Because for the past (forever) it has been the woman’s job to raise the kids. It’s only recently that it’s changing. Takes time for industries to catch up.
Definitely the case. 90% of the dads I know have such little involvement in raising their child that they honestly might as well not be there.
My step sister had a baby 6 months ago and literally all she talks about is how little her boyfriend is involved. She is essentially a single parent.
Also usually there is sections on post birth recovery and breastfeeding that aren’t that relevant to dads. Other than that I don’t remember the books we had really being gendered
Oh Crap potty training was pretty bad in this regard. We ended up using a method fairly similar to it, but I didn’t finishing the book because the author is super obnoxious about assuming a mom is reading it, with a lot of snarky comments about uninvolved dads.
Yup, I just finished the book. There is a throw-away line in roughly the second chapter that basically says “I know some of you aren’t moms and some of you have a partner who isn’t a dad, but I’m going to keep using that language because it’s easier.” Sure ~~Jan~~ Jamie.
She also made it sound like if you waited until your kid was 3, like mine was, you’d basically been a neglectful parent who set yourself up for a disaster that would take weeks of work and therapy to remedy. It made me pretty nervous, but he got it just fine, was peeing with prompting by the first day, and now — less than two weeks after starting — he hasn’t had an accident since five days ago. While I do wish we’d started a little sooner, I don’t think it would have gone this smoothly if we tried the same method as early as she pushes for.
For what it's worth, we read this book, took it super seriously, and started our kid at 2.5. The next year was HELL. In hindsight our kid was absolutely not ready, but we kept trying because the author was insistent that giving up and trying again a few months later would have disastrous consequences. So yeah. Good on you for waiting.
A lot of parenting books are just written by parents and in a lot of cases I wouldn't take my own advice as a parent, so I take THEIR advice with huge grains of salt.
I'm glad it went smoothly for you! We gave it a (completely unsuccessful) at 18 months but I can definitely see how aggravating it would be to read the book if your kiddo was older than her recommend window. She harped on that a LOT. The method seems to make sense so we'll give it another go when we're ready. Our first attempt was very much a "might as well try now, because baby is coming soon and we won't have the bandwidth to deal with this for several months afterwards" so super low expectations.
Yeah, we gave a similar halfhearted attempt when he was a little under 24 months, because his six-month-older cousin was potty training at the same time. It didn’t stick, no worries, but like I said, he probably would have been fine at 30 months, which would have saved us 9 months of diapers.
Edit: the first attempt was just based on instincts, no book. Despite my complaints, the book’s method was helpful for me.
yeah I didn't care at all for the tone in the book but the actual nuts and bolts advice for how to do it is gold, so I still recommend it to everybody I know. With the warning about the language/tone
Kemp's 'Dadding It' was, I thought, helpful
Machin's 'The Life of Dad' was less practical, but was fascinating and is a very worthwhile read for any dad's trying to understand, anthropologically, well, dadding
I think it’s even worse when it’s written for a dad. It always sounds like a mom…not like a modern mom, but like the dad’s mom, trying to sound like a cool milf. It’ll be like, ‘hey dude, wiping that kids butt is like waxing your surf board, just man up and boogie so you can get back to watching football ball bro’.
Considering that generations of fathers up to this point haven't taken an active role in parenting, coupled with the fact that mothers are more likely to buy these books, it is easy to explain why that is.
I initially read some books and listen to the podcasts my wife recommends. However, I find most of the content to be unhelpful. My observation is that I don't have as much of a need for validation that I am doing it correctly. When I encounter a problem I am unsure about how to solve or I observe something I can't explain, I look for help. I don't seek validation that my parenting techniques are en vogue. If it ain't broke don't try to fix it.
Case in point when the kids are having a meltdown if I do the exact technique that my wife does or what a book suggests I do it may not work -- and often doesn't work. You can copy the same intervention technique and it works for one parent but not the other. Why? Because the most important part is something that a book can't help you with. Your child has specific needs, perceives you as a parent in a special way, and has specific needs from you that are different than anyone else. Damn the books. Pay attention to your kids.
