Go read Daddy Dialectic

How had I not discovered Daddy Dialectic before? You all must go read it. Now. Especially, especially Jeremy Adam Smith’s answers to his own modified version of bluemilk’s What does a feminist mother look like? questions. I think I’m in love. Platonically, of course.

At the end of the day, your main task is to survive and support your family and raise happy children; how you respond to the things you can’t control reveals a great deal about your character, some of it good and some of it bad. You might discover (have you noticed my retreat to the safety of the second person?) a capacity for sacrifice and care that you never knew was there.

On the flip side, the dark one, you might also find yourself erupting with petty rage and misdirected resentment, eruptions that frighten you, your child, and your partner. In those scary moments, when our worst emotions take over and drive our ideals and aspirations over a cliff, it is easiest of all for both fathers and mothers to fall back on traditional patterns of dominance and submission.

What does that have to do with feminism? Everything, and nothing.

Pledging allegiance to feminist ideals doesn’t make you a good person or a good parent or a good partner, but it might remind you of the power you have—we always have power, if only over ourselves—and the need to restrain that power or share it with other people. It can also remind fathers of something that I think is crucial: There are alternatives; you do have choices, and your choices matter. You don’t have to be the man your father was; you don’t have to be the idiots we see on TV; you can be a new kind of man, and you can help your sons become that kind of man.

That’s ten kinds of inspiring, right there. Plus, he knows how to use both colons AND semicolons! What’s not to love?