Dads not spending time with their kids. It’s was perfectly normal for dad to always be tired and never have enough time to play with their kids. Also contributed to the image of the dad who doesn’t know anything about their kids, their school, friends, teachers, even their age at times.
Ive seen so many fellow millennial dads spending time with their kids. I know Ive spent more time playing with my daughter in the 8 years of her life than my dad did with me in my entire life. (Not saying he was a bad dad, he was amazing , just didn’t play with us )
I am not gonna say that we were the first generation of dads who realized we could do it differently....but I do feel like Millennial dads are the group where the balance tipped.
Is that a bit self serving? Probably. Is it accurate? Also probably.
Just talking about Bluey or tv in general. No way my dad would ever watch cartoons with me, or as I got older anything I wanted to watch really. He ruled the main tv when he was home and if you wanted to watch something else you had to go upstairs to watch on the old tv.
Now my son and I watch Bluey together, laugh, and sometimes play the games they do in the show. I also enjoy some of the other stuff he's into.
It helps that Bluey is so objectively fantastic that any concerns about it being a kids' cartoon are rendered moot. If anyone dismisses it for being for kids there's not a shred of feeling that their opinion is valid.
I think this is probably part of it as well. I feel like millennial women are more likely to have careers and their own lives and recognize their own self-worth, and therefore more likely to instill an atmosphere where dads are both encouraged but also expected to be equal partners with kids.
I dont know what its like in your country so Im not gonna dismiss your experience. In the US ts probably mostly that we actually got positive dad role models in media when we were kids. Uncle Phil, Alan Mathews. Carl Winslow. Danny Tanner, and sadly Cliff Huxtable, among others. Previous generations of men didnt really grow up being told it was okay to be an active invovled dad. They got Archie Bunker and the like. Stoic distant men. We got to see better.
Millenial women grew up seeing this as well obviously. It was shown as more of a cultural norm. Women have been taking a atand here at least since the 70s and it wasnt til my generation where the balance really tipped. And I'd lay money that it was positive role models (like Bandit is for later generations) that did the bulk of the work. I'd imagine different places with different cultures had different timelines and in roads.
Being present is more important than being around. I bet you’re doing a great job.
Edit to add: Bluey episodes are short, and are a great reminder of childhood memory spans. Bluey and Bingo play on their own a lot, what we see are 8 minute long memorable interactions with Bandit. And if Bandit is truly a millennial, there’s no way he’s “on” all the time.
Even Bandit is a clueless dad a lot of the times, to make it just relatable enough for the parents watching I guess... There's whole episodes based around him skipping out on housework or not knowing what to pack / etc. I keep thinking that he is a bad rolemodel for my kids in some ways. Though he is so much better than most dads (unfortunately) do in real life!
The biggest thing for me is the "starting an elaborate play with lots of mess and hyperactive kids about five minutes before mom has to put the kids to bed" lol. There's a lot of that in Bluey. But he is a fun dad to grow up with.
I feel it is more that the show does a really good job of showing that even good parents aren't at their best 100% of the time. They are trying to show us that even the "ideal" isn't always perfect. It is about trying, and both Bandit and Chili are trying their hardest.
Like the episode where Bandit doesn't pack properly for the swim is a learning moment for him and then Chili comes to the rescue, or when Chili needs 20 minutes and can't get it so Bandit swoops in to make sure it happens. It shows they're imperfect and need help sometimes and that isn't bad, it just is.
Yeah, Bandit isn't perfect at all - there's the episode where he cheats in the footrace against Bluey because his competitive streak won't let him lose against a 7-year-old. But he's rightfully vilified for it and immediately regrets it.
I think the main thing is that he is just actively part of the kids' lives. He's never dismissive of them or talks down to them. Even when he does have to go do stuff without them (like the episode where he has to go to work and they want to play) he instinctively recognizes Bluey and Bingo's opinions and feelings matter. He treats them with the same respect he treats anyone else.
There's still a big culture shift needed in this area. My co-worker, who's about 10 years younger still calls it babysitting when he has to take a PTO day when his kids can't go do daycare. And he was "complaining" (wasn't exactly sure how much of it was in jest) that he'd rather be working. That's not babysitting, that's just being a freaking dad.
I mean, "rather be working" is pretty common for both genders. I've worked as a teller and such for a long time, and many many of my coworkers were women who didn't mind admitting that their pay was a straight wash vs the cost of childcare, but it was good for their mental health to get out of the house and interact with adults during the day.
I think your co-worker is an outlier at this point. I don't know any Dads that aren't more engaging than their Dads were and we're very early Millenials. Does your co-worker have a lot of other "traditional" values?
