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Parenting always valuable, whether it fits the mould or not

Men who wish to play a more active role in their children’s lives are often hindered by archaic stereotypes of male breadwinners and female caregivers.

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Jolene Tan, Programmes and Communications Senior Manager, Association of Women for Action and Research

Men who wish to play a more active role in their children’s lives are often hindered by archaic stereotypes of male breadwinners and female caregivers.

It is therefore unfortunate that the letter “Fathers deserve more recognition” (June 14) promotes rigid ideas about parenting, pigeonholing people according to gender and not reflecting the rich diversity of our social reality.

The writer allocates fixed roles to parents based on gender, such as “providers of comfort” and “play exploration”, with no regard for personal temperaments, preferences or strengths.

Individuals have different aptitudes and traits, regardless of gender, and bring their own qualities to parenting.

As the parent of a toddler, I am familiar with the anxiety many new parents experience in the face of panic-mongering media and social messages about the “correct” way to raise children. It is unhelpful and stifling to add to that pressure by setting gendered standards for all, needlessly worrying some who might wonder if they are bad parents because they do not conform to narrow prescriptions about whether they should “calm” or “startle” a baby.

These stereotypes are exclusionary to those parents who are trying to do right by their children and happen not to follow some idealised template of mother, father and children, perhaps because they are unmarried, divorced, widowed or in same-sex relationships.

Assertions about the alleged damage of “father absence” alienate children who might grow up without fathers for various reasons.

Rather than promote prejudices about gender and parenting, we can do more to support fathers and all caregivers by recognising that childcare is valuable labour, whether it is done by mothers, fathers, grandparents, domestic workers or anyone else.

As with all work, each of us must learn how to do it. We will get better at it through experience and humility, bringing to the task our individual flair and flavours.

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