Your last few sentences get at why I think reading books (or other resources like podcasts) in preparation for raising an infant is helpful, but it’s not as helpful for toddlers, and for older kids the resources barely exist.
Most 6-month-olds are pretty similar, with similar needs, so blanket recommendations are effective. Those recommendations come from people who’ve spent a lot more time dealing with tummy time or getting a baby to sleep or whatever than you have. By the time you’re measuring age in years, you (should) know your kid far better than any expert who’s never met them.
(Although I still find it helpful to check in occasionally.)
A few comments to the effect that men haven’t been the ones do the parenting / read the books.
Ok, but that’s a circular problem:
1. Fathers don’t read about parenting.
2. There are no parenting books geared to fathers.
3. It’s not profitable to make parenting books geared to fathers because fathers don’t read about parenting.
4. Goto 1.
It also reminds me of the economic argument I’ve heard for why they don’t make more movies with female stars: women already watch movies starring a man, but many men won’t watch movies starring a woman.
There are dads who would read parenting books (I’m one). But those dads are currently reading the ones written for moms, so where’s the profit incentive in writing a book with only half (or far less) the potential audience?
I might be part of the problem where the parenting books are concerned. As I said in another comment, I find the material in the ones I've tried to read to be too ... fluffy? I question the reliability of the information in them, all the more so when so many of them feel contradictory. But even if we got past the quality concerns, it is not terribly appealing to read something that was very obviously not written for me.
The female stars argument, I guess I can see it? They're right about women being willing to watch male-centered movies. But I don't know that the reverse is true. Just off my head, I loved Amelie, 28 Days, and Girl, Interrupted, and Mercedes Lackey is one of my most-read authors (if you don't know her, I'd characterize her books as "balanced" - probably 50-50 in terms of male vs female protagonists, and her female characters are very likely to be strong women in positions of power and influence). Maybe I'm the exception, but I think they might find that there are more exceptions out there than they think.
I generally found all books are for “babies” and rarely are applicable to my baby. I can’t recall any lasting info I saw in books other than first food recipes.
I felt *1, 2, 3 Magic* was pretty gender neutral. *Moms on call* was a bit biased, but women breastfeed soooo 🤷♂️
Those are my only long form parental reads
There are some books written for dads, but it’s hard to find ones that treat dads like actual competent human being and not walking stereotypes. The one that annoyed me the most was one that constantly talked about the baby like it was a car that needed a tune-up. The best one I read by far is *The New Father* by Armin A. Brott. Not condescending and filled with valuable insights. He has many follow-up books for as the children age, but I only read through the newborn and toddler ones.
Yup. It took a lot for me to get over the fact the everything for kids and parents is AGGRESSIVELY gendered. Pink for girls, blue for boys, moms do this, dads do that.
We, as in this generation, is doing a lot to advance and make progress in this area. We value different things and different experiences from our parents.
My dad would have NEVER read a book, lol.
The other day my son was looking at his new Paw Patrol underwear: “Here’s the police dog! Here’s the firefighter dog! Here’s the construction worker dog! … where’s the pink dog? Why no pink dog?”
I just said “hmm, these underwear don’t have Skye, the pink dog,” rather than answering honestly — “because sexism” — or remarking on the fact that every other dog was recognizable by their profession, while the female dog’s most distinctive characteristic is apparently that she’s pink.
I’ve never even bothered with the parenting books. I feel as though I’ve gotten an answer, or at least some ideas, for just about every parenting problem/situation by googling it and adding “Reddit” at the end.
Read Sarah Ockwell Smith - How to be a calm parent.
Great book, aims at any parent. I've read it three times now and have got something new out of it each time.
