August 15, 2004
On being told from On High that I'm a bad parent
I was deeply hurt at church today. The preacher (not one of the elders on the preaching rotation, but a visiting preacher from another church) was giving a sermon on the roles of men and women. This topic makes me very wary. People who teach on the subject almost invariably make over-generalizations about each gender and the ones who teach in church will usually try to assert (either explicitly or implicitly) that the generalizations that they have highlighted are biblical and normative.
The truth of the matter is that the Bible has little to say about the distinct natures of men and women. "Men like sex more than women." "Women are by nature more loving and nurturing." "Men are bewildered by women." "Women think that they're always right." Each of these generalizations was presented as fact in today's sermon, and the implication was that all of these were biblical, and even normative. But nowhere in the Bible can I find support for these ideas.
But it was not these statements that really cut me to the core.
What really hurt was when the preacher gave his "humorous" rationale for why women are the ones who should be staying at home with the kids.
Imagine that women are better at men in everything, and maybe they really are. Say they are better CEOs and managers and workers and politicians. Great. They're out there working really hard and that's good. [dramatic pause] But then who's watching the kids? [laughter from the congregation]Who's watching the kids??!!? Me, that's who. I'm a stay-at-home-dad and proud of it. And if you mean to imply that I am doing a sub-par job of raising my child just because I have a Y chromosome, then I have issues with you. Don't you tell me that my child is worse off with me as a primary caretaker because "women are naturally more nurturing and loving". Bullshit! Tell me to my face that I don't nurture and love my child enough.
I confronted him after the service. He apologized, but not for the right stuff. He "didn't meant to hurt me". Of course not. "There are always exceptions." he said. That's not my point. Look man, men are not worse parents just because they are men any more than women are worse employees just becuase they are women. You would never say that women are worse workers and then reply "Well you of course are an exception" when a woman points out that she works. Why would say the same to me? The fact that you consider me an exception just shows that you really do hold male parents in lower esteem than female parents. Everyone is always saying that fathers should be more involved with their children. Why then disrespect those who spend all day with them!
I don't want you to just apologize for "hurting me" (though I do want that and appreciate your apology for that); I want you apologize for your general disdain for men as parents, and for positing that disdain as a biblical principle form the pulpit. I don't just want an apology for the words, but for the attitude and values that caused you to say those words. But every indication in our conversation indicates that your attitude remains intact despite your apologies.
Obviously, the preacher today hit a nerve. I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about our parenting decisions. I don't want to be the best "stay-at-home-dad" in the world--I want to be the best Parent in the world. I resent the idea that dads are held to a lower standard than moms. I especially resent the idea that no matter what I do, I can't measure up to moms. "A mother's love for her child" is held up as the gold-standard of human love. My love for my child doesn't measure up just becuase I'm a man?
- wink [August 15, 2004 02:49 PM]syndromes says:
Well said my friend.
You're fighting a battle that people fight every day - that of prejudice. People have notions in their head (valid or not) that are hard to change. People don't *like* to admit that a belief they hold is incorrect. It's sort of like people towing the party line in politics, or trying to rationalize a certain point of view with scripture.
If enough men start being stay at home men, the mentality will change, but until that happens you'll be fighting the preconceptions that Americans have accepted for decades.
Like I said... I don't think most people are willing to change their opinions easily because to do so might admit that one was wrong.
Ego, cha cha cha.
BTW, I don't buy into that crap either - anyone who is willing to care for their child is a great parent in my book.
w1re says:
Ask this dimwit how *he* is doing as a parent. I doubt that he stays at home very much, given the fact that he is a "visiting preacher" and probably not worshipping with his family when he ought to. Heck, if he wants to live up to his own preaching (or "down to his own preaching", depending on how mad you are), he should bring his entire family with him when he travels as a visitor preacher. That will let us see how he is doing with the same words that he is slamming in everyone else's faces. To be fair, it is difficult to preach in a congregation not your own, but this is not about his sermon topic - it's about his prejudices.
