... you mean like women have had to do for pretty much ever? It's surprising that you're complaining that men are being shoved to the side while women are taking control of the child and family when the roles were 100% switched but you're not complaining about that.
I've read this sentence repeatedly, but I still can't quite figure out what it means.
The problem is that the quotation leading into your ellipsis is "which has ... pushed the man's role to the side." As written, that appears to say that women have alway had to push men's roles (in the family) to the side. But that doesn't make sense, particularly given the overall tone of post.
Also, 100% switched??? I don't think there has ever been a time or culture in which men sought to push women's role in the family to the side, because A.) that's just not physiologically possible, B) historically men often sought, or were forced, or were culturally indoctrinated, to not have much of a role in child rearing.
The tension that exists today, which I think is novel, is that men (at least in many western cultures) are now being culturally encouraged to be an active parent, but while women are happy to share "diaper duty", and jump at the chance to coach little league and soccer teams; when it comes to sharing their "primary caregiver" role, they are not willing, and are resentful about intrusions into "the mother's" traditional domain.
There is an inclination in many women toward the view that the father's views as primary caregiver are simply wrong. Your notion that a father's inclination to encourage a child who has fallen to get back up, rather than immediately run to offer comfort, is typical. Your view isn't just that the male inclination is incorrect, but that it is psychologically damaging--it is incorrect in a way that we must eradicate it.
Unlike the poster you're responding to, the first time I really noticed this in the media was 'John & Kate plus 8". Not a trope, but a reality.
The best expression of this growing tension I've seen recently was a t-shirt that said "Fathers don't babysit: It's called parenting."
The tension here regarding mothers' increasing desire to take on the traditional roles of fathers, while unwilling to give up their traditional roles of "primary" caregiver/parent, is real.
To say to people who wish to point out that this inclination among contemporary mothers leaves increasingly diminished roles for modern fathers, that such people "need therapy", are just bitter, etc..., well, it strikes me as the intellectual equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting "Nay, Nay, Nay....." at the top of your lungs.
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