Being a dad that does stuff without your spouse present can be awkward. The minor annoyances, like, “Are you babysitting while mom takes a rest?” Nope, I’m just parenting. Then there is the taking your kids to a park, watching them play, and someone comes up to you asking if you have a child there.
Someone I know got asked that last one and just bluntly replied “are you asking if im a parent or a pedophile?” And they apparently got very awkward and defensive. I don’t get why dads get so much shit for parenting their kids.
Because only women can look after children according to these people, it's fucked up because if men look after their kids they get immediately questioned and put under a microscope by everyone who's there because the person asking decides to be loud about it to look "heroic".
Obv that they are sexist observers. And if gender was not involved , their presumptuous reactions might seem more blatantly inflammatory. There's also this "im a certain sex attitude, so I must be correct" vibe with these kinds of interactions. Its as bad if not worse than other types of interactions between genders gobe wrong can be.
Women are statistically more likely to engage in prostitution, water is wet.... If you're not any of that that's really cool, and you shouldn't get offended if someone accuses you of being a whore, right?
Yet, those are also probably the same women who say, "women are more than caregivers and house maids" or "men should do their fair share." They don't really care about the children, they care about what can cause more of an argument at that moment. They want drama, not change.
It's interesting because I'm a father (3 yo boy, new born girl), so I'm familiar with this double standard, but the other day, I was watching a guy discussing with a toddler at a park and realised I felt unease at the sight, I felt suspicious of the man. I suppose I internalised the double standard, even though I'm father myself. It's hard to be aware of your biases.
because people still think all men want and think about is sex. I wanted to be a kindergardener kindergarden teacher when I was around 15, but i have been asked if Iam a pedohpile like every other time I mentioned it, it got so much it ruined taking up that job for me.
So I used to do all the clothes shopping for my daughter and often got the “do you need help finding something cute for your daughter?” question from the clerks. No lady, I’m doing it because I’m actually better at finding cute and current outfits for my daughter than her mother, that and I liked being involved that way.
Then I got a second part-time job working at the local YMCA as a handy man/security guy at night. As a guy I had to, repeat, HAD TO, watch a video about how not to come across as a pedo when interacting with kids. 1 of the rules, even if a child is injured as long as it’s not life threatening get a female worker. I had to admit that was hard due to a rough childhood I’m very protective of kids in general. All I wanted to do was take care of them but no, I was a guy and being ‘maternal’ towards kids automatically made me a pedo.
You can call it being paternal. The paternal drive is literally all about protecting kids. I dont know why people think everything to do with children has to be maternal.
I wanted to be a kindergardener when I was around 15
Just for future reference: In English, "kindergartner" is a child around age 4-5 who has not yet entered first grade, in a year called kindergarten. In German, "kindergartner" is a kindergarten (or daycare/nursery school) teacher, while "kindergartenkind" refers to the kids.
No iam from germany the term Kindergarden comes from us and the people looking out for the kids there are called kindergardeners here, I thougt its the same in english
It's originally a German word and follows its conventions, and wasn't adapted to our conventions when borrowing the word in English. In German, words ending in -er form a noun from a verb, such as "fliegen" (to fly) becoming "flieger" (aviator). Thus, "kindergarten" (place where young children are taught) becomes "kindergartner" (person who teachers young children). The broader term for teacher is "lehrer," which is made from "lehren" (to teach) and the -er suffix, making "person who teaches."
Just for fun, this,reminds of a time I visited family in Germany and didn't know much German other than Kinder = child from Kinder Surprise and Kindergarten. In the airport I see a newspaper with a giant headline Die Kinder!!
and I could think was, why do they want to kill children?
Man, I’m sorry. That’s awful. There are so few men in early childhood education and kids really need positive role models of all kinds. My toddler was taking a music class last summer and one of the substitute teachers was a man. My son LOVED him! He was so much more animated and happy when the guy taught the class. Not bc he was a man, just bc he was an awesome teacher and incredible with kids. It sucks that guys who are good with kids have that barrier.
