I hate unsolicited parenting advice. At some point, every parent will receive it. Sometimes it may be warranted and valid. Other times... not. As a stay-at-home dad, I don't know if I receive more of this unwanted advice than my female counterparts, but I would wager that I do. I think it speaks to a wider, perceived stereotype that dads are just bumbling idiots.
A Bumbling Idiot There is a tired old trope that fathers are affable fools when it comes to child-rearing. We all see it. Just think of how dads are portrayed in contemporary media; there is a plethora of dumbass dads in popular television. When I envision TV representations of fathers, multiple images come to mind from the shows I grew up with. Full House, while endearing, was a portrayal of a house full of men raising girls, with only one actually being the biological father. This idea of ineptitude was repeated constantly through comical encounters of malady. Hell, the entire premise implies that it takes three men to take care of three children because they're obviously inferior at parenting. That's a 1:1 ratio!
Many might argue that shows such as Growing Pains, Home Improvement, Modern Family, and Family Matters displayed fathers as loving dads who put in the time and effort. I wouldn't argue against that, and it stands in contrast to the dads of early television, like Ward Cleaver of Leave It to Beaver. Good old Ward was a stalwart figure of calmness, stability, and leadership; not a funny fool. But there is still one stark difference in modern shows: those dads are still shown to be idiots when it comes to the basic acts of child care.
Do You Even Know How to Change a Diaper? Yes, yes I do. But if you asked the average person who is better at changing diapers, almost every response would be "women." I know this because it seems as if almost every women's public restroom has a diaper-changing table in it. Men's bathrooms? Not so much. Out of sheer curiosity, I looked up the statistics.
According to a Pampers survey, 90% of men's bathrooms DO NOT have a changing table. An NIH study found that only 13-16% of women's restrooms have diaper changing stations, which is marginally more than men's but still remarkably low. What gives is how cheap businesses are, though they are potentially shifting those resources to family bathrooms.
I've lost count of how many times I've had to go back to the car and change a diaper in the cargo area due to a lack of resources at a venue. But apparently, my experience isn't exclusive to my gender; it's maybe just a little more bereft of parental amenities.
One other thing I find interesting is how diaper changing is always used as a metric for competent parenting. I know we've all heard the term thrown around, typically when addressing men: "Do you even know how to change a diaper?" Why yes, I do, and I would wager my skills are better than most. Hell, I knew how to change a diaper before having kids. I took a babysitting class in my younger years. Not very masculine, I know, but I wanted to make some money, and I wasn't biased in how I made it. Despite setbacks in starting a teenage career in babysitting, I find that today, my diaper changing skills are far superior to most. Mostly because I have a lot of practice, and practice makes per... well, it makes me far superior.
Your Penis Makes You Stupid
By this point, you might be asking if there was a precipitating event that inspired this post. There was. I often have women trying to give me unsolicited advice or comment on specific aspects of my parenting. Most often I receive positive praise, but why? I'm not doing anything different from any other stay-at-home parent. But let's face it: because of societal expectations, I should be failing miserably. Remember, if you have a penis, you don't know how to take care of kids.
The Great Pumpkin Witch
So, there I was, minding my own business, happily traversing the soaring orange aisles of Home Depot with my oldest daughter. She's too big to ride in the cart but also extremely lazy when it comes to self-locomotion, so I sometimes let her ride on the side of the cart like an action hero. I only do this if I deem the cart worthy of supporting her weight without tipping over.
We were having a nice time looking at all the tools (actual tools, not people) when I heard it.
"Excuse me, young lady, you need to get down. That's not safe."
I turned to find myself facing an orange-smock-adorned female employee. I could tell she was probably a retiree working there because it's fun to give unwarranted instructions to children and parents alike.
My daughter seemed to be in mild shock that this old lady was addressing her and not necessarily in a kind tone. She gave me a look that said, "WTF do I do with this, Dad?" When she didn't immediately depart the cart per the order of the Great Pumpkin Witch, the employee repeated her order, this time with much more assertive scorn than necessary, still ignoring me in the process.
"You need to get down now; that's not allowed!"
This is where I stepped in and kindly said, "Ok, thank you!" I subsequently ASKED my daughter to get down and continue her responsibility as a bipedal human being. I will also note that we walked away with my daughter merrily riding on the cart again, and I didn't ASK her to get down until we were well away from the wicked witch of Dublin (where we were shopping; I also really hate Dublin, but I'll comment more on that another time).
Being Right Can Still be Wrong
I'm a rational, logic-oriented person, so I know the orange hag was potentially just trying to mitigate any future liability for Home Depot. But I really think that she just saw me, a man, and thought, "What an idiot! He's going to let that child get hurt!" And you know what? She's right about one thing: I was allowing the potential for her to hurt herself, but it was on purpose.
Let me clarify. As all parents are well-acquainted, children can be annoyingly relentless when they want to do something stupid or mildly dangerous but fun. As a general rule, at some point, it's better for me as a parent to let them FAFO instead of arguing incessantly. The simple act of finding out for themselves is a stronger teaching moment than me just telling them all the time.
Now, I won't let them do anything overly dangerous, but I'll allow actions that could result in a minor injury. However, in this specific case, I had already calculated the risk. I don't think riding on the side of a cart that I actively control even constitutes a real hazard, let alone the potential death observed in the crystal ball of Orange Maleficent.
There might be some question as to why we actually complied. It's simple: that employee had every right to ask us to adhere to store policy, and if we wanted to continue shopping there, it was our responsibility to acquiesce. I was trying to teach my daughter that sometimes there's an unspoken social contract everyone should adhere to. If a private business doesn't want me doing something in their store, they have a right to tell me, or we can shop somewhere else.
It wasn't the act of asking her to stop that pissed me off. It was the how and why. Sometimes the delivery is wrong, and that's not okay.
The How and Why
Cruella DeDepot didn't address me as the parent; she addressed a 7-year-old child directly. That's inappropriate for two reasons. First, I'm the parent. If you have a legitimate concern, address me so I can take care of it. Second, the fact that she thoroughly ignored me implies that I was observed and deemed lacking, so she had to take matters into her own hands. I would wager this was specifically because I'm a dad. Also, she didn't appropriately ASK her to get down; she told her. This may sound bad, but no one tells my kids what to do unless it's me or someone I allow to have authority over them. Some rando in a store doesn't have that right.
There it is. Because I'm a man, I am automatically thought of as being out of my depth and too inept to appropriately care for kids. Therefore, it was her motherly responsibility to step in and save my child from my deep lack of parenting skills.
I know I've commented on this before, but it's something I'm constantly subjected to. It makes a hard job even harder because I have to constantly prove myself to others as a competent parent; otherwise, I deal with scenarios like the one above. It's tiring. It's infuriating. Mostly, it's unwarranted. I know moms have similar experiences with unsolicited judgment, but I feel like this specific brand of condescension targets me simply for being a dad. I know I'm a good dad, and I love my kids, which is precisely what makes all of it so upsetting. Who knew orange would become the color of assholes, and I'm not directly referring to the Great Pumpkin.
Dad out.