactly what I was thinking as I read Neiwert’s essay. First he says those who talk too much about manliness don’t know what it is, then he writes over 2,000 words defending his own manliness?
WTF? I think I know who’s obssessed. He doesn’t need to convince me of anything - but he ought to do us all a favor and take his own advice.
August 21st, 2007 at 3:55 pm
There is a reading comprehension problem here. Neiwert’s point was not that his approach to parenting makes him more macho, but that there is a fake-macho masculinity out there that coincides with authoritarian sympathies. The fake-macho in this case hides its ersatz quality by over-emphasizing the coarser stereotypes of masculinity. The sort of ersatz masculinity that leads Jules and others to respond by insulting Neiwert’s masculinity.
You are demonstrating his point quite nicely.
August 21st, 2007 at 7:58 pm
Let’s see…
You can’t write for sh*t.
You think that we should breed ourselves to death (that’s what having 3 kids each means).
You recognize no other view as having potential validity.
You seem concerned, nay, obsessed with “The people doing all the breeding around the world” who “are interested in your stuff”. Do you really think that the scary people from “around the world” are coming here to “take [my] stuff”? Is that why you appear so concerned about your masculinity that you have to trumpet how much more masculine you are than someone else?
So now, having had the temerity to question you, I suppose I get your questions about my masculinity. Shall I justify myself first, or after? I guess I should wait. No point in talking about it until I have to.
Oh yeah, “both of dneiwert’s readers”? I quote from the comment stream at Dave’s post:
Today’s Technorati rank for http://www.julescrittenden.com: Authority 723; Rank 3,850
Today’s Technorati rank for http://www.dneiwert.blogspot.com: Authority 1,193; Rank 1,675 (top 2K of all blogs)
Today’s Technorati rank for http://proteinwisdom.com/: Authority 861; Rank 2,792.
So go ahead and make your little jokes and have your little opinions, but the fact is that lots more people find Dave worth linking to than find you worth linking to. And you are entitled to your own opinion (an entitlement you’re apparently not willing to grant to others), but you are not entitled to your own facts.
August 21st, 2007 at 9:08 pm
[...] is too sophisticated for some right-wing bloggers, since the next day both Jeff Goldstein and Jules Crittenden both weighed in with attacks on Neiwert’s musings. Crittenden’s response was extremely [...]
August 22nd, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Ah, a numbers guy. Always refreshing to see somebody who can count. Not a “duration guy” though. That would require some ability to probe a little deeper.
August 22nd, 2007 at 8:52 pm
And at more than, say, two inches you would be well out of your depth.