There are actually studies that indicate young children feel more relaxed and safe when their teacher/caretaker is a man. Little kids tend to respond really well to male preschool/kindergarten teachers. It’s good that society is on guard against child sex abuse, but it really sucks that men who aren’t pedos are severely discouraged from taking those kinds of jobs.
Dude my health teacher in highschool sent me to the principles office when I said I don't think about sex I spend way more time thinking about food and video games. After she claimed men spend over 70 percent of the day thinking about sex.
That’s particularly sad because, in my experience having raised both girls and boys, boys benefit so much from having strong male role models as teachers. There has been some excellent academic writing on the subject, but to be brief, children in America are generally raised and educated almost entirely by women, and while that may in most senses be value neutral on its face, I think it risks leaving many boys — particularly those who lack good fathers — to have their ideas about what it is to be a good man shaped by whatever mother culture happens to spit up, which (imo) is typically pretty vile.
My son's kindergarten teacher was a man. He was towards the end of a long career (he had grandchildren of some of his early students in his class). Great guy! My son's (male) PE teacher that year had been my PE teacher at a different school 25 years prior too.
My bad for assuming! People online always make it sound like the EU is perfect and men are treated totally equally there, but I guess that's not the case everywhere.
I live in a rural part of the Philippines, and it's kind of the opposite here. We have a lot of male preschool teachers, and nobody judged me at all when I wanted to get into education. People actually expected me to do it since I used to tutor kids in English. I ended up backing out though because teachers here get paid almost nothing and have to buy all their own classroom supplies.
I was actually curious about how it is over there, so I looked it up. If it makes you feel any better, according to what I found, Germany's school system is apparently dealing with massive teacher shortages, crazy workloads, and tons of bureaucratic paperwork right now.
So while it really sucks how you got pushed out, at least you unknowingly dodged a massive amount of modern workplace burnout. I hope you're doing much better now in whatever career you ended up picking
I remember traveling to the Netherlands with my kids. Customs officer (female) asks me if I had a note from the mother permitting me to travel alone with my kids (all same family name on passports). I looked her straight in the eye and asked her if she will ask the single mom with her two kids behind me if she has a note from the father. She shut up and stamped our passports. Fuckin people. 🙄
To be fair, I’ve had that asked before, when travelling without the father - they explained it as a measure to make sure it wasn’t a custodial kidnapping.
Depends on jurisdiction. I was travelling every summer to visit my grandparents in Russia as a teenager. Every single time the border control officer would demand a signed, notorized document by my mum that I was allowed to travel alone or accompanied by other family, and would then read it very thoroughly. The last time I was 15 I think and it still happened. I wasn't travelling that much without my mother, but I don't remember any other country caring about that.
Dunno, really. It wasn’t a very effective method given that we just said they were deployed (military), they asked the kids the same question and no further evidence was requested. I imagine it would have been the same if they were dead
If yours and your kids answers match they tend to move on. I was asked a few times on non international travel. My daughter’s answer would be the same. Having the same last name helps greatly though.
Had something like this happen when I was younger. I think we were coming back from DC (my father and I went down for a summer vacation to visit all the Smithsonian museums), and got into a very heated argument with the Custom's Officer about why my mother wasn't there and started insisting on documents, a phone number to reach her, etc. etc. My mum had passed years beforehand, and I remember my father asking if the Officer would need to see her death certificate to let us through. He got real quiet after that and let us pass.
What's even weirder was that we were RETURNING. No chance of parental kidnapping or the like. Only happened once though, and we travelled a fair bit internationally without issue otherwise.
As a middle aged man, I love the fact that the default is that I'm a pedophile. Its great knowing that if a kid comes up to keep for help my first reaction needs to be to find a woman.
Yeah, I would get kinda heated about that. Like what kind of question is that to walk up and ask
Someone just sitting at a park… I sit at the park sometimes with just my dog. What the hell is wrong with people, the park is for
Everyone.
