caveat

I just wanted to point out that my last post was written before Joe the Plumber fame. I in now way was even trying to make fun of this catastrophe. Funny though that I actually wrote about plumbing, something I never heard about from ole Joe.

Also I wanted to mention that I do live in the blogosphere, just not here too much. I'm still Feminist Dad, but only have the energy for baby pictures and stories for and about my family on Wordpress.

Feminist Dad, the Plumber!

Amazingly, I just installed a sprayer onto our toilet. This statement surely requires explanation (wait for it), but for now, let us bask in the glory that I successfully performed household maintenance.

It all started with cloth diapers. We finally, after using disposable diapers for a year, are making the switch to cloth. We haven't incorporated cloth into Edie's daycare yet, and there are times when we still use disposables*.

But then there's the poop. Here's a nice thing about disposables: you throw the poop away. Poop in cloth entails toilet swishing at the very least, before dropping the diaper into the bin. What we need is a mechanism to get the poop off.

Easier said than done. So we buy a toilet bidet/diaper sprayer nozzle over the Internets. One arrives, with less than 50 words of instruction on the box, with the phrase, "Installs in 5 minutes!"

I'll cut to the chase, to say after two trips to the hardware store, one compression converter, a trip to Home Depot, one replacement fill valve, a missing and replaced washer from the sprayer manufacturer, the box was only ten minutes off: It took just 15 minutes total to install our diaper sprayer. And it works!

Given that two and half weeks transpired between the frustration and the 15 minute installation last night, I'm pretty proud of myself for a swift home project accomplished.

Yeah me!

*for example, disposables seem to curb diaper rash better than cloth.

another reason i love ellen degeneres

Thanks to Feminist Allies, who told me to go read fe.men.ist. I did, and I love it! So I'll break my Feminist Dad silence in a hat tip. This video, via Richard's blog.



"I along with many many others wish you every happiness," says McCain to Degeneres. Well I guess that the least he could say. And, from the looks of it, it was.

for love or money: the sociology of babysitting

If you're interested in the topic of the field exam I'm just finishing up, read this. My paper is so far titled For Love or For Money: somethingsomething. Its theme? The value of care. Is caring its own reward? Should we pay top dollar for care, and will that make it better? Should we test to be sure that our children are loved, in addition to receiving caring services? How much does that cost?

Case in point. In January, when I used to stay home with Edie part time, I needed a babysitter for about 12 hours a week. I placed ads for ten bucks an hour babysitting services, what I understood to be the going rate from a former student emphasizing in early childhood education. In practically no time at all, without even seeing the ad, a different former student said that she would love (note the word: love=good) to sit for Edie - and her schedule even fit our schedule.

I haven't written about this because this person reads my blog (and so does her Mom). But the sociological lesson I believe is a good one. Said student was visibly surprised at the ten dollar pay rate, so much that she agreed to do it for eight. I sort of felt bad reducing the initial promise for pay, a negotiation faux pas, where I should have started with less with a chance to increase later. But she was truly honestly fine with the $8, especially because she really wanted to help us out*.

Love as commoditity. What's interesting, and really what has always bothered me, about this is that we paid less to gaurantee better care. Paying the full $10 to someone answering our ad would have meant a stranger in our house taking care of our daughter. Maybe she would have been fantastic, maybe not.

Not to commodify care for a child, but in essence we replaced two dollars an hour with a gaurantee of love. Sociologists of care distinguish "caring for" versus "caring about." The first means that caring services are accomplished. The second means that someone genuinely has feelings for a person. For our money, we got both. We received $26 per week of love, and it was worth it.

We pay more now. I'm going overboard with the analogy, of course. But it's true that we deliberately paid less for better care. These days we take Edie to an in-home daycare four days a week, but we still pay Edie's favorite babysitter (thank you Ellen) on occasion. Sarah and I are working more and we can afford the full $10 per hour. But since our sitter is worth that extra $2 of love, really we are getting a $12 an hour value for her services, no?

All of this to make a point. When it comes to care, do you really get what you pay for? It would seem that the people you love are the ones better at the service, and paying your friends and family seems counter-intuitive. But what if you pay really a whole lot of money? Would private daycare be the best care Edie could get?

And the questions keep on coming. It's a good day to be a sociologist in the field of care.

* I should point out that when Edie was born she offered to watch her for free, so actually this is a signifcant increase in payment for the service.

working all the angles: men, housework, and sex

I'm so frustrated that I won't make this year's Council on Contemporary Families Conference in Chicago. Here I am, living in the city, researching fathering and other family issues, and a date I set over a year ago falls on exactly the same weekend. I'll be out of town.

What will I miss? The great men-housework-sex debate! It all started a few months ago when CCF published a white paper titled Men's Changing Contribution to Child Care and Housework. For decades now, sociologists have discussed a "stalled revolution" where men are not pulling their weight around the house. Coltrane and Sullivan suggest that a revolution doesn't happen overnight, and in the long term men are doubling (housework) and tripling (childcare) their efforts at home. Sure, women still carry much of the burden -- the second shift is every bit a reality -- but the men aren't always dead-beat partners, either.

But this story is more than about men patting themselves on the back. It's about how to package social science research for the public. Somewhere in the translation of the CCF white paper, the following headline appears in the Associate Press: Men Who Do Housework May Get More Sex.

