There is no one-size-fits-all, stop the dad-shaming

Funny as it was, the entrenched cliche of dads as verbal haemophiliacs does more harm than good. It's one of a handful of pervasive perceptions that fathers are liabilities who thrive and survive despite themselves.

Social media is full of gags of dads "babysitting" their children and the inevitable incompetence that ensues. Everything from greeting cards to books and movies pushes the cliche that fathers, mainly when left alone with a baby, are something less than mothers.

There is an enormous amount of self-congratulatory chatter online about fathers' great strides in being "involved and very active in everyday parenting." One utterly abysmal reflection noted that more fathers are "taking parental leaves, pushing strollers, volunteering in schools, and yes, carrying their babies in public. So to hear that dads are being ridiculed for their parenting decisions is very disappointing."

Reading that feels like the old stereotype of taciturn, light-touch Edwardian fathers is not as distant as some might think. The conversation is still remarkably zero-sum between fathers who do nothing and those who do the most basic, performative tasks. The implication is that mothers remain the primary caregivers, or worse—that they should be so.

The two most prominent factors are biological and institutional. Mothers carry the child, give birth to it, and nurse it. Maternity leave and most biological care responsibilities generally fall primarily to mothers, particularly in the first months of a child's life. The institutional feeds very much into this reality: Dads have only up to two statutory weeks (unless they have an enhanced contractual package or mix in their annual leave) to learn the ropes. They are treated as a support act.

Women face an enormous physical and emotional challenge in becoming first-time mothers, but maternity leave grants them more leeway. Fathers, the punchline for incompetence and not-as-good-as-mum gags, have two weeks to rise to a role society demands we be more invested in.

The error, both statutorily and socially, is in presuming that stress is somehow elective or self-imposed.

In the absence of serious, sustained political pressure to raise the quality of the debate, we have comedy and dad-shaming in its place. The hard reality is the toxicity and perpetuation of this reality is by men themselves. Entire campaigns and charities are centred on encouraging men to speak about their feelings and their mental health because suicide is the second most common killer of males under 45 years old.

By the same extension, it should come as no surprise that men find it difficult to talk about how daunting it is to become a father in a language landscape centred on the primacy of the female experience as a zero-sum expression.

In many ways, the generational division between mothers and fathers has been torn down, in the same way that there is an expectation that mothers return to work. The same deconstruction is true in reverse: fathers are not the austere, distant type. But where there is a treasure trove of stories and lived experiences from women to draw upon, there are very few laid-out paths for fathers.

As a sex, vocalisation is the number one perpetrator of most of our troubles. Whether physical or mental health or personal or professional hardships, we are either not hard-wired or socially conditioned to readily divulge our weaknesses and vulnerability.

Compounding it is the dad-shaming that treats speaking up as needless attention-seeking hyperbole to gain equal footing with mothers. The same accusation of reactionaryism plagues anyone who suggests International Men's Day is given a specific agenda to tackle specific male issues. To do so is taboo and ridiculed, or worse, to be accused of misogyny and mischief-making.

Fathers versus expectant fathers are a remarkably passive-aggressive subset. The resentments of the former seep into guidance to the latter: “You'll never sleep again, see your friends again or have a moment to yourself again.” It's the same rubbish on par with husbands-to-be being told to "drink up and enjoy" because the "old ball and chain" will never let you out again.

Societally, we are sincerely lagging in a realistic discussion about the challenges faced by both sexes. A better, more realistic maxim is do for you and yours what works for you and yours. There is no one-size-fits-all.

The moment they become pregnant, mothers are under an unrelenting and judgmental microscope. They are dragged over the coals for almost every decision they make, from pregnancy diets, breastfeeding, and going back to work to dressing, feeding, and disciplining their children. Dads are, too, but this manifests in comedic stereotypes that avoid addressing their unique challenges.

If we're honest, dads are more maligned than respected. The ugly depiction of a mother pining for a glass of wine at 6pm is as dull as it is offensive. Not every grandad is mildly racist; not every uncle is devil-may-care, and not every grandmother is a fusspot.

Dads are just as much a punchline because of the anecdotal, the reality and the quiet struggle are not openly discussed. It would be funny if not for a society starved of authority figures. It will only harm our children when the joke finally falls flat.