This Daddy thing, its not for everyone. I ll say that.
I have this graphic novel, called "Too Fat Cant Fly" by Yuko Kondo on Gingko Press, in which eventually Superman comes home old and tired and is ready to hand over the reins to Junior Superboy. But Junior has become a fat, slacker teenager with no practice in flying let alone saving the world so that as he jumps out the window to fly in his first caper, he is too fat and falls to his death. Superman, his Father, had done crap all of preparing him for the job of even being an adult.
Recently I was having lunch with a friend who is a bit older than I am, yet doesn't have any kids. In fact he had been married just one year at the time of our meeting.... to his third wife. Did I say he was a bit older? Well, I believe men, unlike women, can spray their seeds around planting progeny till just about the time they are ready themselves to be hacked down and thrown on the compost heap as more fertilizer for the earth, but if he had been a woman, he would have been past his time of reproduction.
He asked me, "but look, don't you have to put your children first all the time? If you want to go out, you have to plan, get a babysitter, and in the end maybe it wont work and you have to scrap it all?"
"Yes", I said smoothly and with no problem.
"Well, I`m not going to become a father then," he replied back just as nonchalantly.
He went on to say in so many words I cant remember, that he wanted to look out for numero uno. If there was something he wanted to do, get on a plane for a weekend in Egypt, go out to a club on Wednesday night, he was going to do it by gum. Kids couldn't get in his way.
Needless to say, he said it himself, being a father at home, even being a father at all would not be for him. I am glad he is responsible enough to realize that and not mess up some humans life by siring them and then NOT being a father in resulting Sires life. Other people haven`t been as responsible.
And here is where I go out on a limb, go on a tangent, change 180 degrees and get a wee bit controversial. I will say that in the search for finding and creating equality, many women have lost their responsibility to their family, to children. In their quest to build their own careers and develop their self determination, they have become "I" centered and lost their ability to be "We". They have, in the typical manner of the course of a revolution, gone too far the other way and like Robespierre have started chopping off the heads of those that oppose their goals. Children can not get in the way.
I read some small blurb about a high powered executive woman who found the time to be with her 18 month baby girl, from 6.15 in the morning till 7am because they were both early risers. I`m not sure what she was thinking. That THIS was being a Mother? Then she "responsibly" took her baby over to a day care center while she continued her career? I have to say that I wanted to cry after reading this because this woman may know how to legalize or financize in the corporate world, but she is a lame parent and shouldn't have had kids at the time. I have recently read and agree that small kids need quantitative time, not qualitative. They need lots of time of just being with their parents. 45 minutes in the morning and then bedtime story don't cut it.
BUT, have no fear, because this is where men can now swoop in and become the heroes, once again. Men can take over the parenting quantitatively with their children. I like that hero analogy, because its what should have happened in the annals of superherodom. Clark Kent, aka Superman, should have let Lois Lane stay at work as the journalist and he should have stayed at home taking care of Superboy. Then Superman would have been the real hero. And lets face it, men have always been heroes in literature and comics. Ha ha. Now, once again, they have to be heroes and stay at home and be a responsible loving father to their children. She-at, Lois Lane would have been a crap mother anyway. She was too wrapped up in the Daily Planet and furthering her career.
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