Now that's some crafty marketing. Nowhere in the original white paper is there a single word on sex-life research. I suppose a study like this could be done, provided this information is covered on the time-use surveys. In lieu of this, the AP reports on a comment by another CCF member, Joshua Coleman. Coleman, author of The Lazy Husband (2005), another study that doesn't mention sex, suggests that men who don't do housework contribute to women's frustrations, something "that's not going to put her in the mood."

Take the converse of this comment, publish the white paper data, and voila! You've got international circulation for a good story. Now for a quick content analysis on the other news headlines*:

The Reason Men Do Housework
If you want more sex, do the dishes
Doing Dull chores could improve your sex life
Men who do housework get more sex from their wives
Men Clean, Women Swoon, Eyes Roll
Coming clean on the battle of the sexes

Note that only the AP article and number three from the top say "may" or "could." The rest factualize the account. It's verified. Men get more sex.

I shouldn't discredit the expert, though. Upon sharing all of this with my own partner, she first laughed but paused and said, "Well, I suppose it's true!" And that wraps up our packaging of the study: If it makes common sense, it's printable.

Debates on truth of the headline aside, the rest of the white paper is now printed in newspapers and blogs worldwide. Three cheers to CCF! I'm so sad I'll miss these guys this year.

*Thank, you Google News Search

A Valentine's Day Wishing Game

Why I don't like the Daddy Wars

I just can't get a phrase out of my mind: The Daddy Wars.

Especially as I consider the direction of my dissertation, I've been paying attention to the Daddy Wars (link: Rebel Dad) discussion (link: Evolution of Dad) brimming in part thanks to the USA Today article on fathers in the workplace.

Historically - as a feminist - I don't like the implication of "Daddy Wars." It reeks of Opt Out Revolution (link: Lisa Belkin) falsehoods (link: Heather Boushey), where working moms and at-home moms are unncessarily pitted against each other. Even from a class-based view the framing of a war between mothers is poor judgement. The true focus should be on government and work-based family friendly policies, rather than between the workers' so-called difference of choice.

You'd think the Daddy Wars would be like the Mommy Wars, where the stay-at-home dad revolution challenges fathers who work to consider a brave new paradigm. The sensitive dad now cares for kids and cleans up the house. This is not the head-of-household breadwinner your grandfather told you about.

But there's a twist! Rebel Dad re-visions the Daddy Wars to be something less dichotomous: a battle between workers and family-friendly workplace policies. We not only need paternity leave, but we need it to be socially acceptable in the workplace. Ah! Finally we have a catch phrase based in reality. This is a real problem that needs to be addressed, unlike the Opt-Out piece where the initial data was questionable.

My problem, very much like Devra at the DC Metro Mom's Blog*, is the phrase itself. The first thing I think of when I hear "Daddy Wars" is "Mommy Wars." This is the connection that many people make. It's violent, evokes parent against parent mini-battles, and doesn't represent the true spirit of what a caring society should look like.

Rebel Dad responded to the issue of Daddy-Mommy parallel, noting that Daddy Wars do not pit parent against parent. He quotes the original USA Today article to back his point:

As dads demand paternity leave, flexible work schedules, telecommuting and other new benefits, they've ignited what workplace specialists are calling the Daddy Wars.

Sounds good, right? But the same article begins by pitting two different types of dads against each other. Here are the first two paragraphs from the article:

Todd Scott, 32, has two children under age 5. Each workday, he leaves his job at Himmelrich Public Relations in Baltimore at 5 p.m. to be with his family — and even then feels guilty he isn't spending enough time with Hunter, 4, and Anna, 1.

Scott's approach to balancing work and family contrasts with that of his boss, Steve Himmelrich, 48, who has two children and is a more traditional-style dad, spending many long hours, free time and some weekends at the office. Himmelrich says he supports Scott's parenting strategy, but both acknowledge it has been a source of tension between them.

Reading this, we do see that the war is between manager and employee. However, the best re-framing of the Daddy Wars should be against policies, not people. If manager Steve chooses this workstyle, constraints notwithstanding, then he should be able to do so. Instead he's in competition with his employee. Steve states:

"I have a lot of respect for Todd and what he does. And I have a really great relationship with my kids."

If the war is not between two dads, then why is Steve so defensive? Perhaps Steve recognizes that in the trenches, the Daddy Wars turn out to be a battle between two types of working fathers. Hence, my short list as to why I don't like the Daddy Wars:

• Bad terminology. We're trying to acheive a caring society, so why persist in war rhetoric?
• Too many parallels to the Mommy Wars. No matter what work we do to re-frame the issue, we will still think back to the original term.
• What about full time stay-at-home dads? Notice that the war takes place entirely between working fathers.
• Too confusing! The Mommy Wars are simple: one group versus another group. So far, the Daddy Wars take justification, points of order, and there are plenty of grey areas. My fear is that when the Daddy Wars hit the evening news in a barrage of sound bites, that worker-against-worker will prevail.

Conclusion. The Daddy Wars to me are not helpful nor good. We should eighty-six the phrase before the New York Times picks it up. We don't need an "Opt-Out Revolution" for fathers. What we need are good caring policies for our families.

* Also see excellent 2006 post by Cali at work+life fit: Daddy Wars - Defining it? Why not just forget it altogether and focus on the real issues.