At-home dadism is in the news again. And while Rebel Dad's Brian Reid did an excellent job, as always, explaining the life of a stay-at-home dad on the Today Show this morning, the "news" segment leading into his interview had a lot to be desired.
Dads staying home to raise the kids is nothing new, and yet the Today Show breathlessly "breaks" this story with a my-goodness, my-golly form of college-style hack journalism that really should have been aired years ago -- after a good rewrite, of course. But there it is today -- one more comparison to Mr. Mom and one more good yuck about kids taking over the playgrounds while dads sit on the sidelines and talk sports.
Please.
Any good journalist covered this trend -- much better -- years ago. (Census figures show the trend of dads staying home has been growing steadily since 2002 -- does it really take the Today Show six years to get its head out of its ass?) Maybe tomorrow the Today Show will get around to spotlighting important, up-to-date society movements like parachute pants and Tab. Coverage like this makes it difficult for dads to fit in at playgrounds and playgroups, because it perpetuates an underlying notion that they don't know what the hell they're doing -- and that's just wrong.
