There’s a lot of bad stereotypes about men caring for children. The Bumbling Dad is its own pop culture trope, and a quick image search for “when dad is left alone with kids” finds:
The caregiving bar is set pretty low for dads. They’re expected by society at large to be lazy, reckless, selfish, and to just generally not take the job seriously. With our first child, my husband and I shared parental leave. And on the surface, it might have looked like he fulfilled some of those stereotypes:
- Frequently left lunch dishes on the table until they had to be cleared away to make room for our dinner? Check.
- Enjoy whole days where nary a chore or task seemed to cross his mind? Check.
- Take more naps than I did when I was on leave? Check.
- Feed our son more fries and Goldfish crackers than I would have been okay with? Check.
- Take silly, sometimes scary photos/videos to show me at the end of a workday (like the time his friend captured a shot of my 10-month old being thrown so high in the air that Dad’s hands were entirely absent from the picture)? Check.
Yet, despite these things, I’m trying to take more of a ‘paternity’ leave myself with baby #2. Because more important than any of those tangible differences are the bigger picture, truly invaluable things I learned from watching my husband on parental leave:
These sentiments are important: if I worry about how other people do a pose, and focus on making my practice look like someone else’s from the outside, I run the risk of, at best, separation from the inner focus and peace I could enjoy from the practice, and at worst, really injuring myself.
It Takes a Village to Raise a Mother 