I do not know if I will have a grandchild. Even if I do, I do not know if they will have a dad. But the idea of my grandchildren's dad keeps looping back in my head.
My dad was much better at his parental role than he was. His dad went leaps and bounds above the guy who gave him just a gamete to survive. My family is built on a history of intergenerational removal of trauma. Yet, work is still to be done. And I am here for this.
A thought experiment
However, none of us knows what will come in the future. My favorite thought experiment revolves around a question: What will be the X of our generation? Whereby X I mean an exclusionary practice future generations will rightfully judge and never pardon us for. Every prior generation had one, my dad's generation was highly anti-queer. His dad's super racist. He gamete secretor's generation fought against giving women the right to vote.
A few years ago, this was an interesting question. Obama was in power; idiocy led many to believe we lived in a post-racial society and yada yada. So when I posed this question, many would talk about things like eating animals, using plastics, burning oil, or discrimination against trans people. And these are valid goals.. Yet, I am a migrant. The persistence of children in cages and the prevalence of global taxation without representation is, in my hear,t the one I hope will be decried the most. I do digress
Less than an average parent
Outside my family, the average dad has dramatically improved his parental work. I dated someone who was so proud that she was the first baby her grandpa held in his hands.
Just avoid confusion. This father of three held a baby in his hands for the first time when his older daughter gave birth to his granddaughter. Other than in hugs or pats on the back, his grown children had not received more affection from him than that. Or at least not until they were outside the baby stage. In my dad's generation, it was common to hear of parents "babysitting" when the mom left the house. Many of them never changed a diaper. I never heard of a dad taking parental leave while growing up.
My generation is different. many become "latte pappas" or take part in the Partnerschaftsbonus program and go for a two-month world tour with the baby while being a minimum viable dad. And don't get me wrong, the improvement is dramatic and great. Yet, I personally would never accept to aim so low.
Parenthood equity
It saddens me deeply that I will never be pregnant. The most I will ever experience is the thrill of a baby growing inside my beloved's belly. Similarly, I will never breastfeed. There are things I will never be able to do for my child that their mom is able to. That does not mean I should care for our children less than her in aggregate.
My goal in life is to be an average parent. I aim to contribute to my family's care work, a similar amount as my wife. My physical limitations make it so that when my child has a fever, I will not be able to calm them as well as their mom. But I will aim to do something else so that our loads balance.
Within a DEI jargon, what I mean is that I aim at a form of care work equity. Each of us contributes what we can so that we both are equally engaged in the care our children require. I have no interest in being my children's below average parent.
Care not Bread
A naive confusion in the above is imagining that if one person brings the bread and the other cares for the children, my aim is met. This nonsensical confusion is clearly wrong. The fact that there is some form of division of labor can be accounted for, but it will never mean equity. Equity requires conversation, acceptance, and balance.
My mom closed her company when I entered first grade to become a stay-at-home mom. My dad continued working. He earns a pension today. My mom is still in her role. A role she will keep all her life. There is absolutely no equity there. Progress, yes, but no equity.
bell hooks
Sarah Kaplan, a role model, once said that "bell hooks is responsible for giving her most of her mind's stretch marks". I agree with that, but a common privilege my balls have given me is that a lot of the feminist agenda is less of a brain exercise and more of a heart therapy.
The appropriate quote for me would be a bit more complex. Up to 2023, bell hooks had given me most of my heart's stretch marks. Parenthood clearly is a new ball game. Sadly, it is a game I need to engage with in the absence of hooks's advice. Emilia Roig has been an excellent companion on this road. However, my child's mom is my guiding star on this.
The personal is political
This second-wave feminist mantra becomes more factual every day. The evolution of the feminist rhetoric and its focus on the role of our skin, the gender we perform, and the people we love has made what we care for more and more political. The same is true for the argument I am struggling to articulate.
AK Summer's presents in her comic book memoir Pregnant Butch, the struggle of being pregnant while performing her gender in a less than normative way. This is an argument that resonates with me. This mom owns her body and is responsible for her choices. She had a child, and the world made confronted her with many tough situations.
But if we are honest, men can have children, too. Many transgender men can and have children. I do not believe this should be regulated or frowned upon. For decades, gay couples have shown that children of "two-dad" households have good and fulfilling lives. I do not understand why one of these, having had a misassigned gender at birth, should change anything.
Care work feminist
As a true bad feminist, I keep butchering my point. But I aim to say that it is my belief that as feminism enters more and more personal realms, its discourse will continue becoming more personal. For me, this natural progression bundles the above discussion on normalizing all forms of parenthood and my view on care work equity together.
The feminist struggle has left our children attending more daycare hours than their parents work at the office. It baffles me how we can expect children to work for their household more than their parents work for them on average. (Parenthesis: True, a daycare is not work. But it is also not not work. A child goes to their office every day and pursues the goal of enabling their parents to work. They often succeed, but often in tough times and get sick days or take holidays. You might not see daycares as offices, but I cannot see how you don't.)
Yet, with the second wave promise of equality came the decline of care work and the lack of provisions that made it central to a good life. Education, work, and wages, were seen as the keys for equality. Children in many circles were deemed the source of oppression. But, any sociological theory that fails at promoting the welfare of children is one not worth considering.
Every prior wave of feminism has made the world a better place. But it has also led to a huge decline in care work. Obviously, this is not the wrongdoing of women. But the work has been lacking. As most developed societies start to rely on the importing of residents as a way to detain population decline. I believe it is important to take responsibility for this epidemic of loneliness and hopelessness. This mess is not the fault of the feminists. But we sure can continue to make the world a better place.
To me, the future of feminism is one of continuation. We need to deconstruct our views on carework and create real equality. Or, as I tried to articulate above, true care work equity. I do believe that the future of feminism is the future of care work feminism, a future in which how we care for our children takes center stage in the feminist agenda.
CODA
I will fail at achieving care work equity. But I hope I raise my children well enough so that they will look for better dads for their children. I wish that society will have evolved enough by that time that we see my work and effort as not worth a second of their time.
I should not "get a cookie for doing the [future] bare minimum", just as the non-sexist, non-racist, non-anti-queer do not deserve one today. Being a decent human is enough pay. I just really hope this progress is what our future will bring and the grandchildren's dad will be a person for whom care work equity is just the barest of minimum they can provide to my loved ones.
PS
My argument above is an elitist one. No parent puts their child 45 hours a week on daycare because they like it. Not anymore, at least. Yet, when we theorize about the future, we should avoid thinking of people with the same resources as us. I build on the assumption that the world will have more resources (real PPP) in the future, and thus hard choices can be made to focus on the lack of care work. My assumption is that although elitist today, my argument might become mainstream in the near future.
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