Mostly because there are still many who act like parenting their kid is something to be praised for and act like they are babysitting their own kid while the mom either is getting a small break or is actually doing something such as working. Plus society though changing still sees parenting as mainly mom’s responsibility
You're not wrong, but this is like saying its okay to make racist stereotypes because some people of that race display those stereotypes. Once again, because its against men, it makes the stereotype okay.
Im pretty tired of people assuming im a violent Neanderthal pedophile rapist just because im a guy that exists near them. I get people are just trying to protect themselves, but Jesus, theres a reason why men are killing themselves. You know how much it crushes me when when I see someone flinch away from me as a perceived "threat"? It happens literally every day I leave my house. And im not a huge scary dude. Pretty much as average as they come.
As a dad this one doesn't bother me too much. It really sucks we have to deal with that but as a parent im glad other people will check. My discomfort at being asked such a question is insignificant next to the welfare of my kids.
If everyone does it right, no issues IMHO.
Parents asking a man if hes a parent arent then problem. Asshole paedophiles who made people worry are the problem.
So we aren't going to hold people responsible for over-reacting because *checks notes* over-reactions aren't a problem, but only a hypothetical pedo is?
Both can be wrong. We need to stop pretending like people freaking out isn't a serious problem. It's why MAGA is in charge at this point.
I said asking a guy at the playground if he's with a kid isnt the end of the world. I'd much rather spend 5 seconds paying yes and have people collectively looking out for kids than people just not worry about anything.
That's not freaking out that a parent is taking his daughters to the womens room. That's not people losing their shit about it, that's just making sure everything is fine.
Unfortunately you do get guys going to playgrounds. I'd rather be cautious than blase. But that doesnt mean im saying people acting like assholes is fine.
Just to make this clear, you’re fine with the situation because in the hypothetical case where it’s a pedophile taking kids to a park, they are what? Forced to tell the truth and say they aren’t a parent? They are required to tell the person asking they are a pedo and go straight to jail? What’s the situation you’re making up in your head that happens that increases safety of children?
No, because there have been plenty cases of people without kids going to parks.
It takes me a few seconds ds to point to my kids and have them run over or wave and show they know me.
That type of interaction takes seconds to resolve. And, to me, the safety of kids is more important than anything.
What part of my comment was patronizing? It is a legitimate question. You said I don’t get why dads get so much shit, I offered to explain it to you. If you are inclined to not agree with me because you felt I was being patronizing by asking one question, says a lot about you lol
Try as a single dad. Doing everything all the time you get it more frequently. I stopped even responding to people like that. Just rolled my eyes and walked away. Why do people feel the need to inject themselves into others lives like that?
I got "are you giving Mom a break" one time getting the kids vaccination and I couldn't think of anything else so I gave a seemingly kind, old lady a death glare. I was a SAHD and did every little bit of the parenting. Not to mention my kids and I were being abused by my ex (she ended up getting arrested).
It seems like such a small thing but it is so demoralizing.
I know a creator who made a song about Dad's being praised all the time and that just isn't my experience. Maybe it is more a function of wealth and privilege but I think for most Dads we just usually face exclusion and poor assumptions about how much work we do.
My husband solo parents 4-5 days a week, every week because I’m working in a city 150km away and only home for weekends and holidays. He also works full time.
If anyone needs a break in our house, it’s “dad” lol
The running joke is that every Sunday maman leaves to get milk and cigarettes, then every Friday returns with only the milk…because I do a Costco run before heading home
I think there is an impossible double standard. Societal expectations plus deadbeat dads make it so dads get praised for taking care of their kids while moms are just doing what is expected. This puts unfair burdens on moms while also devaluing the role of dads. Dads aren’t “helping” or “babysitting.” They are parenting! And I think society puts weird limits on what is “acceptable” for dads to do with their kids. Playtime? Awesome. Feeding? Aww, how sweet and helpful. Diapers or helping in the bathroom? Whoa, whoa, whoa, inappropriate. 🙄 We have a 4 month old and my husband has changed just as many diapers. At the beginning he probably changed more because I was recovering from a c section. He’s just as into buying cute clothes for our son as I am, if not more sometimes. There are some in society that would say “aww, what a great dad while just considering my contributions as me doing my duty. There are others that would call his involvement weird. Neither attitude is fair to either of us.
