Being a mother and being a father sometimes are wildly different experiences. This is partly reflected in people's attitudes towards having children. According to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey, 57% of men want to someday become parents, and only 45% of women say the same.
This story is a perfect example of why women might feel discouraged from becoming parents. When his wife was having a medical emergency, the father was unable to take care of his four children. He kept pestering her about bedtime stories and sippy cups while she was half-conscious in the bathroom. So, the story sparked a conversation online: how low is the bar for fathers in today's society?
A dad showed complete incompetence in parenting when his wife was having a medical emergency
Image credits: mike.shots / freepik (not the actual photo)
The wife's BFF tended to her in the bathroom and yelled at the husband for being "useless"
Image credits: EyeEm / freepik (not the actual photo)
Image credits: photoroyalty / freepik (not the actual photo)
Image credits: aitauselessdad
Moms still do more housework and parenting on average, but dads feel more judged when they do it
Dads like this one sure give the rest a bad rap. Yet not all fathers are so incompetent and clueless when it comes to parenting. According to the 2023 Pew Research Center study, 25% of dads think fatherhood is the most important part of their identity. 61% of dads say it's one of the most important aspects.
Still, mothers are doing a bigger share of caregiving activities than fathers. According to the 2023 State of America's Fathers study by Equimundo, 72% of mothers do more than two hours of childcare, household, and mental load. In contrast, 62% of men report doing similar levels of care.
But it doesn't mean that fathers are more likely to be "useless," "lazy," or "incompetent," like the stereotypes would have us believe. Some dads just don't want to face backlash for the ways they care for their kids. The Pew survey showed that fathers are more likely than mothers to feel judged by their partner (56%), their parents (47%), other parents in the community (41%), friends (35%), and even by people online (31%) for how they parent.
That may be why dads spend the most time playing with their kids, and moms take the bigger share of physical caregiving and education-related activities. Fathers are still the breadwinners in most American households, but most Americans believe that moms and dads should focus equally on work and on taking care of the kids at home. Unfortunately, this equality isn't a reality.
Traditional gender roles still persist in how much housework mothers and fathers each do
Image credits: Andrej Lišakov / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Many adults today believe that today's dads are far better fathers than their own dads. Yet American fathers themselves don't think so. According to a 2022 YouGov survey, 35% of dads believe they're doing a worse job than their own fathers. In contrast, the majority (29%) of the general U.S. population believes that they're doing a better job.
A lot of parenting responsibilities are still perceived as gendered, even in today's world. As per the State of America's Fathers study, 39% of fathers believe that a man's word in the household should be final. Only 20% of mothers believe the same. Similarly, 25% of fathers believe that changing diapers is a mother's responsibility, and only 18% of mothers agree.
Future prospects for more involved dads also might be dimmer than we think, as 25% of fathers believe that boys should not be taught to take care of the household (only 16% of mothers agree). What's more, dads think that their sons shouldn't be encouraged to take care of their siblings.
In the end, we might not be moving toward equality at all. Dr. Inga Lass, senior research fellow at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, says that gender norms play a big role in how housework is divided between the wife and the husband.
"I think it starts with how boys and girls are being raised, and what they're being taught. There's this hypothesis that women are often more judged if the house is a bit messy, while men are cut some slack."
"She wants her kids to have a dad": The friend explained the mom's reasoning to stay with the useless husband, even if it was misguided
Commenters piled on the dad: "Sometimes harsh truth is needed"
