I was intrigued by the results of the Kveller survey which found that overwhelmingly women (86% of the total readership) were reading the pieces on the site. What does this say about the dads out there?
When I was growing up, moms were home and dads were out working crazy hours to achieve financial stability and success as most of them were one step out of poverty. In my generation of dads, the men were home more but since most moms were “stay-at-home” moms when the kids were little, the dads would do what they needed to do but we moms still had to tell them what to do. And, truthfully, the results were uneven at best.
I would have thought that in this generation of parents, with both parents working outside the home, the parenting responsibilities would be more evenly shared and the dads would be reading about parenting issues as much as the moms. Evidently, if we can extrapolate from the Kveller results, they aren’t.
What does this mean? Are women logging more hours at home so they still have to “tell” their partners what to do and are the ones who are “supposed to know “ what to do? Are men less interested in issues relating to parenting? Do they think they are experts even without reading about child care? Or are they not reading because Kveller writers are mostly women and have more mom-centered views and interests?
After all, the joke is that men don’t even ask for directions. Is it “unmanly” to “not know what to do?” To consult books, articles and blogs?
I’m hoping that the truth is simpler but, admittedly, hard for an old time feminist like me to confess. From my experience, it is clear that men and women are different. Moms and dads are different. If men write, maybe men will read. Build it and they will come.
So- how about some regular dad bloggers for Kveller? Anyone out there interested?