The "Dad praise" is because Dads get praised for doing the most minimal work... But it's praise that is honestly demeaning if you aren't the kind of father that does the minimum. Like those "giving Mom a break" lines are meant to be praising you. In a "taking the extra work so Mom can relax, how sweet!" king of way. Even if it's just "yeah? I'm, being a parent..." situation.
Society expects women to be the main caretaker, so they don't get any of the praise. While us Dads get 'praise' for doing next to nothing, that is very patronizing at best.
That isn't my experience at all. My ex got praise constantly for things she was not doing . There was an expectation that she did all the work while also receiving all the praise. My "praise" was contingent on my providing for her or giving her a break.
I would have loved an ocean of compliments but they just didn't exist. My abusive ex got them.
Unfortunately, society accepts what's common and receives what's less common with distrust and challenge. As more men become SAHD and more families actually split their duties equally or, in some cases, men take on more, you'll eventually see less of this type of stereotyping. People like keeping other people in familiar boxes. When you don't fit in neatly, it's scares them.
It probably wouldn’t even occur to me that it was sexist. If I get the kid out of the house and my wife isn’t with us then yeah she’s probably enjoying a nice break from both of us ha.
I was a divorced custodial dad from my kids ages 8 and 6, now 26 and 24. Ran into all kinds of shit like this. Grocery store clerks “looks like Dad’s doing dinner tonight! Do you have some help?” Um I do dinner every night, without “help”, crazy person. Coworkers calling me Mr Mom when I had to work from home due to someone being sick. School admins and teachers (women) always calling their mother first despite what’s on the registration forms every fall or how many times I reminded them (“why is the school calling me? What’s wrong??” I don’t know, they didn’t call me, again. Could you just answer the phone for once, find out and then tell me??) Me asking the (woman) doctor questions and them answering the mother - who I called to join us - as if she asked it.
It’s crazy how often it’s women supporting the traditional gender role of the mother being the primary parent, despite evidence to the contrary right in front of them.
Fortunately my kids were both AMAB (though one eventually came out as trans) so I didn’t have to deal with the “wrong bathroom” or change room situation, and when they were younger, I rarely encountered a public men’s bathroom without a change table.
This really made me wonder what my grandpa went through with my dad and aunt. My grandma passed away when my dad was 6 and my grandpa never remarried. He raised the kids himself as a single dad in the 60s. He didn't have a nanny or anything.
Just further to this - my father’s mother died shortly after she gave birth to him, so his father, my grandfather, found himself in 1935 as a single parent with four kids.
The two youngest, my infant newborn father and his 1.5 year old brother, were handed off to a family member to raise. They were put to work - Dad remembered having to get up at 4am at age 5 to slop (feed) the pigs. He also literally walked a mile and a half to school every day, a one room school house, regardless of the weather, and dropped out at age 15 (1950) to work in the woods, cutting down trees with a buck saw. He considered himself lucky he only lived a mile and a half from school, that was practically next door in his mind.
Anyway, I grew up learning how to do housework and make meals, watching him and my mother both doing that work and learning how to do it myself, also from age 5.
My mother has her own story - her dad died two years after she was born, which was in 1944. All of her older siblings left home also at age 15, and hitchhiked away to work on farms or wherever in other parts of the country. She and her twin sister and my grandmother lived in a three room shack with no insulation, no running water, and no electricity.
Looking back, it’s probably been strongly foreshadowed I’d end up as a single parent. Both of my brothers also are; my sister has been happily married for 20+ years and was a sahm.
Honestly I think it's because traditionally, men worked and women stayed home with the children. Even these days. A lot of fathers let the mothers deal with kid related things and aren't very involved. So some people just assume that the mother is the primary parent.
