This is a true story that happened to me last week. I was out at a garden centre with my 2 boys. I wasn’t in a hurry so we we stopped at a wooden train track play table and and I let them play for a bit. They love trains and will happily play without guided play so I stayed nearby but let them get on with it, never leaving eyesight and constantly checking on them.
My eldest year old sheepishly tells me he needs to go to the toilet which is usually code for ‘I’ve pooed my pants’. Indeed he has. Sigh. I go to pick up the youngest to head towards the toilets but he does ‘liquid baby’ – a toddlers ability to turn into an a liquid soup making them impossible to hold. At the same time a women comes around the corner, looks at me struggling to pick up Liquid Baby, frowns and wanders off.
With both children in tow I head over to the toilets. The disabled/changing room is engaged so I patiently wait outside. As I’m waiting, a security man comes over and we make eye contact. He starts sheepishly checking over a display whilst throwing glances at me. Weird. I interact with my kids a bit. I eventually hear him say ‘no, they are together’ over coms. He wanders off.
That women saw me pick up my own children and put out a security alert against me. That is the real problem dads have in this country. The automatic assumption is – ‘man with children? Must be a pedo’.
I could tell myriad other stories. Women who offer unsolicited advice when out and about in shops, usually to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do. Older women who approach and touch your baby whilst cooing without parental consent. General busybodies getting involved when it’s none of their business.
The prejudice is real, it’s disgusting and it’s got to stop. Dads are real people too.
ModernCalgacus on
If our society was halfway functional then “young dad” would be a stage of life most men pass through, instead of being seen as an aberrant identity category indicative of some sort of personal failure.
I do think the focus on stereotypes gets it backwards though, as the stereotypes largely emerge from a dysfunctional society in which starting a family young is treated as irresponsible or careless, and this has the effect that those who still are having kids young will be more likely to be people who are less responsible, which then colours the perceptions of all young parents. There isn’t much use in lecturing people for thinking the wrong way without bothering to change the actual behaviours and environment that lead to that thinking.
2 Comments
Young dads? Try any dads.
This is a true story that happened to me last week. I was out at a garden centre with my 2 boys. I wasn’t in a hurry so we we stopped at a wooden train track play table and and I let them play for a bit. They love trains and will happily play without guided play so I stayed nearby but let them get on with it, never leaving eyesight and constantly checking on them.
My eldest year old sheepishly tells me he needs to go to the toilet which is usually code for ‘I’ve pooed my pants’. Indeed he has. Sigh. I go to pick up the youngest to head towards the toilets but he does ‘liquid baby’ – a toddlers ability to turn into an a liquid soup making them impossible to hold. At the same time a women comes around the corner, looks at me struggling to pick up Liquid Baby, frowns and wanders off.
With both children in tow I head over to the toilets. The disabled/changing room is engaged so I patiently wait outside. As I’m waiting, a security man comes over and we make eye contact. He starts sheepishly checking over a display whilst throwing glances at me. Weird. I interact with my kids a bit. I eventually hear him say ‘no, they are together’ over coms. He wanders off.
That women saw me pick up my own children and put out a security alert against me. That is the real problem dads have in this country. The automatic assumption is – ‘man with children? Must be a pedo’.
I could tell myriad other stories. Women who offer unsolicited advice when out and about in shops, usually to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do. Older women who approach and touch your baby whilst cooing without parental consent. General busybodies getting involved when it’s none of their business.
The prejudice is real, it’s disgusting and it’s got to stop. Dads are real people too.
If our society was halfway functional then “young dad” would be a stage of life most men pass through, instead of being seen as an aberrant identity category indicative of some sort of personal failure.
I do think the focus on stereotypes gets it backwards though, as the stereotypes largely emerge from a dysfunctional society in which starting a family young is treated as irresponsible or careless, and this has the effect that those who still are having kids young will be more likely to be people who are less responsible, which then colours the perceptions of all young parents. There isn’t much use in lecturing people for thinking the wrong way without bothering to change the actual behaviours and environment that lead to that thinking.