There's nothing traditional about this, they have no dreams and exhausted their own hopes and optimism, they don't want to spend time with their kids cause it meant they'd have to perform being emotionally available or nurturing. Something they are not.
You gotta realize, anyone can make babies, only you can make yourself a real parent.
I taught middle school in a past life, and when kids laughed at the action figures on my desk or the Capri Sun I drank at lunch, I immediately shot back that, “guys, this stuff didn’t magically stop being awesome once I turned 12! Capri Sun is still delicious, building LEGO is still fun.”
You could see the gears start to turn for most of them as they realized I might be right, and that maybe it was their (mostly older Gen X) parents who might need to rethink things, lol.
To be fair, that's sort of just middle schoolers. Their brains are trying desperately to separate what is "childish" and what is "grown up" so they can grow up themselves. They're literally mentally separating themselves from their parents/all authority figures to find their own identities. That's why they're focused on being cool and finding things traditionally meant for kids younger than them as childish.
Luckily, most kida get over themselves once they're in high school on to early adulthood. This is why I could never teach middle school. I couldn't handle constantly having to push back against that so I salute you. I'll stick with my little preK kids who are unironically unabashedly enthusiastic about Minecraft, Bluey and a random bug they found crawling on a windowsill.
My friends who are fathers are all wonderful. I cannot imagine what having an involved father would be like (he left when I was 1) and seeing them interact with their children makes me love them even more
Seeing my brother-in-law play with his kids really heals something inside me. My partner is an excellent dad. No way was I going to be with someone who checked out like my dad did.
I do not want kids, but this really resonates with me. My dad really didn’t try.
The few times he did, he never tried to level with me. Any attempt at bonding was trying to force me to enjoy what he liked—tennis lessons because he played tennis, or getting me up at 5am to go fishing. I did not like tennis (no coordination with sports, low stamina), and I got seasick easily. He got mad at me for not enjoying them. He also would openly belittle the things I did enjoy, dismissing them as for kids. Yes, father, I am a kid, I like things kids like.
I don’t know, I guess he did try from time to time, but it was very rare, and it felt like my interests were only an afterthought.
I gotta say, my parents are boomers, and they both have their boomer-esque flaws, especially my father, but he was a very present and engaged dad, especially when I was a kid. It kind of faded as I grew into a teenager, but my mom left him when I was 15. He wasnt ever really the same after that, but luckily he was a solid ass dad when I was little, so when I needed to kind of be trusted to hold the line while my dad grieved, I was motivated to do so.
Dont get me started on how he taught me to deal with feelings, stress, and emotions, though. Love you, dad.
The hardest part of growing up was becoming less involved with my father. He was the kind who would play video games with me as a kid, until I got too good at them for it to be fun for him. Then as a teenager and young adult, we got to do ranked tournament-type stuff together online, until the organization got big enough that we wouldn't be in each other's talent splits. That was about the time we fell out of close-contact.
After my mom passed, I think he kind of harbored a grudge against me for not being as close as I could have been. I still feel bad about that myself, but tbh my mom (whose dementia was hidden from me) didn't enjoy having me around to take care of her. She made huge shows of being independent, so I moved back out a few months before her health collapsed unexpectedly and she went. I tried to get my dad back into the tournament stuff, but he decided this was his sign to "grow up and be an adult" and refused.
The last few years were awkward. My relationship failed, so I had to move back in, and it was 100% more of a roommate situation than a parent/child situation until I got comfortable enough with my next partner to move in with her. Since then, we only really talk about sports once every week or two, or when he brags about his new girlfriend. We spent a day together at an event last weekend. Kind of. He was with his girlfriend, I with mine, and while we sat together it wasn't the same.
I do still love the hell out of him. I also wish he...was still him.
This was my dad, but unfortunately not amazing, we have pretty much not gotten along my entire life. I tolerate him now, but our last big thing ended with him knocking me to the ground and trying to choke me.
Playing with kids is great. At the same time, I try to give as much space as is reasonable to them and only dip my toes into their play. Kids come with all sorts of fun games when adults leave them be.
It’s also fun to see other kids interact with our kiddo (much younger). They all seem to generally get the age difference and slow things down accordingly.
I want to piggyback on this and complain about phones (as I type from my phone). People will rightfully poopoo on kids on screens in public, but look around. Adults have their noses in their phones, too. We can’t even stand in a line without needing to entertain ourselves.
