Curse you, Einar Egnell!

Okay, I did a complete post on the changing world of fathers just a few weeks ago. Click on that for a serious discussion of the topic.

Today's Baby Blues made me laugh, however, and I suppose I could have gotten all in a lather about male-bashing or something or other. (Scroll down to yesterday's entry for a discussion of the sad plight of the oppressed white man.)

There are things in this vein that get me incensed. I was particularly offended, some 30 years ago or so, by a Robitussin commercial in which a husband pokes his sleeping wife so she can go tend to a sick, crying child, while the (ironically male) voiceover extolls the loving expertise of "Dr. Mom."

I wouldn't have had a problem with a commercial in which a sleepy Mom came into the nursery and dosed the baby with Robitussin while she was praised.

It was the "Your problem, babe, not mine" poke that went over the line.

Granted that, in my fathering days, even the most attentive dads clocked out at night, except in extreme cases. That is, if a kid were sick for a prolonged period, you'd step up. But, for the little bumps in the road, Mom woke up and took care of it.

Even back then, however, I was offended by the poke, and I still find it offensive.

In most families, Mom was the lighter sleeper.

But, come on, man: If you woke up, you stepped up. Period.

Still, being the on-duty night parent is a conscious response. Shortly after we divorced, there was a humorous-but-not-funny incident that sparked my instantaneous change from "the one who slept throught it" to "the one who slept lightly," and my kids would accuse me of dodging the issue if I didn't report this morning conversation, which instantly became a family legend:

"Do I have to go to school today? I don't feel good."
"Do you feel like you're going to be sick?" 
"I threw up last night."
"Oh no! Why didn't you come tell me?"
"I did. You threw a shoe at me."

Funny 30 years later, but I was horrified at the time and the point is, I didn't have to install some elaborate system to make sure it didn't happen again. It didn't happen again because no conscious corrective was needed: I simply recognized that we no longer had enough adults in the house for one of them to be "the one who sleeps through it," and that was the end of that.

But I'm not so repentent that I can't make a joke about breast pumps, because this modern generation of fathers is even taking turns getting up with a breast-feeding baby at night.

That was one duty in which I really thought biology was destiny, and it's no surprise to me that, if the inventor of the damned device weren't a woman, it would turn out to be a Swede, Einar Egnell. 

Breast pumps are a socialist plot to undermine traditional marriage, straight from the Land of Free Love.

And, y'know, stewardesses and stuff.

In any case, what Kirkman and Scott are riffing on in today's Baby Blues is not who gets up at night for what reason, but the willful ignorance of the Other Parent.

And that's a double-edged sword, because there are still women who "can't" check the oil in the car or clean the gutters or do any number of things that can be dodged as "your duty," and who are not only content to be slackers in that regard but will laugh and brag about it, just as guys will declare themselves too macho for the chores they're rather duck.

And guys don't purposely throw a red flannel shirt in the wash or dry a wool sweater on high, but they're perfectly happy to be let off the laundry detail if it happens, and, honestly, there are wives who enjoy having a niche in which they reign supreme.

Which is why, when their husbands call from the grocery store to list the brands, varieties and prices of canned, diced tomatoes on the shelf, they don't say, "What, are you a moron? Hang up the phone and just pick a goddam can of diced tomatoes!"

It's all so Ozzie and Harriet.

There will certainly come a time when a cartoon like this will be as tiresome and worn out as the ones in which the wife comes into the house with her hat askew and the steering wheel still clutched in her hand, or in which the punchline is that she can't be overdrawn because she still has checks in her checkbook.

But we are not there yet, grasshopper.

Comments

[Brian Fies]

Nothing wrong with having niches, even occasionally stereotypical ones. I do some things, she does others. If one of us dropped dead the other could step up, but meanwhile it's a balance that works.

Lesson from my young parenthood: pretending to sleep works only rarely, but often enough to make it worth a try.

[Jan]

I still don't buy Wisk. Those "ring around the collar" commercials where the wife was roundly chastised for not getting the collar clean from the husband's dirty neck enfuriated me every time.

[Sherwood Harrington]

"...honestly, there are wives who enjoy having a niche in which they reign supreme."

Like Brian said, husbands too. For example, I enjoy reigning supreme in the realm of cat-box cleaning, or so I'm told.

[Mike Peterson]

My father was always mystified by the Wisk commercials, wondering why these women just didn't tell their husbands to wash their necks. On the other hand, he was fond of complimenting my mother with "She's never wrecked the rice!" and proclaiming, "I think I'll keep her."

He was apparently under the impression that he had married Myrna Loy and, fortunately, he was close enough that he never got clobbered for this stuff.

[Mark Jackson]

"I think I'll keep her" - isn't that how Joanie Caucus' first husband got a broken nose?

Sherwood, I also have cat-box cleaning as a core competency. On the other hand:

http://alumni.caltech.edu/~mjackson/AnJ_catvomit.gif

[vppeterson]

Mike: I think I'll keep you too.

[Mark in Boston]

"These aren't the brand of tomatoes we buy!"

[Mike Peterson]

Well, yes, Mark-in-Boston, but that gets into the realm of traps: If you cared, if it mattered, well, then you should have been more specific -- about diced, crushed or whole, about brand names and, certainly, size.

I was the cook and the shopper, so it wasn't an issue in our marriage. But you can play one level of passive-aggression against the other and refuse to call when you realize you weren't given the necessary information.

If you want to play that game, it's best to have a written list you can point to, while you're working to turn your marriage into a cage match.

[Mark Jackson]

My grocery store cell phone events are roughly 1/3 incoming ("Have you checked out yet? We also need. . . ."), 1/3 exception handling ("They're out of X, is Y acceptable or should I stop at Tops on the way home?"), and 1/3 navigational ("I'm in the coffee aisle; where are you?")