High five to the dads--dadbloggers all, in fact--who appeared yesterday in place of the regular Tuesday panel of "Mocha Moms" on NPR's Tell Me More: Jason Sperber of Rice Daddies, Keith Morton of FatherDad, and Paul Fidalgo of Bloc Raissoneur.
The not-at-all hype-y title for the segment, "Do Dads Hate Parenting?" obviously refers to New York Magazine's not-at-all hype-y cover story, "Do Parents Hate Parenting?"
I guess the novelty of actual dads on air talking about work-life balance overwhelmed host Michel Martin's interest in rehashing the anxiety-baiting article. She prefaced several questions with, "Now I'm not trying to be mean, but..." revealing the empathy and understanding gap dads face when entering a parenting conversation that continues to take place almost entirely among women.
But it's a start. And Tell Me More is probably as good a model as we're gonna find right now. It's NPR's replacement for Tavis Smiley, and it's generally successful at its apparent goal, which is to be less a show for/about "black folk" [to use Brother Tavis's famous term] but a news show which just happens to be black. Someday, maybe there'll be hype-y talk radio shows with parents who just happen to be dads.
Do Dads Hate Parenting? [npr]
I tried twice to comment on this piece on Rice Daddies, but something's up with their comment function.
What I tried to say was that Jason made some especially good points, just by explaining how his family structure makes for enjoyable parenting. I suspect that many of the "unhappy" parents from the research cited in the article are unhappy because of the overwhelming combination of work and family responsibilities, not just "parenting."
Totally agree with this:
"I guess the novelty of actual dads on air talking about work-life balance overwhelmed host Michel Martin's interest in rehashing the anxiety-baiting article. She prefaced several questions with, "Now I'm not trying to be mean, but..." revealing the empathy and understanding gap dads face when entering a parenting conversation that continues to take place almost entirely among women."
This is a difficult place to be in for a guy; the women who do this are remarkably un-self-aware. I about had a coronary when I read this in WaPo last week.
Thanks for the post, Greg. (Though for some reason the link that should go from my name to http://ricedaddies.com goes back to Daddy Types, fyi.)
Beta Dad, thanks for your comment. (I just tried out the comment function on my RD post, and it worked fine for me, so I'd be much obliged if you could email me at daddyinastrangeland@mac.com to let me know what you experienced.) BTW, really enjoyed your post on Daddy Dialectic the other day, as a hapa dad of multiethnic kids to a dad of hapa kids. :-) Wondering what part of California you're in...
sorry, fixed the link. And thanks, Brother Jason, for reminding me that News & Notes was NPR's post-Tavis show, which makes Tell Me More, their post-racial show. I stand happily corrected.
@daddy in a strange land
I think I successfully left a comment (finally) on Rice Daddies.
In the meantime, I wrote a post about the article and the NPR show on Daddy Dialectic.
I'm way down in San Diego. Look me up next time you come to the zoo. I've always got free passes!
Here's a link to that.
http://daddy-dialectic.blogspot.com/2010/07/why-working-parents-hate-life.html