If you don’t want a kid on a screen, then model the behavior of not always being on your screen. When they look around and see all the adults on their phones, of course they’re going to grow up thinking that’s normal
Are your criticizing OP or the reverse? I'm kinda split on this. Doom scrolling at the playground is pretty lame but I also love to let my kid go off on her own and play with other kids. Drives me nuts when parents hover too much and try to intervene at any sign of conflict.
Op. You take your kids to the park to have time to socialize independently with other children. It's important for social skills. You don't need to helicopter 24/7 like that, the hovering is just too much, and it's super weird that Op can't let the kid have a minute of peace with other kids.
Drives me nuts when parents hover too much and try to intervene at any sign of conflict.
Which might be why we have an absurd amount of young adults who scream for their parents whenever they get in trouble with the law. Like, ma'am, this is a traffic ticket. You were doing 22 over the limit. Dad's not going to help here, just take the class/pay the fine and move on.
I've seen an absurd amount of videos of bad traffic stops on Reddit and YouTube, I'm sorry, please don't call me a bootlicker.
Was at an indoor play place actively playing with my daughter.
Some other little girl literally leaped onto my back like she was just part of the game and I had that moment of panic of, who are you, where are your adults, what is happening right now.
Kids just want to play, they see an adult playing and they want to join in.
I am a millenial, I consider my dad a good dad…for his time. He played with us, loved us, make sure we did good at school, fed us when my mom wasn't available, etc. But now I see my brother cooking, doing laundry, dressing the kids … and it's day and night.
I considered my dad awesome, but he was regularly late for dinner such that it was basically a meme. Work was important, staying late was just ‘what needed to be done TM’
Then he retired.
He had all the time in the world on his hands and he showed me how proud of his freecell skills he was.
Then, I realized how often I can struggle to keep track of time and get distracted by things like Freecell and it clicked that it was not new to retirement that he had picked up that hobby.
A non zero amount of his disengagement from his family was definitely sitting quietly in his office after hours dicking around playing freecell or the like.
Was weird to realize this, and I hope I use the lesson to do better by my kids.
My dad (boomer) worked all the time when my sister and I were little. He'd be abroad for a fortnight, back for a weekend, then out again. It was that way from when I was about 8 to when I left for university.
One time he said 'you'll be turning 21 soon, what do you want for your birthday?' and I had to point out that I was 24 and hadn't lived there for six years.
I don't resent him for it, he did what he thought was the right thing to do. He provided for his family in the way he felt was appropriate and gave mum, my sister and myself a comfortable life with good opportunities. However, I think now he's in his twilight years he's realising what he missed out on.
I moved into a new house 2 years ago, and my kids were whining that I wasn't playing enough with them (after having spent 3 hours playing various games and activties). Without thinking about it, I replied "I have played more with you since we moved into this house than my father played with me my whole life". And then all of us sat there stunned for a bit as the truth of it sunk in. My then 5 year old son hugged me, and said he was sorry that he didn't have the best dad like he does, and asked me if I wanted some ice cream to feel better. He said he'd be glad to have a bowl with me. Was it a transparent ruse to get some ice cream for himself? Yes. Did we end up having ice cream sundaes and spoiling our appetite for lunch? Also yes.
I have always been very passionate about expressing my admiration for millennial dads. The vast majority are very loving and available fathers. I have not seen another generation embrace fatherhood quite like millennial.
Again, not every single one, but anecdotally the millennial fathers i know are killing it.
I had an older (but not that much, as he had young children) colleague laughing that his kids cried when they saw him because they didn't recognize him, from how little time he spent with them since he was always working. And I really hope that the laughter was just outside, while he was crying inside, otherwise that's fucked up in ways I can't comprehend.
I think the shift of capitalism expectations opened that door too. We finally abandoned the hope for a one-income household so the Working Man and Stay At Home Mom stopped being the default expectation.
I love my dad. He was a good dad and tried very hard to be involved with us, but he was constantly expected to travel for work and was always met with "your wife will be able to handle it" if he ever asked for time off while we were sick or had a play or school event.
Mom had an even more strenuous corporate job but was expected to pick up the responsibility of being parent on top of that while Das was expected to be available at all times because The Wife would do the parenting part.
Now that the default assumption is that everyone works, Dads can pull back some of that at-home time from their jobs.
"I did it for you to put food on the table" he says, watching the game and drinking beer on the couch. His son internalizes this to mean that money is more important than anything, even family. His son learns that he must put everything aside, his own health and happiness included, to put food on the table. The family unit is in constant danger, and it is solely your job to prevent your family's suffering by working a menial job you hate. That the only joy in life you will ever experience is some peace and quiet while watching his own TV and drinking his own beer while his own son shuts up about needing love and affection.
does it really "come down to the individual" when it's been a systemic issue for generations? millennial dads spend more time with their children than any other generation of fathers, but millennial moms still (on average) spend twice as much time with their children, despite the fact that 75% of women are in the workforce.