Not all who claim to be Christians are the real deal, and not all preachers are worth listening to. For someone who so gleefully tramples his fellow brothers under foot (and himself included - he probably thinks that parenting is never his job), his message should be ignored.
Jeremy Pierce says:
Unfortunately, the nuttiness of how this guy said things tends to push people in the other direction more than I'd like. I don't think there's anything wrong with stay-home dads or that stay-home dads are worse parents than stay-home moms. I don't think every stay-home mom will be a better stay-home parent than every stay-home dad. I do think women tend to be at least a little better at the sort of full-time care that stay-home parents need to do.
His comment about who is watching the kids did have a faulty assumption -- that working women who have kids also have husbands who work. Still, when talking about couples who both work, I think he has a point. I think couples who have children raised primarily by other people are doing a disservice to their children. That's why what you're doing is so good, and this guy should have recognized that.
By the way, men do overwhelmingly complain about being bewildered by women, so I'm not sure why you find that problematic. That seems to be a fact about men that doesn't necessarily say anything about women. Also, women do always think they're right (which isn't exactly what he said, but I think it's what he meant). That's because they're human, and we don't think something unless we think it's right. He should have said the same thing about men, but it's not an over-generalization to say it about women. It's just misleadingly incomplete along with being imprecise in word order.
w1re, you made some assumptions that may or may not be true here. Wink said nothing about whether the guy did this frequently or was just visiting this one church this one time. He also said nothing about whether the family went with him. There was nothing I could discern about gleefully trampling anyone, either. This is probably a case of someone who has some basically right ideas combined with faulty reasoning leading to conclusions that don't follow from those basically correct premises and then complicated by really uncareful and imprecise ways of stating his conclusions and a lack of imagination about possible scenarios he hadn't considered that should have led either to some qualifications to what he said or revision of his conclusions. You may see it is prejudice, but it's not the kind of gleeful jumping on people that some prejudice might be. It's more lack of knowledge through not having done the hard work in thinking it through.
enochchoi says:
tania pointed me to your post. i hang out with stay-at-home dads alot, and they're just as nurturing and protective. a father's love matches a mother's, in intensity. just different in focus and service to the child.
wink says:
I don't think the speaker preached at other churches on a regular basis. He is only in his is early 20s and is unmarried. That the message was on men, women, marriage, and roles was unsurprising as we are currently going through Ephesians and this week we hit chapter 5. As for why our church chose this guy to give this sermon is beyond me.
It was clear to me that he was not trying to be malicious. He was trying to be humorous. But he hurt me nonetheless.
As for assumtions, in the "illustration" the context and intonation made it clear that he assumed that if the women were at work, then the men were staying at home taking care of the kids. His very next line was something along the lines of "Imagine if us men were taking care of the kids...humanity would only survive for one more generation!!" (which also got a laugh from the congregation).
Imagine if he gave the mirror image of his illustration, would anyone doubt his sexism? Say he said: "Imagine that men are better at women in childcare, and maybe they are. If men stayed home and raised the children, then who would run our businesses? Who would be our CEOs? If women ran our industries our economy wouldn't last a generation.", wouldn't any right thinking person in the congregation be offended for the sake of women?
So why does the reverse remark draw laughter instead of offense?
As for why I found some of his other generalizations to be problematic, it is mostly that he posited them as biblical principles and even to be normative prescriptions from God. Does the Bible anywhere say that men like sex more than women? That they should like sex more than women? Does the Bible tell us that men find women bewildering? That such bewilderment is correct and proper? Does that Bible present women as always thinking they are correct? Can you even conceive of that being a prescriptive commandment from God?
He can generalize aboue the sexes all he wants. Just don't try to tell me that those generalizations are Biblical and normative.
sethsmama says:
Doesn't it always seem that laughter in church is spurred by sarcasm? I have loathed sarcasm from the moment I realized that it is my true belief in disguise. I DO NOT use it anymore because the 2nd greatest commandment is to love my neighbor as myself. Seems like this travelling pastor forgot that one.