Comments on: X-Treme Dads

X-Treme Dads

braun_richard — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 10:52:37 -0800

An in-depth profile of Generation X dads. As one myself, I think it gets most things right. However, if you want to take paternity leaves and go home early and spend more time w/family, it helps to have money to actually do that!

By: stinkycheese

stinkycheese — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 12:00:26 -0800

Thanks for this. I've printed it out at work, to look at later when the children are in bed. If I don't fall asleep first, ha ha.

By: Holly

Holly — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 12:11:00 -0800

Good God. I didn't even realize I was called a "Generation X Dad". The term is probably the only thing about me that's still cool.

By: elvolio

elvolio — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 12:28:52 -0800

I didn't take paternity leave (my wife is a stay-at-home mom and we couldn't afford it), but I'm a pretty involved dad. My parents were somewhere between the traditional Cleavers home and what's outlined here, and while we're still somewhat traditional, there's still a lot more sharing of responsibility than there was in either of the homes where we were raised. And the evening time that I don't get to spend with my daughter is spent on congregational activities, not my "day job". Maybe I'm the Useful Dad mentioned on the last page. But you don't have to do 50% of the housework to be an involved father who does his share of the child-rearing. Parenting is not just cooking dinner. The researcher in the article who talked about the continuity rather than a sudden jump is dead-on. And it occurs to me that perhaps the concept of the uninvolved breadwinner-only father is an artifact of the 20th century: US fathers in the previous century may not have washed dishes, but is it fair to say that they didn't participate in the raising of their kids?

By: NotMyselfRightNow

NotMyselfRightNow — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 12:44:16 -0800

How many night have I spent in that bar and not realized that those guys were meeting? Weird... Good article, though!

By: MattD

MattD — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 14:34:31 -0800

Part of what I don't like about this story is how unquestioningly it buys into the cult of obsessive yuppie parenting. I'll know I've made a mistake with my son if he's so lacking in internal resources and self-direction as to be moping around the house because I'm working late.

By: grimley

grimley — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 14:56:37 -0800

Somewhere, Doug Coupland is rolling his eyes and wishing he'd never referenced that chapter in Class.

By: scarabic

scarabic — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 15:45:10 -0800

36 is genX? I must be getting old....

By: amberglow

amberglow — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 15:47:46 -0800

(up to 39 is GenX, from what i've read--1965 babies are the oldest members)

By: Armitage Shanks

Armitage Shanks — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 16:02:21 -0800

how unquestioningly it buys into the cult of obsessive yuppie parenting Wanting to spend evenings home with your kids instead of at work is "cultish"?

By: amberglow

amberglow — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 16:12:03 -0800

i think it's the overanalyzing and navel-gazing of it all that makes it yuppie--boomer even.

By: breath

breath — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 16:17:31 -0800

Fuck you, Gen X parents. The internet is being polluted with images of your spawn. And discussion of its poop.

By: ph00dz

ph00dz — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 16:40:55 -0800

What are those of us who are in our late 20's? I don't feel too Gen-Y...

By: recurve

recurve — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 16:59:11 -0800

if you want to take paternity leaves and go home early and spend more time w/family, it helps to have money to actually do that! It doesn't take more money, it takes spending less. I spend very little, so I don't have to work like a maniac to support myself, my wife and my four month old kid. I see the little guy all the time.

By: Oriole Adams

Oriole Adams — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 17:59:06 -0800

Dads of any age are welcome to spend as much quality time with their kids as they want, as far as I'm concerned, but must they talk about and analyze it so much? This article read like an episode of Thirtysomething.

By: Mayor Curley

Mayor Curley — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 18:11:58 -0800

i think it's the overanalyzing and navel-gazing of it all that makes it yuppie--boomer even. Damn straight. No matter to which marketing demographic you belong, fucking get over yourself. And parents-- shut up about your kids. Your kids are interesting to you, your spouse and your parents. That's it. If you want to tell me about your kids, I reserve the right to tell you about my bowel movements. Articles about parenting are so tiresome. The challenges of modern parents are for shit. Parenting was probably last truly challenging when you had to worry about giant predators carrying the child off. At least paleolithic peoples didn't have writing, so the couldn't pretend to be important and bore other cavemen with articles/blogs about parenting. I wish I lived in those times. I would break the skulls of people who wanted to masturbate in public over the fact that they have functioning testes.

