Book. Offering this booklet to a father-to-be carries the risk of being sent away. After finding the title, Becoming a feminist dad, mission impossible? (Textual, 240 pages, 19.90 euros), he can choose to be offended, angry or feel trapped. However, this work is useful for all parents and those who aspire to become parents.
Let’s quickly clear up some possible misunderstandings. This is not a personal development book, or a set of practical advice, or even an activist pamphlet. Then what is it? A sociological exploration of the barriers to parental equality, and the emergence of fulfilling fatherhood in France.
The two authors, sociologists Marine Quennehen and Myriam Chatot, begin by debunking statues erected for “new dads,” media figures who have appeared repeatedly since the 1980s. Yes, they write, men are spending more time with their kids than ever before – and that’s a good thing for everyone. But their fatherhood remains “conditional”: they, more than women, have the possibility to choose parental activities. And, as surveys generally show, they avoid dirty work, “like blowing a child’s nose or cutting his nails”.
A “matrifocal” institution.
Compared to these ordinary tasks, fathers prefer extraordinary “special moments”: taking their little ones to restaurants, to amusement parks. Except, to be precise, when their place in the household changes. Dads interviewed for this survey said that, after parental leave, their “special moments” became everyday little things: “I’ll pick him up after school (…). We can walk again together, we can throw stones into the water.”that describes Robert.
This is one of the most interesting aspects of the book. Because it is not a matter of indicting individual behavior, but of trying to understand through what mechanisms this behavior is favored, and how it can be modified. Therefore, an entire chapter is devoted to discussing barriers to father involvement. The authors paint a portrait of the perinatal world that focuses not only on mothers, but excludes fathers. Maternity hospitals, midwife offices, daycares or mother and child protection centers… These institutions are “matrifocal”, they write, and fathers find themselves trapped in contradictory imperatives: they must be more present, but their presence is intrusive.
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