There is a fairly large online community, many of them my friends, of stay at home dads (SAHD). A lot of the growing presence of this Dad blogging stuff is fueled by those same SAHD's. I often read about the problems they have in what is typically a female dominated occupation. As bloggers they are also introduced to all sorts of offers and advertisers that address them as moms based on assumptions alone. I know from following these guys how frustrating this can be.
Even with the growing number of SAHD's I still think that there are many things that moms do as parents much better than us dads. If you disagree then by all means call me an idiot. It won't be the first time.
In my experience moms are simply more nurturing and gentle people. They are more understanding and compassionate. I, being a dad, am in no way gentle. I am not nurturing. I am rough and practical. I am more prone to analysis of the problem than offering my condolences.
I am OK with this. I think it clearly shows why it is best to have two parents raise a child. The kid then gets the benefits of each type of personality. Braden has his sweet loving mom to care for his every need, and he has his dad to teach him how to kill animals and fix the sink.
Over the past year bathing Braden has been one of my primary duties. For the first 6 months of his life I don't think I ever gave Braden a bath. It was a delicate process and I feared it immensely. Eventually Arica helped me overcome that fear and become a baby washer.
I watched Arica so many time gently wash the shampoo out of Braden's hair careful to avoid getting any water or shampoo in his eyes. I watched her do it again recently and she hasn't lost her touch. She is soft and gentle and ever so caring.
When I am at the controls the description is more fast and shaky. I have never been able to keep the water out of Braden's eyes. I have tried and tried for Braden's sake. Eventually I just started going for the quickest solution. My reasoning was that Braden was going to get water in his eyes no matter what so the quicker I finished the better.
This method has worked out pretty well in my opinion. As you can see below my careless non-nurturing method of hair rinsing has helped develop a fearless little bath tub warrior.
7 comments:
Having a mom and a dad is definitely the best of both worlds.
Haha! First of all, I just dump water over Ethan's head....which is what I guess you do. Second, I love the way your hands reach in to catch him and then back out when it's safe to say he's got it. Really drives home the idea of being there when we need to be but giving space as well.
And I love the splash right in the face at the end....caught him a little off guard, but he just shook it off. He's so cute and really chatty! :)
Wow! Braden enjoys bath time a lot! Did either you or Arica get wet when he was waving the hand cloth around?
BTW, both Moms and Dads have equally important roles to play in their child's life. It doesn't really matter who teaches him or her how to fix a sink, as long as he or she learns . . . :)
I usually give the kids a bath 29 days out of the month pretty much so I know exactly what you mean. My favorite part about bath time is when one of my kids pulls up the shower stopper and it starts to rain cold shower head water on them. They freak out every time...
I don't pay any attention to the mom versus dad stuff. We have our strengths and they have theirs. One is not better than the other, they are different.
That's how I rinse G's hair too - just dump it over.
I think you're right. I can't nurse nearly as well as my wife, so I leave that task to her :)
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