Recently on a Facebook post somewhere recently some mother was trying to get a job for her 14 year old to babysit some kids for his first job and to teach him responsibility;ty and how money and budgeting works. A small peek for a kid heading into adulthood. Personally I wouldn’t let a 14 year old watch my children, but this family lives locally and has many ties in the local community, but to each his own, that’s just my personal preference. I am highly impressed that this kid is so motivated at a young age when he could just be laying around playing video games. So of course like most threads on social media, the trolls started coming out of the woodwork (by the way I hate that phrase, why I use it I have no idea). What surprised me most though was the biggest trolls were grown men degrading a this parent for allowing their child to do a job that should only be done by women. Yes, some men still think this way, and sadly some always will. In fact he went so far as to bash all men who do things like laundry, cooking, cleaning and those of us that are stay at home dads. He was going on about how men of these statuses were not real men and not providing properly for their family. Somewhere along the thread one guy stood up for another, the one with the most ignorant comments by saying it was his belief because he was as he put it, “old school”.
I took offense to everything these guys were saying, not only because I’m a stay at home dad, because I’m more open minded and progressive thinking and not living in a world of ignorant thinking and close-minded views. First off, if these type of people think that they are grandfathered in and because that’s how it was, and still should be, what else do they think is Old School and thus okay to participate in? Segregation? Sexism? Women’s rights? I have to believe that it’s possible that these things get passed along generation to generation and some of these things sadly, will never die out.
So back to these guys on Facebook. Don’t they realize that by males learning “women” things that it makes males more rounded and better all around adults? That a family is based on leaning on each other, supporting one another and growing together? At first I became angry and wanted to lash out at them, but as I calmed down, I felt sadness towards the families living with men with these types of views. Can these types of views one day be eradicated from society? Let’s hope so, but sadly a lot of this will be passed down from fathers to sons causing another division of society to live on.
Sorry for rambling on a bit here, I wanted to get some of this off my chest before I crashed for the night.