Stay-at-Home Dad Writes That He 'Spiraled Into Darkness' When His Young Son Started to Boys' Stuff Like Tractors

Peter Dejong. Shutterstock Images.

I have sort of a tacit, unspoken rule when it comes to all other parents. Which is, I don't tell them how to raise their kids and they don't tell me how to raise mine. It's a good arrangement for a lot of reasons. Not the least of which is that if I tried to parent other people's kids, I'd just have them cleaning up after me and doing all my yardwork while I sit on the deck with a book and a cigar. (I could use the help, since I failed miserably to get either of my sons to ever lift a finger around Stately Thornton Manor.) But mainly because it's best to just let everyone skate their own lane. Or in my family's case, for me to stay out of the way while my Nuturing Irish Rose acted as her baby boys' moral compass. It was best for all involved. That way I didn't poison the well with my own debauchery, and it freed me up for yardwork, reading and cigars. 

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I mean, that's not entirely true. Unlike my dad's generation, I did change diapers, take the early morning feedings (which to me were basically an hour to myself so I could watch early 2000s DVDs like Anchorman and Fellowship of the Ring uninterrupted while mom got some rest), and sometimes stay home from work when they were sick. And then when they got older, coached their sports and so on. But there was never any doubt who the primary caregiver in this family dynamic was. And it all pretty much worked out. 

I say all this as a preamble to a story about an editorial that appears on The Today Show website. And reading it, I can't help but draw a through line from my John "Bud" Thornton's role as dad, to mine, to what fatherhood has become for some in 2022:

Source - After turning 2 years old, my son, Avishai, started demanding that he only wear tractor shirts, and my mind spiraled into darkness. I catastrophized worst-case scenarios, imagining a world where he fell for everything stereotypically manly. I envisioned him on a football field, barreling through mega-muscled opponents. Imagined him waxing a sports car on a warm summer day. I have always judged other guys who seemed boxed in by masculinity, but 3 ½  years ago, when I became a stay-at-home dad, my bias skyrocketed. …

To me, femininity was connected to empathy and kindness while masculinity equated to being frigid. Men didn’t hug. Men didn’t say I love you. Men were angry. Aggressive. Inept as parents. I became determined. I was going to create a bond stronger than any parent had ever achieved, but I told myself that to do so I needed to distance myself from anything deemed masculine. …

I began attending mommy-and-me playgroups and bristled when other caregivers made jokes about me providing daddy day care … but I too looked at dads that way. … I grimaced at anyone driving a Ford car, the John Wayne of automobiles. I hated men who wore plaid. Felt ill if someone mentioned a wrench or another tool. When my mom-in-law bought Avishai a coverall with footballs on it, I shoved it into the depths of his closet, never to be found. …

Once my son could walk, I paraded him through the park while he rolled his baby doll down the sidewalk in its stroller. I felt accomplished because he mirrored being a caretaker.

But then came the tractors. It started with YouTube. On days I was especially drained, I’d sit Avishai in front of the TV and click on “Little Baby Bum.” He fell in love with the tractor songs, and I was so worn, I didn’t care. When he asked to watch clips of construction equipment, I mindlessly pressed play. But when he demanded the shirts, I felt like I failed him.

Boy howdy, there is a lot to unpack here. And I'd apologize for the length of that excerpt, but trust me, that is just a tiny fraction of the outpouring of parental angst the author, Jay Deitcher, overshared with the world. 

Let me save you some time by spoiling the ending: Our guilt-ridden dad has made a sort of uneasy peace with his son's interest in masculine things. After a lot of soul searching and introspection, he's learning to accept the fact that his toddler boy loves things normally associated with … well, with toddler boys. And for that, we can all be genuinely happy for father, son, and the whole family. 

Good for them that the father in this family is no longer "spiraling into darkness" and feeling like he "failed" his boy for being interested in things that come as naturally for boys as liking dogs, cartoons and Mac & Cheese. And that he's maybe over the "worst case scenario" nightmarish visions of his son being a star athlete, waxing up his cherry Ford Mustang (that would've been the envy of a man like Duke Wayne), or - Gaia Mother Earth forbid - wearing plaid. 

So this isn't about how another dad chooses to raise his kids. I'm just here to drill down on an attitude that says masculinity itself is the enemy of all that is good in rearing children. How far off does your world view have to be from reality in order to convince yourself that men don't hug their kids or tell them they love them, are always angry, aggressive, and inept as parents? How bloody warped is that perception? And is there another demographic in the world you could say that about without being accused of some sort of bigotry? But say it about all fathers - beside yourself, of course - and that makes you, what? Virtuous? Enlightened? Superior to all other fathers? 

Look, I'm just a rugged, virile Silver Fox, so maybe I'm biased in this. But I reject this notion that all masculinity is a negative. Toxic, to use the word our times. Anyone who sees motorized farm equipment as a symbol of male oppression and not a thing his boy would naturally gravitate to doesn't have the first clue about kids. And I say this as a guy who once took my 4-year-old to a Monster Truck Rally. At an indoor arena. I still get PTSD from the memory. But asking him not to love giant, impressive vehicles at that age is like asking him not breathe air. And I say respectfully that anyone who feels ill at the mention of a wrench or some other tool doesn't need to be working out his issues on his son or in a national news site nearly as much as he could use some serious, professional help. 

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But again, I'm glad this guy has come to grips with it all. The idea that your son might grow up to be a football star who works under the hood of his polished up Ford hypo while rocking a flannel - essentially doing the things that make men sexually attractive to women - might be the stuff of nightmares for guys like Jay Deitcher. But I like to believe we still live in America where that is every other dad's dream.