mr. dad

I think maybe its is a generational thing, or maybe its a cultural thing, or maybe...who knows. But I find it funny that in the 80's a movie like Mr. Mom was, you know, a perfectly valid topic for comedy. And I'm not even talking about the PC movement or anything, I'm just talking about what I feel is a change in the overall assumptions about childrearing and who does what. I would like to think that in this day and age, the way that Andrea and I divide the work is not uncommon. Consider that in large part, girls grow up into women with the expectation that they will be working, having careers. And I don't mean that until now girls didn't have that assumption. So when it comes to kids, both parents are in the same boat. The only real difference is that for the first year the baby has biological needs that only the mother can fill (and of course, the mother is biologically impacted by the 9 months prior to birth and the several months afterwards), but other than that, there's no built-in assumptions that the mother does a,b,c and the father does d. Nope. These days, at least in my house, it goes mom and dad to a,b,c,d. In some cases, mom or dad has do do more b or d because of the current dynamics, economic forces, etc...but if all things are equal, the split is pretty close to 50-50.

These days, Mr. Mom is sort of a myth, and if he exists out there, I feel sorry for his family. Mr. Mom should be Mr. Dad.