Some time back, I blogged about a poll conducted by Parenting magazine that indicated many moms were fed up with their husbands. More recently, there was an interesting segment on NPR radio on how moms and dads evaluate their roles, and the resulting tension that can produce between them.
Referring to the Parenting poll, Jeremy Adam Smith, author of “The Daddy Shift: How Stay-at-Home Dads, Breadwinning Moms, and Shared Parenting Are Transforming the American Family,” said that anger arises when working parents compare themselves to others. “The mom is measuring the dad against other dads, and the dad is measuring himself against other dads, and that can create feelings of inadequacy and anger.”
Lisa Belkin, author of The New York Times Motherlode blog, added, “I think that women are measuring themselves against both their mothers and their fathers. They are doing their mom’s job and they’re doing dad’s job. If they are working outside the home and bringing in an income, they’re their fathers. And then they come home and they feel this obligation to be their old-fashioned mother…and then you’ve got dad who’s comparing himself to his dad, and he’s feeling pretty good about it. But mom’s looking over at him and saying, ‘yeah, but I’m still chasing two role models here,’ and there’s a lot of anger.”
Readers, what do you think?
