For a More Inclusive Future This Father's Day, Let's Smash the Patriarchy

Can we create more family harmony and heal our oppressive culture by supporting caregiver equity?

Photo by Picsea on Unsplash

As we all recover from Covid, it is still a school day. My son “should” be doing classwork remotely. Instead, he’s playing a video game. His dad is getting frustrated, and I resist the urge to jump in and do things my way.

I’m reminded of all the times I’ve held back from coaching or correcting my husband, and all the times I haven’t. That urge is my inner critic, which tends to ooze beyond the confines of “inner” and spills out to criticize those I’m closest to.

It isn’t my place to define fatherhood, and yet fatherhood is so often defined in relationship to motherhood. Our patriarchal culture creates this oppressive binary, but we don’t have to accept it.

More and more parents are taking action to reshape the culture by redefining those relationships. The farther each family’s identity gets from the “norm,” the harder it is to navigate the cultural challenges of parenting. It isn’t easy, even in my two-parent, binary, “traditional” family.

My internalized …