getting ready to father a schoolkid
So when the Parent Bloggers Network said that it finally had a dad-focused product to review, I mean, how could I say no? Especially one that’s right up the alley of a “getting-ready-for-preschool”-obsessed dad [more on that soon, trust me] of a soon-to-be-three-year-old? I’m so there.
Which brings me to the book at hand, Armin A. Brott’s Fathering Your School-Age Child: A Dad’s Guide to the Wonder Years, 3 to 9. I’ve seen Brott’s books on the parenting shelf at the bookstore before, and the titles and subject matter always make them stand out: The Expectant Father: Facts, Tips and Advice for Dads-To-Be, The New Father: A Dad’s Guide to the First Year, Fathering Your Toddler: A Dad’s Guide to the Second and Third Years, even The Single Father: A Dad’s Guide to Parenting Without a Partner. I’ve always been the friend people hate who gives books and “educational” stuff as presents, and with new dads, even ones not progressive enough to have a couple shower (heh), I’m always loading them up with stuff, making sure they’re not forgotten. But for some reason, I’ve always leaned toward the snarky vs. educational side, giving things like Be Prepared, Crouching Father Hidden Toddler, Pop Culture, and The Three-Martini Playdate (okay, that one’s not dadcentric, but still). I don’t know if I thought the new dads would be intimidated or overwhelmed by too much information unleavened by sarcasm and irony or what, but after being introduced to Brott’s books for new dads, I’d definitely give them a try in the future.
When we were pregnant I went along, month by month, in What to Expect When You’re Expecting, and then, after The Pumpkin was born, I did the same thing with its baby’s-first-year sequel. To be honest, at this point, I don’t remember much of what I read, but I do remember feeling reassured by the way information was given according to chronological development. Brott follows the same organizational scheme here, breaking down a chapter a year for pre-school thru the primary grades. I thought the chapter subheadings carried throughout were quite helpful: “What’s Going On with Your Child” does development (physical, social, intellectual, you name it); “What’s Going On With You” talks about the challenges and opportunities that face a guy trying to be an “involved” dad at that age; “You and Your Child” covers the impact father involvement has at that age and delves into ways to be involved in your child’s education and things to do and watch for at home in other developmental arenas; and “You and Your Partner” touches on relationship stuff at this point in your family’s development.
Underscoring everything is this idea of involvement. When I first saw the subheading “Why Be Involved with Your _____-Year-old?” I was like, “Duh! Who has to be told why you should be involved with your kid?” But thinking about it, removing myself personally from the equation, I have to acknowledge that that’s still a question in our society and culture. Brott tries to support the implied “Duh! Yes!” answer to the question with research. The effect can be a little didactic, though I get what he’s trying to do and why. I mean, he’s not producing a scholarly study here, so there’s no footnotes, but sometimes it feels like the results of one study or another are trotted out to say, hey, see, somebody studied this and proved why you should be an involved dad, so do it. And I know that academic research studies in the social sciences are never that cut-and-dried—there’s always the issue of context, and who the sample was, and what got excluded, and what competing studies say. And so while I understand why research is used in this way, I think it’s a little tricky.
And I wonder if books geared toward moms rely on this approach as much. I wonder if it’s seen as a “guy” thing, that you back up an emotional, personal endeavor like fatherhood with data, with facts, with research. In the chapter on four-year-olds, Brott illustrates what he’s saying about dealing with and enabling your child’s growing independence with an extended excerpt from a first-person piece giving an anecdote about him and his oldest daughter. I thought that this personal illustration was so much more effective than any bulletted list of data points, and I wished he’d used this approach more throughout. But then again maybe it would’ve been a different kind of book.
Because what this is is a guidebook. It’s chock-full of specific ideas for involvement in everything from education to physical activities to reading to video games and beyond. He talks about how household issues can affect childrearing and vice versa, and brings in issues such as gender roles (for child and parent), step-parenting, single parenting, raising developmentally disabled children... It’s a lot to pack into one book, or even a series of books, and I appreciate the effort. And as a former teacher who struggled with the issue of parent involvement, I love the unrelenting emphasis on getting involved with your child’s education, at home and in school, in any way possible. That message can’t be hammered home enough.
But even in Brott’s inclusiveness, a couple things stuck out for me, and maybe that’s just because I’m me. First, let me say that I truly appreciate his child-gender-identification method of alternating “he” and “she” every other chapter except when the subject is gender specific. That’s a conscious choice made in the name of gender equity, and I appreciate it. But, me being me, I was looking to see how other issues of difference would be dealt with. Racial issues get short shrift, with a couple mentions of when kids start to recognized physical differences associated with “race,” specifically tied to transracial adoption. That sort of made me feel that, as a father of color, I wasn’t quite the intended audience. Another thing was how “partners” were addressed. Nowhere did I get the sense that this book was for dads whose partners were other dads. Now, I know that one book can’t be all things to all people, but I can hope, can’t I?
I’ll be honest—I haven’t gotten through the whole book yet, because the prospect, as the father of a not-quite-three-year-old, of thinking about what she’ll be doing, and what
I’ll be doing with her, when she’s NINE is quite psychically daunting. As I did with the What to Expect books, I look forward to reading and rereading these chapters as she and I and her mother grow, and grow up, together, one year at a time.
Thursday, August 9, 2007