You want to fire me up?! Bring up all the mommy bloggers out there that have this tone of "moms are better at parenting and adulting than dads". Okay, so there are a lot more things that will get me fired up but I will try to limit myself to just this one thing today.
Seriously though, read some mommy blogs. You would think they are God in their house because they do every single thing for the household while their husbands binge watch entire seasons of TV shows on Netflix while going to the bathroom.
It doesn't even have to be a mommy blogger. I see it all the time on Facebook too, moms posting to Facebook asking other moms for advice about something regarding their kids but never once asking dads for advice. I guess dads just aren't good parents or don't know anything about taking care of their own kids.
Disclaimer: Now that I'm sure I have gotten the moms reading this fired up, I want to clarify that I am talking in generic terms and about the overall tone that these blogs and Facebook statuses carry. This is not my view about every mom or even specific moms. And last but not least: It is definitely not a view that I have towards my own wife. I believe that my wife is the best wife and mother out there. Now back to the good stuff.
Let's bring moms down a notch from their holier than thou perch.
Just the other day I saw a mom leave their child at the entrance of a store inside a busy mall while they went shopping inside. The mom never turned around to make sure their child was still safe. Okay, to be fair I've seen dads do this too. This one just happened to be on the top of my radar.
I will take my daughter to a playground, a park, the play area inside a mall and every single mom is glued to their phone. Yet, I can spend the entire time without checking my phone once. So if you ever wonder why dads spend all their time on the phone during bathroom breaks it's probably because they didn't get to play on Pinterest or complete the next level of Candy Crush while watching their child. Instead they were at work to provide for their family.
Oh, and reading about how moms have to make sure their husbands bring all these backup items when taking their child out of the house. Trust me mommy bloggers, you don't really need all of that extra stuff. In fact, I rarely bring extra stuff when I take my daughter out of the house. Guess what? She has survived and made it to 4 years old. Moms always complain because spending all day with their child is exhausting. Well, yeah anyone would be exhausted if they were carrying around 50 extra pounds of luggage just to go to the store to get a vegetable (this doesn't include their purse).
I see it all the time, moms ask moms for parenting advice. I have yet to see a mom ask a dad for parenting advice. It's like dads are just there to hold your 50 pounds of extra luggage. I know a dad that could run circles around 99% of the moms out there when it comes to health and wellness for kids, yet everyone always asks his wife for advice. Are you serious? Those Pinterest results aren't going to cut it all the time.
A personal example of this for me was about our daughter not eating. My advice was to prepare the food and let her decide to eat it or not eat it. When everyone else was finished eating if she had decided not to eat then she wasn't allowed any food until the next major meal. Yes, this could mean not eating her dinner before bed. Logically, I knew that based on human instincts our daughter wasn't going to let herself starve to death. Even if she would, we would never let her get that far. Thus eventually she would learn that she needs to eat when she is hungry and it is time to eat. What do you know, our daughter has made some great strides in eating when it is time to eat and when she is hungry.
Well, guess what? A month or so into this new method and I see this article posted to my wife's Facebook as food for thought. Yet, I had already come to the same conclusion that the article mentioned and I didn't need scientific "proof". Yet, for a dad to be correct, we need the backing of a mom before our parenting choices are deemed correct.
Moral of the story? Dads are great parents too. Just because we may not parent or adult the way moms do it, or the way moms want us to do it, doesn't make our way any less valid. Get off your cloud of perfection and return to the world of the mortals because dads are parents too.
