Emily brought home a Parenting magazine once.
Once.
I knew I was going to be staying home with Erin, and I was pretty defensive about being a stay-at-home dad, and gender equality in parenting, and misperceptions of fathers. So when I read the tagline on the magazine (Parenting Magazine: What matters to moms) I was righteously indignant.
How Dare They?? How dare they assume that parent=mom? I am outraged! I will write letters! I will probably not do anything but boy, I will feel really strongly about this for a short time and then forget about it altogether!
I did get up in arms a couple of times about some stupid comments someone or other made about at-home dads, or about the attitude toward at-home dads that I detected out there in my early days of cruising the internet during Erin’s naps. But, as with most things, familiarity, conversation, getting to know people, and patience ended the knee-jerk defensiveness I felt.
It no longer bothers me that Parenting Magazine markets parenting as a mom job. I can laugh and see the tagline for what it is: just a way to sell magazines.
And I can’t really be too indignant. It’s not as if I don’t own a Playboy (Playboy Magazine: What matters to dads) featuring Tricia Helfer, the blond Cylon from Battlestar Galactica. Like Doc Holliday, my hypocrisy goes only so far.
Besides. I think Parenting Magazine doesn’t have the market cornered on what matters to moms.
As Emily pointed out, Parents Magazine has a pretty good idea of what matters to moms too. And it’s not cupholders built into strollers.
(We saw this last night on Fail Blog, like I Can Has Cheezburger but with no cats. Also, in all fairness to Parents Magazine, this cover is a fake. See the creator’s website.)