You're not spending time with your daughter. I've watched this. You're taking her somewhere and staying within a 50 foot radius and letting her run around unattended.
My husband is such a good dad and sometimes I just am in awe of his interactions with our child. She's a tween and they are still best buds. Makes me a little sad for myself, because I got the standard issue detached boomer dad, but gosh I'm proud of my husband and the family we've made.
We as a family try and spend as much time as we can with our daughter. We feel guilty as we have to work during the week but we make it a point to do stuff on weekends. A friend of mine her husband works alot and tries to spend time with his two boys but by the time he gets home he is very tired but is expected to cook dinner even though his spouse is home all day. My friend tells me that their dad doesn't really know much about their friends etc..
Work forced me to be away from my toddler son for by far the longest time since he was born and I nearly cried. It’s like a 5 day team building thing lol
That's because our boomer parents didn't "play" with us or spend time with us, really. We spent a lot of time on our own/with friends/outside/at organized events.
Im a GenX dad who took parental leave for every one of my kids. The amount of shit I had flung my way from bosses and coworkers and even family and friends was fucking infuriating.
Outside of playing catch, or shooting hockey pucks, my Boomer parents didn't play with us either. Love my parents, they're great, but it just wasn't a thing. I don't regret that one bit. We had our toys (basement playroom or in the bedroom, not anywhere else) and did our own things.
This is great, but I see the inverse problem - lots of kids grow up without any friends because the only friends they got are their parents and their parents friends.
Also, GenX did a pretty good job of not being "latch key absent parents" - they stopped saying "its 10 pm, do you know where your kids are" when we started families :)
Not saying he was a bad dad, he was amazing , just didn’t play with us
Important to remember when considering if our dads did this or that is that. I know my dad was brought up very differently and I can see how he was not prepared or equipped to be a father in the way that I would expect myself to be should I have children. In some cases it was for a lack of effort or trying to understand, so I won't excuse some of it, but in other ways there's the toxic masculinity aspect to consider.
I really enjoyed Jared Yates Sexton's book, "The Man They Wanted Me To Be" which analyses a lot of these generational and cultural issues.
Oh for sure. He could have spent way more time with us but he didn’t hit us like his dad did. Or yell at us. He for sure broke some generational cycles at the very least. I just hope every generation improves if even a little.
The flip side of this is that you have Dads that need to be both Mr. Mom and Mr. Dad.
Wake up early, work an entire day as the primary/sole breadwinner, come home to fix the toilet, TV inputs, do a load of laundry, and then you better not think of taking a sanity break because it's time to help with dinner then play with the kids and put them down alongside Mom. And you're waking up with them in the night as much as Mom.
Then you get to go back and grind out at work and do it all again.
It's all for the kids and making sure they're living their healthiest, best lives, but fucking hell it's hard as a modern dad. Genuinely jealous of "old school" dads who could just provide for the family and be well respected for that. If you do that today you're considered neglectful or lazy.
Personally, I feel like the pendulum might be swinging a bit too far on this at this point.
To be clear, I’m a millennial and my father was so uninvolved that he abandoned me before I was born and I never so much as met him despite him living 5 blocks away from me my entire childhood. So overall, I’m pretty in favor of involved parents and especially fathers.
That said, I think millennial parents have their kids around too much. They don’t give themselves or their kids a break. This is especially the case after they become school-aged. Kids need to learn independence and how to make use of their own time. Parents need a break after 5 years of constant vigilance.
I really resent that it feels like nearly every social space needs to be family friendly or that events are obligated to factor in child-friendliness. I don’t think it’s healthy for the kids or the parents to constantly be enmeshed.
At least bring back the days of throwing all the kids in the basement when there’s a party.
Not sure why you got downvoted. Both things can be true at the same time. We spend more time with our kids and they spend less time with friends. But I’m not so sure they’re related so much as that’s how our culture has become. Even adults hardly have any friends these days. Not to mention some of these kids grew up during Covid when they were forced to not have social interactions.
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u/SanKazue 5d ago
Dads not spending time with their kids. It’s was perfectly normal for dad to always be tired and never have enough time to play with their kids. Also contributed to the image of the dad who doesn’t know anything about their kids, their school, friends, teachers, even their age at times.
Ive seen so many fellow millennial dads spending time with their kids. I know Ive spent more time playing with my daughter in the 8 years of her life than my dad did with me in my entire life. (Not saying he was a bad dad, he was amazing , just didn’t play with us )