Stay-at-home dad Jonathan Ryder shares some thoughts on male magnificence
People keep telling my wife that she is blessed. This is not news to me - I've known it all along. What comes as a surprise, however, is the fact that they are not referring to her innate blessedness; her patience, stoicism or ironclad sense of humour. The wonder with which she is supposedly so blessed is me - her stay-at-home husband.
"What?!" I hear some people say, and "How?!" and "Don't be so ridiculous!" Others may be reduced to incoherent and indignant spluttering. And I agree with all of you. It is an accolade I don't deserve. But even stranger is the reason why I'm seen to be a blessing. It is, apparently, because I took the summer off, because I chose to stay at home while my wife goes out to work.
Granted I'm not on holiday, minding our little guy could never be described like that, but nor is it like any job I've ever had before. Sometimes when I'm out with him I feel like a celebrity - old men nod at me, old women talk to me, young women catch my eye and smile (a thing that never used to happen), even young men regard me with less animosity.
Am I alone in this? Or are there other fathers out there who have noticed this phenomenon? The kudos that men get for minding children seems, well, a little disproportionate. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, it's very nice to be so highly thought of. But still, a little question niggles. I mean, it's not as if we're doing anything spectacularly new. Caring for your offspring is something that's been done for years, for centuries, forever. We were certainly doing it long before we climbed down from the trees and started wearing nappies. No, childminding is not new, but what is new (or what is perceived as being new) is the fact that men are doing the minding. And we are getting praised for it.
Which brings me to that niggling little question once again. Were our fathers and grandfathers told that they were blessed with wives who reared their families? Are my contemporaries, whose female partners look after children, told they are blessed? And why has no-one ever mentioned that I am blessed to have my wife? Never once in six months of maternity leave, when she was nursing our baby around the clock. Nor during nine months of pregnancy - of aching, tiredness, breathlessness and swollen ankles (not to mention having labour to look forward to). How come no one ever pointed out that she's a blessing? Sure, what else would she be doing? But it is different for men. If we push the buggy we are brilliant, if we calm a crying child we're great, and if - miracle of all miracles - we change a nappy we are instantly elevated to sainthood. I must admit that it is tempting to just sit back and take the plaudits. And who could blame us - the propagators of this myth of male magnificence are mostly women. But you can hardly blame them either: they must be so relieved that we are finally helping out that they will stop at nothing to encourage us. Our efforts may be fumbling and inept, and many of them could probably do the job in half the time (and blindfolded), but still, they heap on the praise, hoping against desperate hope that we will not give up and hand the baby back to them, still filthy.
Yet women are supposed to be the fairer sex, and "fair" means reasonable and judicious as well as nice to look at. Does it make sense to give so much credit where credit is hardly due? Minding children should be as natural for men as for women, and by praising us too much it makes it seem abnormal. Try telling a female dentist or Garda how great she is for doing her job and see what happens. But maybe, just for the moment, I won't disturb the status quo. That way I get to take the compliments and spend time with our little boy. Meanwhile my poor wife gets to smile politely as yet another person says how she is blessed to have me. And aren't I great? And how do I manage with the little chap at all? And aren't men brilliant altogether? And are we surviving the summer? We're having a ball.
