Sorry about that. My testosterone levels must be a little low. Where were we?
“Men have the ability to focus acutely on just one thing,” says Sarah Smith of Parenting magazine. “And when that one thing is your child he makes for a good caregiver.”
But what if it’s not, Sarah? What if it’s not? What if your manny reads the paper that morning, or sees a little dog in an anorak on the subway? What if it’s football season? What if he comes to work hungry? Your toddler could be dingo nosh faster than you can say, “Man, I could go for a Whopper right now.”
Remember how women really want babies, how they’re utterly incapable of focusing on anything else, because all women love babies and love taking care of them and are way too baby-obsessed to ever devote their attention to anything more time-intensive than a bodice-ripper or a box of bonbons? So deep does this affinity run, in fact, that women who think too much and rock babies too little become infertile! They shrivel up like slugs in salt! Remember how little boys, being naturally more robust and energetic, are incapable of sitting quietly for forty-eight minutes at a time? Remember how men are so baby clueless that they don’t understand which end you spray the lighter fluid on? Remember how men hate children, especially those too small to snake drains and catch footballs?
Reading this is like reading The Onion’s “New Fall Stereotypes.” It’s not progress when you switch them around! Saying that all men are specially capable of taking care of babies is not better than saying that men are constitutionally incapable of taking care of babies. Especially when all it means is that the ability to take care of babies has gone from devalued to valued.
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I don’t understand what this is about. Britney is certainly not a competent caregiver for that baby, and Federline is the epitome of trash.
This guy is a Naval Academy grad who looks clean and wears shirts with collars. As a caregiver, I’m sure he’s a step up from both of them.
So, it’s all those guys who are good at focusing on one thing that forget to drop their kids off at day care and leave them to roast in the car. Got it.
Heh. This wins for my favorite blog entry title ever! Way to go. By the way–I’ve been meaning to ask if you or any of your FtM readers have ever had a doctor urge them to go off T long enough to menstruate every few years. My doc is advocating this as a way to reduce the risk of endometrial cancer. Ever heard of this? Anyone tried it?
Never heard that, Sean. Have heard of guys stopping for whatever reason and bleeding nonstop for weeks, or, conversely, taking months to bleed again. Maybe someone else can give a more direct answer.
Re: the original post, it’s directly analogous to the whole, “If men gave birth we’d have paid maternity leave,” thing. For years the spiel was that women were better with kids b/c they could multi-task, and if you wanted to get into evo-psych bullshit, b/c they needed to mind the camp while the men were out single-mindedly stalking and killing things.
Now what do we have? Men taking care of children. Quick, someone redefine what skills are best for childcare!
Some of the commenters on Pandagon pointed another dimension to this whole “manny” thing — where most female nannies, especially in New York, are likely to be West Indian or Hispanic, “mannies” tend to be not only male, but white.
Perhaps b/c white men are ‘above’ doing the physical labor that these days falls to non-white men? And non-white men not being trusted with children?
Come on Em. Must white men be considered evil always?
At least admit the possibility that the fact that male nannies are white is not the ‘fault’ of whites, but may be caused by nonwhite men having more macho culture that emphasizes gender differences and a traditional split of “men’s” and “women’s” jobs.
It would also explain why female nannies tend to be nonwhite.
>>Heh. This wins for my favorite blog entry title ever! Way to go. By the way–I’ve been meaning to ask if you or any of your FtM readers have ever had a doctor urge them to go off T long enough to menstruate every few years. My doc is advocating this as a way to reduce the risk of endometrial cancer. Ever heard of this? Anyone tried it?
I have heard of things like this, actually–although not “every few years.” But I don’t know enough about it to advise you, and I wouldn’t rely on my advice anyway. I know that the ftms of my acquaintance, AFAIK, don’t do this or plan on this; no doctor has recommended it to me, but the only family history of cancer is Aunt Four Packs Per Day.
I’ll ask an ftm friend who might know better. Also, if you have a livejournal account or can get one, community.livejournal.com/ftm would be a good place to ask. There are one or two regulars who are transguys and care providers.
And I’m not saying that I am necessarily 100% right here, nor that all non-whites have more traditional culture than whites, but presenting an alternative.
Actually, Tuomas, it has a lot to do with what nannies are paid, and the fact that race and class strongly correlate. You have to read the Daily News article to see the comments from the employers slamming female nannies to understand why the fact that mannies tend to be white makes a difference.
Good point. Like Em said, I wonder if racism makes it impossible for them to be included in the good masculinity that makes mannies such awesome child protectors.
