# Raising sons shouldn't be and isn't just the mother's job **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 16, 2024, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/raising-sons-shouldnt-be-and-isnt-just-the-mothers-job/1001652 "2024-05-16T21:00:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2024, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/raising-sons-shouldnt-be-and-isnt-just-the-mothers-job/1001652/41 "2024-05-17T15:59:30Z")
My wife travels extensively for her work, averaging about one week a month, although she will have trips of up to three weeks. Before, she was the one to manage all the doctor appointments, school stuff and such, but because she’s gone so much, it’s just easier for me to take care of it. I think a lot of fathers fail to appreciate the amount of work it all takes. I know I was really surprised at the amount of time and energy it takes. Even meal planning. Because our kids have to take lunches to school, we are cooking close to 21 meals a week. It’s just constant. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2024, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/raising-sons-shouldnt-be-and-isnt-just-the-mothers-job/1001652/42 "2024-05-17T16:06:41Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > More vagueness doesn’t answer what you mean by “it only takes a “child” to raze a village”. I suspect it was a joke regarding how much chaos children can cause. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2024, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/raising-sons-shouldnt-be-and-isnt-just-the-mothers-job/1001652/43 "2024-05-17T16:10:49Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I suspect it was a joke regarding how much chaos children can cause. My daughter once built an entire town in our guest room. It was built out of cardboard boxes and populated with her stuffies and other toys, and it was awesome–until my parents came to visit, and I made her take it down. I sadly informed her that it takes a child to raze a village. That’s a lie. I wasn’t sad at all. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2024, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/raising-sons-shouldnt-be-and-isnt-just-the-mothers-job/1001652/44 "2024-05-17T16:18:14Z")
If “child” wasn’t in scare quotes I would have thought the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![JackieLikesVariety](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackielikesvariety/32/296_2.png) [@JackieLikesVariety](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JackieLikesVariety)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2024, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/raising-sons-shouldnt-be-and-isnt-just-the-mothers-job/1001652/45 "2024-05-17T16:33:51Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > I think a lot of fathers fail to appreciate the amount of work it all takes. I know I was really surprised at the amount of time and energy it takes. Invisible work is an absolutely huge thing, someone I read recently said “western Europe has a safety net. the US has women” ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2024, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/raising-sons-shouldnt-be-and-isnt-just-the-mothers-job/1001652/46 "2024-05-17T16:36:51Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > > [@Common\_Tater](#): > > > > If “it takes a village to raise a child” you’re doing it wrong. > > Most of the world through most of history has been doing it wrong, then. > > Even our society, heavy on the idea that the nuclear family should be able to manage alone, provides schools, libraries, parks, playgrounds, scouting and 4H, etc. And, in very many cases, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friendly neighbors, etc. This. It’s not like I just dump my kids in the world and the “village” keeps an eye on them. - Obviously my wife and I have primary responsibility for raising them. - There is the extended family of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins with varying degrees of interaction and involvement (largely based on proximity). - Our network of friends and neighbors - Teachers and coaches - Any hired staff such as nannies, tutors, or our building concierges Although maybe the one thing that has changed a bit from when I was my kid’s age back in the 80s is that we used to be able to just go out “into the world”. No, we never actually searched for a dead body or old pirate treasure or fought some sort of interdimensional horror or anything like that. But I like to think that we were prepared to do so if we had to. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2024, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/raising-sons-shouldnt-be-and-isnt-just-the-mothers-job/1001652/47 "2024-05-17T16:37:49Z")
I think in our effort to center the important issues of labor and cultural expectations of husbands and wives, we can loose sight of the impacts on the child. Even when one parent is doing most of the “raising” in an active way (assuming a mostly stable two parent household), the child is learning from both parents equally. Or, in a more straightforward way: disengaged parenting is just as impactful as engaged parenting. It would be interesting to shift the narrative from “both parents are responsible for raising their children” to “both parents by definition are always raising their children. So take it seriously.” Lack of intention/attention on the part of one parent doesn’t mean they’re not teaching their children, and expecting that one parent or the other is going to be ‘doing the raising’ and that the child will magically only learn from that one parent is a comfortable fiction that pretends that the less engaged parent is not influencing their children. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2024, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/raising-sons-shouldnt-be-and-isnt-just-the-mothers-job/1001652/48 "2024-05-17T16:44:32Z")
That’s a really good point! ---
**Author:** ![JackieLikesVariety](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackielikesvariety/32/296_2.png) [@JackieLikesVariety](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JackieLikesVariety)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2024, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/raising-sons-shouldnt-be-and-isnt-just-the-mothers-job/1001652/49 "2024-05-17T21:30:02Z")
it is a very good point > [@Eonwe](#): > > Or, in a more straightforward way: disengaged parenting is just as impactful as engaged parenting. but it is also only making one of the parents physically exhausted. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2024, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/raising-sons-shouldnt-be-and-isnt-just-the-mothers-job/1001652/50 "2024-05-17T22:09:18Z")
No argument there. I just think it’s important for parents to realize that, even if both parents are in agreement about whatever division of labor they’ve got going on, both of them are impacting their child all the time. For example, model a hands-off father/hands-on mother approach, and you’re teaching sons and daughters (and others) what to expect from a father, mother, husband, wife. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2024, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/raising-sons-shouldnt-be-and-isnt-just-the-mothers-job/1001652/51 "2024-05-19T21:27:25Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > > [@msmith537](#): > > > > I suspect it was a joke regarding how much chaos children can cause. > > My daughter once built an entire town in our guest room. It was built out of cardboard boxes and populated with her stuffies and other toys, and it was awesome–until my parents came to visit, and I made her take it down. I sadly informed her that it takes a child to raze a village. > > That’s a lie. I wasn’t sad at all. That’s hilarious. I’m just glad my daughter hasn’t decided to build a stuffy village. Although one time I fell asleep on the couch and when I awoke I found she had amassed her army of stuffies to lay siege to me like I were some sort of sleeping giant. I’d like to get my kids to raze the Lego village they built, but it seems like it just keeps getting “gentrified” with increasingly larger and more elaborate constructs. And when I say “village” I mean they’ve Legoscaped our entire apartment and have arguments about which district the school or the botanical garden or whatever should go into like it’s some sort of town council meeting. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/raising-sons-shouldnt-be-and-isnt-just-the-mothers-job/1001652.md?page=2)