Corrective Cartooning

When I came across this Sarah Glidden piece (h/t Matt Bors) yesterday, I thought about adding it to my Father's Day post as an update. But I quickly realized it was too well-done and important and needed to be a stand-alone here.

Go read the rest. I'll wait.

This is brilliant, insightful, self-deprecating stuff and I wish it would touch off more such introspective analysis.

It would have benefits beyond the immediate topic of mothers and fathers.

Parenting is a basic element of society and not only the starting place for the kids but a good place for young adults to gather their attitudes before moving on into their mature lives.

As I noted yesterday, there is a willingness among young fathers to participate, and it took me no time at all to find graphic examples from the (macho) world of professional sports. 

But Glidden adds a critical second element, which is that they need permission. And, as she notes, it's not as simple as a conscious choice. It's a deeper element of self-identity, of role modeling burned into our souls. 

The superficial elements are easy to install. I remember back in about 1976, when one of our news anchors at the TV station was about to become a father, and declared that he had no interest in being in the delivery room.

We all treated him like a dinosaur, and yet, just four years earlier, my wife and I had had to search for an OB/GYN, and a hospital, that would allow me in the room.

Granted, for a few people, allowing your partner, the parent of your soon-to-be child, to share that intimate moment morphed into Barbie's Dream Birth, an event to be attended by so many friends and families that birthing rooms almost needed to install bleachers.

That's a level of Not Getting It which is reflected in how some men are kept in "man caves" until it's time to release them back to work in the morning.

"Intimacy" in these relationships is almost entirely physical, with both sides doing more role-playing than emotional sharing. 

Glidden examines a much deeper element of identity, in which there is genuine intimacy and love and tenderness, up to a point, at which some sort of reptilian instinct forms a barrier.

I have this on my mind in particular because this past weekend, I met my great-granddaughter, who is all of four months old, and got to see how her father dandles her almost unconsciously as he talks, and how there is, between him and my granddaughter, no element of "it's your turn" but rather a seamless acceptance of what needs to happen.

I wish I could feel that they were typical of a new age, but I think, rather, that they are the vanguard, the next step, because what Glidden describes is an level of instinct that can't simply be chosen but must either be there or be fought for, and I'm not sure how many people can get past it.

Lord knows, it's an uphill battle in society.

I noted yesterday that I've seen kids with their dads in stores raising hell, but I've also seen kids in stores with their moms raising hell, and nobody ever says of a mother's screaming infant, "Oh, he wants his daddy."

I sure heard the other version when I was the father with the kid who needed a nap.

I was fortunate to have married a woman who got past the barrier Glidden so well describes, and perhaps that's why our granddaughter apparently never let it stop her from sharing the joy, and the job, of being a parent.

Thanks, Sarah, for putting it so well.

 

On a perhaps related topic

Today's Fastrack got a laff and an "ummm" from me this morning, because I think Dethany is reading too much sexism into the control freak/power struggle element of the business world.

I've described several times the episode in which a VP from Corporate was supposed to evaluate my program but checked his Blackberry and left the room, subsequently sending back the generic "here's what you need" memo that every program in our chain received.

Sexism is absolutely, unquestionably an element in who gets heard and who gets blown off, but power breeds arrogance and there is a dysfunctional element that goes beyond sex.

Though the strutting, insensitive workplace bully probably goes home to a very nice house in which he is a stranger to his children but has a well-appointed man cave in which he dwells, dragon-like, until it's time to slither out and go to work again.

If that's any consolation.

It occurs to me that examinations of unfulfilled male lives are too often like "Death of a Salesman" or "Slaughterhouse Five," in which a lack of intimacy at home is paired with a lack of success in the workplace.

We need more in the vein of "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit" who is desperately aware that his career success in no way makes up for the failures of his personal life.

And who doesn't blame others, but looks within.

 

And here's what we don't need

Matt Wuerker depicts a cancerous tumor on the body politic.

The recent outbursts of Kathy Griffin, of Samantha Bee, of Robert De Niro, remind me of the mixture of "You tell'em!" and "STFU!" with which we greeted Jane Fonda's adventures in the Antiwar Movement.

She was terrific at getting the media's attention, but then she'd say incredibly stupid, impolitic, provocative things that provided the other side with ammunition.

Much of what was said about her was a damn lie, but she certainly provided a firm base upon which that bullshit could rest.

Sort of like Kathy Griffin, who apparently didn't get enough negative attention and pushback for her earlier stunt and has now decided to step up and show that we don't want any allies and that no good deed will go unpunished.

 

 

Comments

[Nelson Dewey]

I didn't get what you did from the Fastrack 'toon. I eventually got the idea, but the staging and art don't work for me.
Too many distractions for what should be a quick, easy read.

I spent my reading time trying to understand if the "ghost" in panel two was really supposed to be the guy in the seat nearest the end of the table/desk in the first panel.

And only part of him was "ghosted" in the panel two coloring (solid, unshaded grey), further leading to my confusion.

Also wondering how the first presenter got into the "ghost's" chair in panel two.

[Mike Peterson]

Hmm. Yes, in the second panel, it would have made more sense for Bud to now be in Dethany's former seat so that the fellow supposedly listening was now ghosting up from his original first seat.

[Mary McNeil]

Re: Kathy Griffin - Who the H is "Melanie" ?? Or can't she even get her insults correct ? Duh !

[Bob]

"Melanie" - probably a swipe at POTUS, as that was what he called his wife in his tweet welcoming her home from the hospital last month.