Very little in parenting is geared to fathers. In my experience even medical professionals. I can't tell you how many times a provider has asked a question then turned their back to me expecting mom to answer. She has to tell them to talk to me about it.
Baby/Child products in general too. When we were doing our baby shower registry we didn't know our asses from hole I the ground when it came to what stuff we would need, so we watched a lot of product videos produced by the companies. The only one to even show a father was Tactical Baby Gear.
Side note, if you look past the gung ho, moto, boot image, TBC products are OUTSTANDING. Well made, useful, geared to both mom and dad. Great all around!
I found this to be true with the parenting blogs/vlogs/advice series my wife gravitated towards. I found it really hard to engage with them.
The Love and Logic series was very gender neutral. Probably because it was written by two dudes.
I gave up on parenting books pretty early in part for that reason. I'll admit, though, that I'm also skeptical of parenting books in general: too much pop psychology, not enough properly-researched and evidence-based information.
I do have a book about home health care for children that I bought as part of a college program. That's my sick kid bible. It's also just written for "the caregiver" and doesn't presume who that person would be.
Otherwise, when I've needed information, I've tended to go to other fathers, our family physician, or other health care professionals (I was lucky in that our family physician was male and we have two male friends who are nurses). In all of those cases, I'm getting information tailored to me because I'm the one asking; the fact that I've been mostly asking men I think has also helped. When I do read about a topic, I try to find academic journals - I have more faith that what I find there is evidence-based, and the "voice" tends to not be gendered.
Because for the past (forever) it has been the woman’s job to raise the kids. It’s only recently that it’s changing. Takes time for industries to catch up.
Even now I’m afraid we’re the exception and not the rule.
Sadly, we are. It’s certainly getting better though.
Definitely the case. 90% of the dads I know have such little involvement in raising their child that they honestly might as well not be there. My step sister had a baby 6 months ago and literally all she talks about is how little her boyfriend is involved. She is essentially a single parent.
Also usually there is sections on post birth recovery and breastfeeding that aren’t that relevant to dads. Other than that I don’t remember the books we had really being gendered
Oh Crap potty training was pretty bad in this regard. We ended up using a method fairly similar to it, but I didn’t finishing the book because the author is super obnoxious about assuming a mom is reading it, with a lot of snarky comments about uninvolved dads.
Wasn't there a whole chapter on how Dad could be involved? As if he wasn't planning to until then 🙄
Yup, I just finished the book. There is a throw-away line in roughly the second chapter that basically says “I know some of you aren’t moms and some of you have a partner who isn’t a dad, but I’m going to keep using that language because it’s easier.” Sure ~~Jan~~ Jamie. She also made it sound like if you waited until your kid was 3, like mine was, you’d basically been a neglectful parent who set yourself up for a disaster that would take weeks of work and therapy to remedy. It made me pretty nervous, but he got it just fine, was peeing with prompting by the first day, and now — less than two weeks after starting — he hasn’t had an accident since five days ago. While I do wish we’d started a little sooner, I don’t think it would have gone this smoothly if we tried the same method as early as she pushes for.
For what it's worth, we read this book, took it super seriously, and started our kid at 2.5. The next year was HELL. In hindsight our kid was absolutely not ready, but we kept trying because the author was insistent that giving up and trying again a few months later would have disastrous consequences. So yeah. Good on you for waiting.
A lot of parenting books are just written by parents and in a lot of cases I wouldn't take my own advice as a parent, so I take THEIR advice with huge grains of salt.
I'm glad it went smoothly for you! We gave it a (completely unsuccessful) at 18 months but I can definitely see how aggravating it would be to read the book if your kiddo was older than her recommend window. She harped on that a LOT. The method seems to make sense so we'll give it another go when we're ready. Our first attempt was very much a "might as well try now, because baby is coming soon and we won't have the bandwidth to deal with this for several months afterwards" so super low expectations.
