Dad's Spending Time With His Kids Is Not Comment-Worthy

Mr. CK, mentioned below is a comedian with some poignant, yet “blue” observations on life. You are warned.

From an interview with Louis CK in Slate:

A waitress said to my kids the other day, “Isn’t that nice that you’re getting to have a little lunch with your daddy?” And I was insulted by it, because I’m like, I’m fucking taking them to lunch, and then I’m taking them home, and then I’m feeding them and doing their homework with them and putting them to bed. She’s like, Oh, this is special time with daddy. Well, no, this is boring time with daddy, the same as everything.

And from his show:

“…a single mom your character meets at a PTA meeting tells you, ‘Just by showing up, you’re father of the year.’”

I love it that CK, loud and vulgar, makes the point that feminism has been proclaiming for so long, so forcefully, and with such agreement. Dads are assumed to be taking special time to handle their responsibilities, whereas Moms are assumed to know how to do that and to do it better. CK calls “boojive” on this and tears down a few hundred years of post-Victorian parenting modeling in a few sentences.

I’m proud of my male friends who have children: Patrick, Mike, Alfredo. All of them are very involved in their kids’ lives and don’t default to being there only when Mom calls in for support. Also, I’ll say I’m thankful for my own father who took time to make sure that we kids knew we were important to him and that our choices were something that he wanted to help us evaluate until we could do it on our own.

Huh, and I wrote that on Father’s Day weekend, unplanned.

Culture