Friday, August 12, 2011

Once, I participated in an awareness exercise that included the challenge to complete the sentence "Black fathers ___." And the group the group talked about various images that arise and how one manages oneself in the face of any negative images. At work for the past several years, every single day I see dozens of kinds of dads: black dads, Asian dads, white hipster-dads, Spanish-speaking dads, new Americans of all types -- all of them doing something interesting with their kids. You could take any of those generalized types and complete their sentence with:
- read with their kids.
- take their kids to soccer practice then the library.
- participate in baby story time.
- color with their kids.
- help their kids with their homework.
- pick out comic books with their kids (ok, sons).

You know what, though? I can't say I've ever noticed any two-dad families, or, for that matter two-mom families. But so much of the time, only one parent takes the kids to the library while the other gets time off or is schlepping some other kid or however it is families cope -- so, how would I really know?

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