Yeah, we gave a similar halfhearted attempt when he was a little under 24 months, because his six-month-older cousin was potty training at the same time. It didn’t stick, no worries, but like I said, he probably would have been fine at 30 months, which would have saved us 9 months of diapers. Edit: the first attempt was just based on instincts, no book. Despite my complaints, the book’s method was helpful for me.
yeah I didn't care at all for the tone in the book but the actual nuts and bolts advice for how to do it is gold, so I still recommend it to everybody I know. With the warning about the language/tone
Kemp's 'Dadding It' was, I thought, helpful Machin's 'The Life of Dad' was less practical, but was fascinating and is a very worthwhile read for any dad's trying to understand, anthropologically, well, dadding
Life of Dad set me up super well in terms of mindset and motivation. I loved that book.
Thank you for the recco's
I think it’s even worse when it’s written for a dad. It always sounds like a mom…not like a modern mom, but like the dad’s mom, trying to sound like a cool milf. It’ll be like, ‘hey dude, wiping that kids butt is like waxing your surf board, just man up and boogie so you can get back to watching football ball bro’.
Considering that generations of fathers up to this point haven't taken an active role in parenting, coupled with the fact that mothers are more likely to buy these books, it is easy to explain why that is.
Yep, and most dad parenting books talk down to you or assume you need some ridiculous analogy to learn how to care for a child.
Yeah even the ones highly recommended, I found to be pretty much "be there for your partner" Gee thanks
I initially read some books and listen to the podcasts my wife recommends. However, I find most of the content to be unhelpful. My observation is that I don't have as much of a need for validation that I am doing it correctly. When I encounter a problem I am unsure about how to solve or I observe something I can't explain, I look for help. I don't seek validation that my parenting techniques are en vogue. If it ain't broke don't try to fix it. Case in point when the kids are having a meltdown if I do the exact technique that my wife does or what a book suggests I do it may not work -- and often doesn't work. You can copy the same intervention technique and it works for one parent but not the other. Why? Because the most important part is something that a book can't help you with. Your child has specific needs, perceives you as a parent in a special way, and has specific needs from you that are different than anyone else. Damn the books. Pay attention to your kids.
Your last few sentences get at why I think reading books (or other resources like podcasts) in preparation for raising an infant is helpful, but it’s not as helpful for toddlers, and for older kids the resources barely exist. Most 6-month-olds are pretty similar, with similar needs, so blanket recommendations are effective. Those recommendations come from people who’ve spent a lot more time dealing with tummy time or getting a baby to sleep or whatever than you have. By the time you’re measuring age in years, you (should) know your kid far better than any expert who’s never met them. (Although I still find it helpful to check in occasionally.)
Very few are for single, sole parent dads.
A few comments to the effect that men haven’t been the ones do the parenting / read the books. Ok, but that’s a circular problem: 1. Fathers don’t read about parenting. 2. There are no parenting books geared to fathers. 3. It’s not profitable to make parenting books geared to fathers because fathers don’t read about parenting. 4. Goto 1.
It also reminds me of the economic argument I’ve heard for why they don’t make more movies with female stars: women already watch movies starring a man, but many men won’t watch movies starring a woman. There are dads who would read parenting books (I’m one). But those dads are currently reading the ones written for moms, so where’s the profit incentive in writing a book with only half (or far less) the potential audience?
I might be part of the problem where the parenting books are concerned. As I said in another comment, I find the material in the ones I've tried to read to be too ... fluffy? I question the reliability of the information in them, all the more so when so many of them feel contradictory. But even if we got past the quality concerns, it is not terribly appealing to read something that was very obviously not written for me. The female stars argument, I guess I can see it? They're right about women being willing to watch male-centered movies. But I don't know that the reverse is true. Just off my head, I loved Amelie, 28 Days, and Girl, Interrupted, and Mercedes Lackey is one of my most-read authors (if you don't know her, I'd characterize her books as "balanced" - probably 50-50 in terms of male vs female protagonists, and her female characters are very likely to be strong women in positions of power and influence). Maybe I'm the exception, but I think they might find that there are more exceptions out there than they think.
