Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!

In this world that we live in, where duplicity is the norm, there are some things that seem to mislead more than any other. Such things are insidious and require you to consider the opposite. Included in this are such time-honored deceptions as:

--Athletes or team owners who say they care most about the fans.
--Politicians of any stripe that suggest that all Americans feel one way or another about an issue.
--That the musicians getting are getting back to their roots and keeping it real, and coming up with digitally recorded musical fecal matter like “St. Anger”.

But the real insidiousness is when you come across a magazine, website, or other media that has the word “Parenting” in it. Because it’s not about parenting – it’s about moms.

Now, I get that moms have a tough job. (I mean, I live with one, and I’m neither blind nor an idiot. By which I mean I’m not blind.) And I know that single mothers have a particularly tough row to hoe; there are some who are personal heroes (heroines?) of mine. But for the most part, “parenting” requires two people. (This is different from mere procreation, which requires parts of two people, not necessarily including heart and soul.)

The latest focus of my dad-sized ire is an article I came across on CNN. It was called “20 things moms should never feel guilty about.” I live with a mom who has a tendency to feel guilty about things, and I’ve made sure she understands that if she was home with a newborn and, say, laundry or dishes didn’t get done as fast as she would like, or if we had to order pizza because she was too tired, it was fine. I can run the freakin’ washing machine, and I’m more than happy to hand-wash the baby bottles. (Just don’t get mushrooms on the pizza. I HATE mushrooms.)

But reading this article, which was in the Living section of CNN.com, it appears that there is one particular thing moms should not feel guilty about: lying.

As Jules from “Pulp Fiction” might say: “Example?”

Telling your partner you’re going to the doctor for a checkup when you’re actually going for a massage, pedicure, or to have your hair highlighted (it’s not like he’s going to notice anyway).

Which is immediately followed up with:

Paying cash for your massage/pedicure/highlights so he won't discover the credit card charge.

I would suggest that not noticing a hair change in a new mom might be due to a dad’s sleep deprivation. Although, if you believe this magazine dads get to sleep through the night. But if my wife was telling me she was going to the doctor, I’d want to know how the appointment went, and was everything okay, and were there any complications from childbirth. I might not get to bear children and I might not understand that pain and discomfort, but I sure as shootin’ want to be sure my family is alright.

Stereotypes exist because there is some truth in them, but they are also hazardous to perpetuate. Women acting like their partners don’t care can engender partners who don’t care. And partners who don’t care can then engender children who aren’t kind or empathetic.

Particularly egregious are lies like this one:

Putting on the Baby Einstein DVD for the third time before lunch so you can apply some makeup because that cute landscaping guy is due to come by and cut your grass sometime this afternoon (just because you don't want to have sex doesn't mean you're dead).

So apparently, new moms should not feel guilty of not only not including their partners on the details of the day, but completely emasculating them! That’s nice!

There are others in this vein, assuring moms that lying to their in-laws, parents, friends, and so on are just okay. (Kids don’t pick up on this sort of thing at all.)

The worst, though, was the final one:

Driving your baby home from the mall with poop in his diaper because the bathroom is all the way at the other end and you know he couldn't care less anyway.

Lying to the men in your life can’t start early enough!

I find particularly telling the use of the pronoun “he” in this one – anyone who has had baby daughters know that one of the worst things you can do is to not change her right away – poop in the urinary tract is a hazard of little baby girls. But boys? Fuck ‘em, unless they’re your husbands or partners – those you can simply ignore.

In 2011, are we still so blinkered that it’s okay to consider fathers as nothing more than procreative machines, that they don’t have a role in the nurturing of children? Yes, such men exist – and they deserve scorn and approbation. But when you call a media site “Parenting”, you would expect that somewhere, somehow, the roles of fathers would be acknowledged.

I mean, acknowledged positively. (Some of us do notice these things.)

When you travel to their website, one of the topic choices is “moms.” There is no topic choice that includes “dads.” The fathers of my generation, the men in my group of friends are subverting the stereotype: we change diapers, we go to the doctor’s appointments, we take and pick up from school and help with homework. We nurture. And we don’t leave the mall with a poopy baby – if you can’t make it to the other end of the mall, I’ve discovered that the passenger seat of the car serves nicely as a changing table.

My daughter is going to be raised knowing that men care deeply about raising their children, and that we’re more than just sperm donors and ATMs. You’d think that a magazine or website called “Parenting” would recognize this as something that is proven to have an impact on the health and well-being of girls.

But why would they want to? Then they might not subscribe to “Parenting.”