mr kaplan's List: Domestic Man

July 30. 2015
by Claire Cain Miller

Millennial men — ages 18 to early 30s — have much more egalitarian attitudes about family, career and gender roles inside marriage than generations before them, according to a variety of research by social scientists. Yet they struggle to achieve their goals once they start families, researchers say. Some researchers think that’s because workplace policies have not caught up to changing expectations at home.

November 7, 2014
by Claire Cain Miller

The Upshot
Family Man

"Five months after Todd Bedrick’s daughter was born, he took some time off from his job as an accountant. The company he works for, Ernst & Young, offered paid paternity leave, and he decided to take six weeks — the maximum amount — when his wife, Sarah, went back to teaching. He learned how to lull the fitful baby to sleep on his chest and then to sit very still for an hour to avoid waking her. He developed an elaborate system for freezing and thawing his wife’s pumped breast milk. And each day at lunchtime, he drove his daughter to the elementary school where Sarah teaches so she could nurse. When she came home at the end of the day, he handed over the baby and collapsed on the couch."

The biggest challenge of flying with my daughter was the uncomfortable reactions we got from strangers
DW GIBSON

Listen to Slate’s parenting podcast on talking to your kids about peer pressure and periods.

By Dan Kois and Emily Yoffe

By Jeffrey Nesteruk 
Babies can bring a constructive chaos to their parents' days, and to their scholarship too.

When my wife, Hedi, and I first talked about having a child, I thought it would be easy -- kind of like taking on one more writing project. Adept at balancing multiple scholarly commitments, I was comfortable adding to my plans yet another creative endeavor. My busy, rich life would basically stay on track, becoming simply a little busier and richer.

I was wrong.

Kids aren't an add-on. They don't leave the rest of your life intact. They change everything.

During my first year of fatherhood, my daughter, Caroline, and my writing were the great polarities of my home life. Both touched the deepest parts of myself, yet each repelled the other. For instance, Caroline needed holding, sometimes for hours, before going to sleep. But cradling her in my left arm while balancing the draft of an article on my right meant that I was at least one arm short when my daughter needed burping or it came time to turn a page.

Stay-at-home dads are no longer such a rarity on the playground.
The number of stay-at-home dads has nearly doubled since 1989, according to a new Pew Research Center report released Thursday.

A new cover story acknowledges we're having fewer children -- but leaves men out

Drew Magary is an angry guy -- or at least he plays one on the Internet. The Deadspin, Gawker and GQ contributor and sci-fi author has amassed a large, rabid fan base for his sharp, smart, acidic rants on subjects ranging from the coaching abilities of Bill Belichick and the uselessness of scab referees to his hatred of scarves and the punchability of Justin Bieber's face. He's got opinions.

But all that ire and energy were of little use as Magary and his wife watched their prematurely born child cling to life in a neonatal intensive care unit as a result of a condition known as intestinal malrotation. Luckily, the youngest Magary survived, and the ordeal inspired the father of three to share his parenting experiences in a new memoir, "Someone Could Get Hurt."

Want to boost the economy? Then it's time to start talking paternity leave, economists and social scientists say
BY KATIE MCDONOUGH

Leicester, England (CNN) -- Elliot Higgins has never been to Syria. He has no friends and family there. Nor does he have any military experience or background in weapons analysis.

But when he lost his job last year, he used the extra hours to indulge an interest in current events, particularly the Arab Spring.

Sitting in his living room in Leicester, England, he started a blog under the handle Brown Moses, after a Frank Zappa song.

"I literally thought: No one is going to read this. But I'm doing it for my own entertainment."

As Kelly reports from Syria, I'm taking care of our child, pouring another glass of wine and wondering: Is this it?

domestic man

Editor's note: Cory Byrom is a stay-at-home dad to three children all under the age of six. Sometimes, once the kids are in bed, he does stand up comedy in the Atlanta area. He is also the husband of HLNtv.com's Art Director Kelly Byrom.

As established parenting roles continue to evolve, one area seeing the largest shift is in the number of fathers who now stay home to raise their children. CNN Money recently reported that in 2010, 20% of married fathers with children younger than five years old were the primary caregiver in their household. We asked one stay-at-home dad to share his experience from the front lines in filling this non-traditional -- but increasingly common -- role.

At 6' 1”, 200 pounds and with facial hair that could be described as “in the Magnum P.I. tradition,” it is often (correctly) assumed that I must be a pretty tough guy. When I meet people for the first time, it's not unusual to immediately get questions about what sort of job a Manly Man like myself has. Lumberjack? Prison guard? Crab fisherman? Ultimate Fighting Champion? I've heard them all. I merely chuckle lightly and tell them those are mere child's play compared to my actual profession: I'm a stay-at-home dad.

domestic man

domestic man

I've never seen this show, and the only reason I opened the piece is that I have a friend who goes on and on about the show and so I was going to send him a link to this. As the title and subtitle mention, though, the author sets out to assert what messages there are in the show. That's reading the show as text, which is a key element of the Culture Essay. I don't know how true what he says is or how sarcastic he's being, and he doesn't really put the show in any sort of context, but this piece does two things students need to do in their essays: examine the text closely for meaning, and give a reason why the author has come to it. The show is a hit, and the author is a new father. That's not a bad way to approach the Culture Essay.

domestic man

domestic man

(Parenting.com) -- Baby Abe won't nurse. Despite the fact that I've successfully breastfed his three siblings, despite the efforts of his pediatrician and two lactation consultants, this baby will not suck. Were he a Stone Age baby, born to a nomadic hunter-gatherer tribe, he would have long since been left out for the saber-toothed tigers and prehistoric wolves. He's lucky he was born to a 21st-century mom who refuses to give up.

domestic man