Signs that gender equality got off track sometime about 1980

This is a book that my parents read to me when I was a kid.  Now on a visit, I am reading it to my kid.

You read the first half about a dad out with his son, and then you flip it over and read about a mom out with her daughter.  They meet in the living room in the middle.

And you know what strikes me, besides the cool gimmick?  That the Dad is equal to the Mom.  Not just in having half a book, but in the tone and substance of the book.  He comforts his son when he gets hurt, helps him deal with fears and just in general was competent to deal with the average weekend outing.

And the mom?  She is basically the same, not scared of lions at the zoo and that sort of thing.

If a book like this came out today, I would praise it for being so forward thinking on gender stereotypes.

Then I just read a post at Dadding, the fatherhood blog at Babble, on LEGO advertising and how the toys used to be for boys and girls but somehow became only for boys.

And I think about how in Sweden the girls toys are getting pinker and girlier, without even any of the middle ground that American girls get (clothes and attitudes are still different there, yes).

Some pretty sad backsliding.

meditations on velour as a daddy in sweden

The big Swedish paper Dagens Nyheter recently ran a big ongoing series on paternity leave and the changing role of the Swedish father.  It was OK.  The first article was cool and so was the one last Monday, mostly because it featured the only other American blogger I know in Daddyland, Van Taylor who writes at dadinsweden.com

In between were some articles on fathering groups and daddy bloggers and single profiles of dads, which I thought were a bit easy, like they rushed this a bit.  I mean, there is some serious stuff going on here in terms of gender roles, and they come up with a two-page story off one visit to a fathering group?

In DN’s defense, they run these huge feature articles every day.  It is space that a newspaper reporter in the United States could only dream of.  But it often feels like they don’t have the staff to fill the newshole.  So we get these amazing concepts – like paternity leave – and then a bunch of inflated, one-source stories.

I digress.  What I did love was the name, a Swedish word I had not heard before.  Since the 1970s, a sensitive Swedish dad – at this point meaning a guy on paternity leave – have been known as a “velourpappa” or “velour daddy” in translation.

As a child of the 70s, I revel in this term.  I wore velour!  Until middle school!  Which I should not admit.  But who wears velour now?  Do some of you not even know what velour is?

Here is a description from Wikipedia -” It combines the stretchy properties of knits such as spandex with the rich appearance and feel of velvet.”

Fake velvet.

I do not know why this tickles me so.  Must be that middle school thing.

A fake velvet daddy.  A daddy who combines spandex with the rich appearance and feel of velvet.

That is so cool.  I am a velour daddy (I tried to come up with a serious comparison or reflection on velour and paternity leave but it escapes me – there is nothing spandex-y about it, and fake velvet?  Time with my kids is all real, baby.)

I need to track me down a velour top.  Not a track suit either.  That is kind of hip-hop, right?

Nope, I just need a purple sweater-thing to wear over my dorky un-pegged cords.

puzzled by the Swedish disappointment over Daddyland

I’ve been researching paternity leave on a more formal level, trying to get a magazine pitch together based on this blog.  And what stuns me is the tone of disappointment from almost everyone regarding Daddyland.

To pick a random example, here is a story from the AFP in 2008 (the story is otherwise an excellent roundup on the topic):

Swedish fathers enjoy one of the most generous paternity leave policies in the world but few dads take advantage of the opportunity, with mothers in gender-equal Sweden still leading the charge in childcare.

Fathers take on average only 20 percent of the 16 months of paid parental leave offered in Sweden to either mums or dads, according to Statistics Swede—a skimpy average that has sparked a broad debate over how to encourage more fathers to take the paid time off and reduce inequalities in the home.

Ummm, hello?  Sweden has the most generous parental leave in the world, and men take more than 20 percent of it.  That percentage alone is good for second best in the world (behind only tiny Iceland), and if you calculate the gross number of days, it must be staggering.

Yeah, I get that progress has been slow, that women still struggle hard for equality in probably the most equal country in world history.  It sucks.  Sweden offered paternity leave in 1974 – the first country ever – and it’s only up to 20 percent almost four decades later.

But really.  We are talking about the most deeply held gender roles – the care of babies and young children.

So please, researchers and government officials and people in general, look outside Daddyland a bit – the other Nordic countries don’t get above 11 percent at best for paternity leave.  And don’t even glance at the rest of the world or, god forbid, the United States, one of four countries (soon to be three) without paid parental leave for moms or dads.

No reason to be complacent, but still, enjoy the success …  Daddyland is revolutionary.

are stay-at-home dads putting their children in danger?

The Swede Life passed on this link to a column from late March in the Swedish tabloid Expressen.  The author –  Eva Sternberg – is a family counselor and based her column on a news article based on a new report as well as government statistics.   It ostensibly said that there has been a rise in the number of dangerous accidents involving Swedish babies.

She actually got her facts wrong, and had to apologize to the study’s author, but let’s let Sternberg have her entertaining say, for her opinion has nothing to do with any facts  (this is a modified Google Translate English version):

Why are accidents increasing for children under one year old?

Why only in Sweden?   Everyone in childcare knows.

But only I dare say it.

