They say that the good thing about humanity is that it is always in constant change, that each future generation is better prepared and more developed than the previous one. That is the theory, I suppose, because in practice there are days when I would not know what to tell Darwin and contemporaries. There are days, of those that surely you know, when you do not see the time to get into bed, close your eyes and drop. This is how the world bursts, all you want is for it to arrive tomorrow and everything has been reset, but well, no little button, no reset of those who take the cable and everything.
And it is that in those days, one looks back, towards that time of gentlemen (that time when parents were called gentlemen and not screaming) whose only concerns began with the opening of working hours and ended with the closing of Blinds. They came home, a couple of kisses, some patting on the head and children and their problems on one side and you on the opposite side to rest. Eye that consists of several mothers who want the same, even one that would give an arm for such a day per week. And now I stop to think about that being a father today, but where have I gone?
Statement of intents
I want to state in the record that as the situation was, we could not continue like this. That I recognize that it was time to take care of those tasks that corresponded to us, that It is not a matter of helping but of doing our part of the job. Raising children is not 80% for one and the rest we will see how we negotiate. That I feel proud of my situation and of being able to enjoy my children, although there are days that I don't know what to do with my life. But…
Do not deny me that we have gotten into this without reading the fine print, that we have done the typical "to which there is no ..." and we have thrown ourselves into the head pit, without a float and with the cell phone in our pocket. And this is that being a modern father, involved in everything that has to do with the education and development of your offspring is not easy. They don't know the feeling it gives after releasing your children a "neither Maya nor Mayo. I said there is no TV today!" You feel invaded by the spirit of your mother and at that time you don't think about anything else "go mom, get out of here now" and you hear in the background a voice that says, "But do you think they are ways to take the children? Have you seen how much stain? " And don't tell me that that doesn't hurt.
I remember that when I was little I ended the day with mud and crap to fill two pots, but yes, the next morning you went to white-tip class (or almost). Nowadays, with those detergents of the future, 57 different types of softeners and 27 bleach do not need to mark the clothes of the children, I can recognize it by the stains.
The marks of the new paternity in society
One of the clearest marks of the increase in male presence in the education and care of children is, for me, the proliferation of devices, call them gadgets, related to parenting that perform functions that your mother was able to perform in pairs and no pot none.
So we have cameras that monitor any movement of our baby, clothing that warns us if the child has a fever or has escaped the diaper pee, GPS systems that keep our children and my favorite, pedal cars that can be directed by remote control, that insurance invented by a man, only we can think of such a device to keep your child entertained while you take a quiet cane.
I am sure that soon a machine will appear in which you put your baby, select the desired program and after x minutes the child will be changed, dressed for the occasion and scented (and if they do not believe me, wait and see). We have gone from being parents who delegated everything related to their children to their partners or mothers to be all day flying over their heads in case something happens to them.
And we can not cover everything, we should be able to do more than one thing at a time, but reach the level of our mothers I doubt it is possible. To have everything perfectly controlled as they did we would need at least one Personal Baby Assistant, or something like that (we may have to polish the name a bit), to help us with everything that one or more children require in a normal day.
You will pick them up at school or nursery school and take them to the park and you see that mother who takes 3 sandwiches out of her bag, the juice bottle, the water bottle and a bag of homemade cookies. That cookies do not like the smallest, nothing happens, we take muffins out of the bag. But if in 10 minutes you have set up a catering that you would like it the same at company conventions! And you were so happy because today you had not forgotten the snack. And thank goodness, because surely he did not strain again to say that the pediatrician had put him on a diet.
And it does not matter how many times you have gone to the park, you feel like a weirdo between so much professional and it seems that you have sneaked into the training of the football team The same as when you buy clothes. To do it by eye better than you forget, because either your son is of standard measures or you will have to change everything again, and still nobody assures that although it is worth it you do not have to exchange it for incompatibilities between your tastes and those of his mother . Here we have our ally, the smartphone and the sending of images to know if what we have in hand is a three-quarter or a denim shirt.
Visits to the pediatrician. Let's see, what I understand by taking my son to see the pediatrician is to get a professional's response to my child's status. If you are sick, I want to know what happens to you and how it is cured and if it is for a revision, then to know if everything is going as it should. But, it seems that behind every visit a battery of questions is hidden in multiples of 100 that I always forget to ask about the state, life and miracles of the child. Not to mention that your mother is able to find your child a minimum of 10 life-threatening behaviors that you didn't even suspect existed and at least half a dozen symptoms, half of which are from tropical diseases.
But our Achilles Heel, where we still have a lot to improve is in the first years of life of our children. Because going out with the elders, taking them out of school, shopping or spending time with them is something that our parents have already done, the one that does the most or the least. But that of taking your son from a few months of walking for his mother to rest a little or spend an afternoon with a baby whose level of communication is measured on crying scales is still something in which many are not seen.
Every day there is more, for the record, but there is a sharp difference between the time we spend taking care of our children when they are babies to whom we lend them when they are a little older. They also continue to be the mothers, who bear the majority of the "difficult" decisions that come with having a child, such as reducing the workday or requesting permission days to take the children to the doctor.
The society is changing, perhaps not as fast as many would like, but the change towards new roles of parents in this society is evident and above all it is becoming visible, which is perhaps what is helping more and more men every day Take charge of your share. There have always been parents who were very clear about their role and of course it was not the one they sold them, but like many other things, they turned their backs on society. Many times I hear people comment that their father was not the stereotype of the head of the family that was sold in magazines or on TV and yet that is the role that society has maintained, precisely the one we must change.
This is certainly not easy, being a father today, but where have I gone?
Happy father's day and good luck.