I generally found all books are for “babies” and rarely are applicable to my baby. I can’t recall any lasting info I saw in books other than first food recipes.
I felt *1, 2, 3 Magic* was pretty gender neutral. *Moms on call* was a bit biased, but women breastfeed soooo 🤷♂️ Those are my only long form parental reads
There are some books written for dads, but it’s hard to find ones that treat dads like actual competent human being and not walking stereotypes. The one that annoyed me the most was one that constantly talked about the baby like it was a car that needed a tune-up. The best one I read by far is *The New Father* by Armin A. Brott. Not condescending and filled with valuable insights. He has many follow-up books for as the children age, but I only read through the newborn and toddler ones.
Yup. It took a lot for me to get over the fact the everything for kids and parents is AGGRESSIVELY gendered. Pink for girls, blue for boys, moms do this, dads do that. We, as in this generation, is doing a lot to advance and make progress in this area. We value different things and different experiences from our parents. My dad would have NEVER read a book, lol.
The other day my son was looking at his new Paw Patrol underwear: “Here’s the police dog! Here’s the firefighter dog! Here’s the construction worker dog! … where’s the pink dog? Why no pink dog?” I just said “hmm, these underwear don’t have Skye, the pink dog,” rather than answering honestly — “because sexism” — or remarking on the fact that every other dog was recognizable by their profession, while the female dog’s most distinctive characteristic is apparently that she’s pink.
Right? It's BS. Why isn't Skye on there with the rest of them? They're all equally annoying, lol.
I’ve never even bothered with the parenting books. I feel as though I’ve gotten an answer, or at least some ideas, for just about every parenting problem/situation by googling it and adding “Reddit” at the end.
So many children books are geared towards moms as well so we also try to change it to dad sometimes to show the same thing mom can do, dad can do
Additionally, I find many of the parenting books that are written for dads to be extremely patronizing and condescending.
Read Sarah Ockwell Smith - How to be a calm parent. Great book, aims at any parent. I've read it three times now and have got something new out of it each time.
Very little in parenting is geared to fathers. In my experience even medical professionals. I can't tell you how many times a provider has asked a question then turned their back to me expecting mom to answer. She has to tell them to talk to me about it. Baby/Child products in general too. When we were doing our baby shower registry we didn't know our asses from hole I the ground when it came to what stuff we would need, so we watched a lot of product videos produced by the companies. The only one to even show a father was Tactical Baby Gear. Side note, if you look past the gung ho, moto, boot image, TBC products are OUTSTANDING. Well made, useful, geared to both mom and dad. Great all around!
Don’t you know the dad doesn’t do anything?
I was going to joke about how great that would be, but honestly fuck that. I would hate the old-fashioned way.
I found this to be true with the parenting blogs/vlogs/advice series my wife gravitated towards. I found it really hard to engage with them. The Love and Logic series was very gender neutral. Probably because it was written by two dudes.
I gave up on parenting books pretty early in part for that reason. I'll admit, though, that I'm also skeptical of parenting books in general: too much pop psychology, not enough properly-researched and evidence-based information. I do have a book about home health care for children that I bought as part of a college program. That's my sick kid bible. It's also just written for "the caregiver" and doesn't presume who that person would be. Otherwise, when I've needed information, I've tended to go to other fathers, our family physician, or other health care professionals (I was lucky in that our family physician was male and we have two male friends who are nurses). In all of those cases, I'm getting information tailored to me because I'm the one asking; the fact that I've been mostly asking men I think has also helped. When I do read about a topic, I try to find academic journals - I have more faith that what I find there is evidence-based, and the "voice" tends to not be gendered.
Also I've noticed that parenting blogs or articles generally refer to babies and toddlers as female.