I write stuff. Life Is Beautiful. Oxford comma. Enthusiastic reader. Warrior Mother. Feminist. Writer of truths. Progressive.

Feb 12, 2016

Family Leave Is Not A Women’s Issue

Politicos who frame family leave as a woman’s issue are sexist. Period. End of story.

Whether in debates or speeches, the folks running for office try to bait women voters with promises of required family leave: paid or unpaid time off for the birth of a child. It is always couched as a women’s benefit. Why?

There are plenty of men out there — my daughter’s father, an ex-partner, good male friends, Tim Barrus — who are amazing parents. Amazing fathers. The kinds of Dads who put their children above all; who are there to brush off a skinned knee and make it better with a kiss. Who regularly take their wee ones to Gymboree or the library or the park; who volunteer as coaches for their kids’ sports teams just to spend time with their children. Who bathe and make dinner for their children, run carpools and make play-dates, because they are parents.

The kinds of fathers who want to be involved with their children from birth; who would love nothing more than to take the first months of their baby’s life to be there and see every new moment.

They’re not heroes and they don’t claim to be. They are parents. They love their children as much as their children’s mothers love their children.

So why do so many politicians insist on framing this as a woman’s issue?

I think it’s because they still, despite a century of women moving out of the home and into the competitive workforce, hold a deep-seated belief that only mothers can love a child completely. They still cling to that old trope that women are somehow hard-wired to better care for their offspring.

Yet women can be bad parents, or disinterested in parenting. They can resent having children; they can be less interested in the day-to-day minutia of parenting.

Haven’t you seen the woman in the stands at a child’s event, more interested in posting to Facebook pics of their kid’s event — Look at me! I’m at the ball field on a Saturday morning! Hashtag mom probs — than the actual event itself, while Dad is cheering and encouraging the kid on?

E has always been a daddy’s girl. This was her first trip to the beach, at 5 weeks old.

Three months after my C-section, I was heading back to work. I was ready to go. I love my daughter, but I needed adult conversation; coffee and smokes with co-workers, running to crime scenes and banging out stories on deadline. I didn’t love my kiddo any less, I just was more than a mother.

My husband took two weeks off (vacation time. Ugh. What a misnomer) after E’s birth and I was left home all day with her. She wasn’t a good sleeper, which was aggravated by digestion problems, so there was no rest for me. I resented her dad escaping the house for 9 hours a day. I didn’t want to be tied to the house with a screaming baby and no help. There. I said it. I didn’t love that time; I loved HER, I just didn’t have the patience, and waited desperately each day for him to come home so I could get outside by myself for a little while. He, on the other hand, is loaded with patience. (Trust me: he wouldn’t have married me without it.) But in 2000, employers didn’t consider that a man might be better prepared to care for his children.

We were lucky: my husband’s employer had a second shift, 5 pm to 2 am. Around the time I was set to return to work, E.’s dad took the shift and for the next 7 years, became that daytime dad at the playground, the one people looked at like, Why aren’t you at work? (Ok, it was mostly women who did that because he was the rare father out with his kids during the day.) He was the one who took E to the pediatrician, the library, the reservoir for long walks, museums, play dates, pre-school morning classes where he sometimes volunteered, road-trips. So many road trips in fact, that one of her favorite sayings, by the time she was four, was,

Where we goin’ today, Daddy?!

He was the one who arranged and was there with her for the twice-weekly home visits from the Birth-to-Three staff, who diagnosed E. with a severe speech delay compounded with fine and gross motor delays. He knew her immunization schedule better then I; he enrolled her in kindergarten and got her on and off the bus every day. He was the one who enrolled her in karate and T-ball, played HORSE in the driveway, taught her to ride a bike, took her skiing, and did all those things before heading off to work in the afternoon.

E and her dad at Gymboree, where he was the lone daddy at every session. He didn’t care. He loves his little girl and loves being a parent.

We were two ships passing in the night for many years, because we believed it would be best for our child to be with a parent, rather than in day care. It took its toll on our marriage, to be sure, but we wanted what was best for our daughter. And I have few regrets about that decision. E.’s father has been a wonderful role model to her and it is one of the reasons I will alway love and be grateful for and to him.

E, age 5 or so, at the diner where she and her dad would have father/daughter “lunch dates.” She loved her dad, dressing up, cheeseburgers, and the jukebox. In that order.

I think many more fathers would be like E.’s father if given a chance. And yet, in 2016, we are still talking about parenting like it’s a woman’s issue. Let’s not do that anymore. Framing family leave as a woman’s issue is offensive. It is children who benefit from time with their parents. Let’s make this a child’s issue, politicians. Better yet, a human issue.