These accidents – such as babies scalded by hot water spilled from pots set on the edge of the stove – happen because a majority of Sweden’s political parties have decided to interfere in the lives of families with young children, from birth. Mothers who surrender responsibility for their baby to dads even get a bonus from the state, if they do it early enough in the government’s eyes.

For years I have observed, that the Swedish notion that mothers can be exchanged for fathers during the first year is lethal.

The idea itself is too easy to pick apart – again, she got her facts wrong, the study does not examine gender anyway, most babies are home with their mother for more than 12 months, and so on.

But what I did find interesting were the 35 pages of comments.  They show that Sweden has not embraced Daddyland as fully as you might think, especially if you read my blog.  There are lots of comments – mostly from women, by the way – bemoaning the rise of paternity leave and insisting that fathers are not suited for the care of small children.  Then there are comments from exasperated men, sighing that they cannot win either way – they are either not involved enough or considered incompetent if they stay home.

More than 75 Swedish bloggers have linked to the story, though I have not had time to get into that.

The paper also had a poll.  Who is better at taking care of small children, moms, dads or are they equal?

Results so far – Equal 53%, Moms 40%, Dads 7%

Most of the comments, however, seemed to reflect an essence of the Swedish national character.  They dismiss the stupid column, they are matter of fact in their defense of gender equality, and then they state their final opinion with great authority.  This gets lost sometimes in this consensus-seeking, meeting-happy land.  But maybe it is why the consensus method works, with this practical energy behind it.

yes, men are capable of packing snacks and vacuuming

I am a momentum father and housekeeper.  What I mean by this is that I am perfectly good at all the little things that need doing every day to make the family run smoothly – getting the bag together, dressing the children properly, keeping track of the food, vacuuming.

But I have to work into shape.  I need to build that momentum.  I do not just have it.

I am, after all, a guy.  And I am not culturally programmed to pack small bags of snacks.

It is, however, not a question of inherited skills, of simply being a man.  I don’t buy that.

Not one bit.

I argue that it is about expectations and practice.

I got into practice during my first leave in 2008.  I am less in practice now but it is coming back fast.

Over at the new parenting site parentsask.com, Rick Suvalle (who blogs under I Peed On My Kid!) wrote a whole entry on how men cannot multitask, how he basically screws up all the daily tasks of Daddyland.

Every dad I’ve ever spoken to is exactly like me. They can’t do anything but play with their kids when it’s their turn to watch them, unless it’s watching TV at the same time. Of course being a stay-at-home dad requires more than just playing Polly Pockets and watching Yo Gabba Gabba on an infinite loop. There’s laundry to be done. Dishes to be washed. Floors to be swept. The list goes on. And on. And on. I actually have an actual list my wife gives me, but it doesn’t help. Without fail, if I’m watching my kids and I try and do anything else, I will mess something up.

What I suspect (besides a good schtick for a blog)  is a lack of confidence on old Rick”s part, to go with some serious soul crushing gatekeeping by his wife.

Some advice, dude.  Take control of the house.  You shop.  You clean.  On your standards.  There will be mistakes.  Learn from them.

What is the worst that is going to happen?  You end up at McDonald’s a couple of times.  A kid smells a little like pee for an hour or two.

Sheesh.

It is all about momentum, not testosterone.

And you can still watch football and play video games and hunt deer with rocks (since this is apparently our only natural skill).

Yep, I am off to track me some elk in the winter night right now.

And I have my little bags of snacks all ready …

everybody wants a wife – new gender roles are hard

This is not strictly parenting or Sweden related, but I liked this op-ed piece by Sandra Tsing Loh, especially now that I am a temporary stay-at-home Dad who spent 30 minutes staring angrily at the Christmas glitter that keeps appearing on our floor no matter how much I vacuum. Still, that aside, I have no desire to be a Wife, or have my wife be a Wife, which means lots of sharing of roles and standards, from housework to parenting, especially in our 500 square foot apartment and its constant need for organizing. Works for us, but maybe we are at the front end of a bigger transition …

What can turn into a second shift is not just negotiating the splitting of this labor with another person, but the splitting of decision-making authority. Two co-workers in the home also have the opportunity to regularly evaluate each other’s handiwork, not always to a positive effect. (Suffice it to say, stacking food in the fridge with precise geometric elegance is apparently not among my talents.)

In short, as the Tupperware totters lopsidedly about, in the domestic equation, the work I do at home is no longer a gift, but the labor of a mediocre colleague whose performance could be better.

Still, a return to a life more like the 1950s, with one breadwinner and one homemaker, is an unreasonable expectation. It is particularly so since, as the breadwinner, I wish to be the husband, and hence what I’m looking for is a wife — a loyal helpmeet who keeps the home fires burning and offers uncritical emotional support when I, the gladiator, return exhausted from the arena. Who are the (actively listening!) men without money who can adapt to such a role?

One could ask, who are the modern women who are content with such a role? These are times when mothers with newborns watch “Oprah” episodes that feature a harried mom just like you who became entrepreneurial with her jam, and is now head of a multimillion-dollar company in addition to being a great mom!

In the end, we all want a wife. But the home has become increasingly invaded by the ethos of work, work, work, with twin sets of external clocks imposed on a household’s natural rhythms. And in the transformation of men and women into domestic co-laborers, the Art of the Wife is fast disappearing.