By: i_am_joe's_spleen

i_am_joe's_spleen — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 18:13:17 -0800

Amen, recurve. But yeah, I couldn't get past the first page of this boring non-tear jerker (tear retainer?), even though as a 35 year old bourgeois father it's all about me.

By: Armitage Shanks

Armitage Shanks — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 18:37:40 -0800

I would break the skulls of people who wanted to masturbate in public over the fact that they have functioning testes. Real men don't post their impotent fantasies to weblogs.

By: WolfDaddy

WolfDaddy — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 18:38:59 -0800

up to 39 is GenX, from what i've read--1965 babies are the oldest members I refuse.

By: HTuttle

HTuttle — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 18:53:52 -0800

Make way for the Rubber Playground Generation.

By: argybarg

argybarg — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 19:02:05 -0800

Articles about parenting are so tiresome. Then don't freakin read them. Is that not good enough? You want all the subjects that you find tiresome removed from all media so that they don't disturb you? Suffrin jaysus. If people bore you with their talk about parenting, they're not committing some specialized sort of sin, they're just being boring. They'd probably likewise be boring about their hiking or reality TV or whatever else would consume their time if children didn't. But you insist that all other people stop talking about being parents -- except, as you say, among spouses and their parents. Why? Because the smell of it might trouble your sensitive nostrils? Because it's so vulgar and bourgeois compared to your own no-doubt-always-thrilling conversations? Might I ask you do to do what you ask parents to do and fucking get over yourself?

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 20:08:31 -0800

cripple fight!!!

By: i_am_joe's_spleen

i_am_joe's_spleen — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 20:12:06 -0800

OK, I managed to skim the entire thing. We have a cute story to start, some disagreeing experts, and some more cute stories. This article is crap. No position, no news, no information. Total dead loss. Filler for a Sunday magazine edition of the paper. I think it gets most things right. But it doesn't say anything?! All it does is quote some cherry-picked fathers and a few sociologists who dispute each other's conclusions.

By: jscalzi

jscalzi — Sun, 16 Jan 2005 20:16:05 -0800

"Fuck you, Gen X parents. The internet is being polluted with images of your spawn." Step off, man. We invented the obsessive-masturbatory model of the Internet as you know it today. And if you don't give proper respect to us and our right to discuss the defecation habits of our darling, precious spawn with the entire online universe, we'll just take it back, and all y'all can go back to gopher and newsgroups. Yeah, see how you like it then, pal.

By: verstegan

verstegan — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 02:12:06 -0800

Long years of reading newspapers have made me thoroughly cynical about this sort of article, where a few personal stories are miraculously transformed into a 'trend'. And this particular article is one of those perennial favourites: 'The Rise of the New Man: How Today's Generation-Xers are Putting Family Before Career' -- to be followed, a few weeks later, by 'Where Have All the New Men Gone? How Today's Generation-Xers are Putting Career Before Family'. If you really want to persuade me that 'today's young fathers' are rejecting fast-track careers in order to spend more time with their families, show me how tomorrow's business leaders are all going to be gay men or childless women.

By: Mayor Curley

Mayor Curley — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 04:16:26 -0800

Real men don't post their impotent fantasies to weblogs. But they post their critique of impotent fantasies? Your challenge of my manhood is meaningless to me. If I were a caveman, I'd poop in your mouth. Then I'd think about dragging your sister off by her hair, but I wouldn't because she's too fat and it wouldn't be worth the effort.

By: jungturk

jungturk — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 09:11:18 -0800

Quality pops are good. Congratulating such is good. Seven page feel-good stories masquerading as longitudinal analyses of fatherhood aren't so good. Caveman-themed trolls are usually entertaining. Sincere responses to such bring delight.

By: Doohickie

Doohickie — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 11:00:25 -0800

Meh. Who knew I'd be the trend setter for putting my kids before my career? Now, if I can only come up with that tuition payment for my oldest son next summer, all that quality time will have been worth it.

By: stinkycheese

stinkycheese — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 16:30:40 -0800

I am Exhausted Dad. And yeah, I didn't like hearing about kids and parenting before I became a dad either. The thing is - that's best avoided by not going into MeFi discussions of kids and parenting.

By: fullysic

fullysic — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 17:12:45 -0800

"Fuck you, Gen X parents. The internet is being polluted with images of your spawn." Jeez, I'd only just learn't that boomers were a burdern on resources. I thought I'd have a few more years to wait...