This is the kind of thing that makes me feel tired. That’s not what she said.
On the contrary, I am suggesting that it is non-white men who are threatening and thus not trusted enough to be mannies.
Whoops, piny covered that one already.
I suspect it has much to do with that, so I will not argue against that idea. You suggested that, AND:
So piny, what is really tiresome that many people here refuse to take responsibility for things they say.
Look, guys, we’ve drifted way off topic here.
The real point is that piny is jealous cause he’s know he’d be a lousy Dad.
Until the kid was big enough to hold a socket wrench or a football. Then it’s all gender indoctrination!
OK, now that’s a funny mental image.
Mm-hm. And if you think this refers to evil white men rather than to the privilege that society affords white men, you’re not very smart. White men are getting hired, whereas before women of color were getting hired. Therefore, it makes sense to postulate that increased valuation of childcare is changing the professional demographic with regard to race as well as gender.
No, what’s tiresome (this is really about as useful as arguing degrees of oppression) is that you consistently read speculations about men defensively and react as a victim. Let me spell it out for you:
Non-white people get shit jobs.
Non-white men are viewed as threatening, by white women especially.
Non-white men are too threatening to be trusted with white women’s babies.
Non-white women, on the other hand, are at the bottom of the race AND the gender totem poles, and nothing makes more sense than for a lower group to devote themselves to raising the next generation of the upper group. Theoretically, it keeps them from devoting their resources to their own children and precludes them from advancing their societal position.
That covers the second statement.
Now then, your conflation of my first statement, white men being ‘above’ childcare, with white men being ‘evil’, is disingenuous. I was saying that when childcare was devalued, the stereotypical traits of white men were considered to make them incapable of good child care. Now that white men are increasingly being hired for childcare, their traits are being redefined as uniquely suited for childcare. Clearly, the ability to change the definition of an occupation shows that white men have carried their privelege with them into mannie-dom, and they carry it back out with them when they graduate from being mannies to having a real job. Privilege is something you seem to have a hard time with.
You seem to be hung up on the physical aspect of the job,* and the stricter gender expectations in some non-white cultures as the reason why non-white men aren’t mannies. I am postulating that (1) non-white men aren’t trusted to care for white children even if they wanted to, and (2) white men have enough privelege that they can hop into any occupation and be lauded as being better at that job than the people who normally do it, even if said job is normally performed by people with less privelege (below) white men.
*Actually, I have no idea what the fuck you’re hung up on. Challenging privelege is not hating men or masculinity, no matter how hard you try to be a victim.
Which is NOT to say that white men suck at childcare, as this will likely be the one, incorrect sentiment you get out of the above post. Feminists have been arguing for years that men should be more involved with children. When the demographics of a women-dominated occupation change, though, it merits discussion.
Childcare is one of those professions that requires you to love what you are doing to be good at it. I think many men who may be great at childcare are discouraged from going into this profession because its “not manly”, and I think some women are encouraged to go into it even though they have no desire or competence for it because its “womanly”.
The best babysitter by far that I have ever had for my two boys is a 20-year old man who works at my younger son’s daycare and moonlights as my weekend sitter. He’s just good with by, very responsible, trained and CPR certified. What more could a parent want? (By the way, he is excellent with girls too, i just happen to have boys. So his appeal to me is not all about the fact that he does boy-stuff with my boys).
His goal is to eventually be an elementary school teacher and thought childcare in the meantime was relevant to his career pursuits and also something he loves to do. But, despite a shortage of qualified care providers in our area, he had trouble finding work. He told me he felt like some employers thought it was odd that a man would apply and passed on his application. Luckily for me, my childcare center looked at his qualifications and not his gender.
A few of my mom-friends have asked me if I think having a man as a babysitter is appropriate, to which I reply that what is appropriate is to have quality childcare. Period.
You raise an interesting point. Nannies are usually hired by richer folks as more of a full-time or live-in position. Babysitters are what the rest of parents use. So what is the comparison between mannies and male babysitters? I assume that nannies make more money. Which one has more men, and which one has more white men?
Come to think of it, the only babysitter I remember having as a child was the son of one of my mother’s friends. He did a good job except for the time he ran my head into a light fixture when we were playing hide-and-seek, and I never did find out how he explained that to my mother.
The few times we had a babysitter, it was the son of family friends. Really sweet guy, grew up to be a semi-pro football player. The only complaint was that he listened to Motley Crue while he did his homework. Otherwise, a great babysitter.
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