There's been a lot written, and undoubtedly far more said, about Amy Chua and her vision of motherhood.
Some of the commentary talks about Chua's vision of parenting. A lot of it asks why she calls herself a Chinese mother when she was born in the midwest, and her strict ideas have a lot in common with those of immigrant parents from various cultures.
But this evening, as I watched The Mate supervise The Offspring's violin practice (for 20 minutes, not three hours, and it was The Offspring's choice of instrument), it occurred to me that once again parenting is assumed to be the domain of the mothers.
Whether Ms. Chua's parenting is applauded or reviled, it's as a mother we're judging her, and we're judging her against other mothers -- not against fathers, or against parents as a team.
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What a SNAFU that story became, huh?
ReplyDeleteYou raise interesting points, and now I am intrigued by whthebes been written addressing fatherhood. Off the top of my head, I can only think of two standard Dad images: the first is the authoritarian and the second is the indulgent, but these are always secondary to whatever his "real" role in life is. I think we are generations away from any true change in our perception of gender roles in parenting.