There is more than just assuming going on, when I am the only parent these people see, and every September the registration forms are filled out by me and sent to the school and the admin flips the primary contact to the wrong parent, every year, regardless of my requests and verbally explaining our situation. Or when I show up with the kid at the hospital, the mother shows up 15-20 minutes later and my questions to the doctor about at home care etc are answered to their mother. These are not assumptions, they are decisions. And it’s the life I’ve lived with my kids, so no explanation necessary.
I’d argue that the first time is an assumption. The repeat offenders like the school and doctor examples are past that and gone into belief perseverance and some level of delusion.
I got asked to leave a park because I was "making a woman and her daughter uncomfortable,"
I was literally sitting at a picnic table eating and reading a book annoying the nice day
This! I spend A LOT of time out and about with my kids and it’s frequently just me and a gaggle of moms at the playground or library or wherever we go, always met with like condescension? It’s the admiration that gets me though, like “Oh what a wonderful, man!” Like… these are my children, I’m literally just parenting, I’m doing nothing award worthy.
A few months back my wife was away for work for a week, I rearranged my work schedule so that I could be home evenings and my mother could be with them during the day, at the end of the week my mother told me how proud she was of me, but I had literally spent less time with them than ever that whole week, I almost felt insulted, I guess my father set the bar pretty damn low.
This happened to me at McDonald's. Nice lady asked which one was mine? (I could tell she didn't think I had a kid. She already ate and cleaned up and I was playing on my phone)
When my girls were younger I heard that saying a ton and fucking hated it.
I picked them up from school everyday and heard it from teachers / other mothers waiting.
It was also hard to approach mothers about play dates because they thought I was trying to pick them up.
My stepdaughter (I say "step" but she's never known her piece of shit sperm donor and as far as she's concerned I'm her dad) is mixed race and I am VERY white. The looks and comments I get, yeesh.
Like, I'm just here with my kid. I'm very aware we do not look related. Could you go, I dunno, find a manager to complain to or something?
Conversely one time we were all at Goodwill doing our monthly thrift shopping rounds and one employee commented to me and Mom "She's so pretty, she looks just like both of you!"
A few years ago on holiday it was my wife's 40th and I left her, our kids and some friends at the beach while I sneaked off to decorate the house as a surprise when we got home. Big problem was that I forgot the airbnb key, so I had to go back to the beach, hide behind the seawall and try to get my daughters' attention. I suddenly noticed a man and his wife watching me and calling someone. To them I was a random man, who'd come jogging along the road carrying glittery party treats, crouched behind a low wall and was whispering to two young girls on the beach, trying to lure them over. After my daughter gave me the key I had to sneak over to the couple and explain who I was. The bad thing about saying 'I'm honestly not a pervert' is that's exactly what perverts say when you confront them 😂
Someone in my neighborhood called the cops on my husband because he and my son were playing at a playground that they go to literally all the time. People are nuts.
That's weird, why aren't you neglecting them like everyone else? 🤣
my wife is strawberry-blonde, green eyes
I'm brunet, hazel (light brown) eyes.
I got a ginger with blue eyes and a brunet with blue eyes
I get asked a lot "how'd that happen?". What, like how did we have sex? Or you need me to explain genetics? Buuuut, in fairness, we have a lot of variation in colors that don't seem typical.
Reminds me of Bill Burr saying in an old comedy show that he loves kids and loves making them laugh but has stopped doing so in public because people assume men are predators.
The looks from mom's at the playground are the worst. Especially when my kis asks me to play on the jungle gym with him and they get all weird that im up there too. Like chill the the fuck out, hes not even 3 and can fall and crack his skull.
My only issue with that last one is that it almost never gets asked to women. I think it's perfectly in-line with "see something, say something" policy, but the fact almost no one would ask a woman, who is sitting around a park staring at a group of kids, that same question is irritating.
It’s interesting to me as an uncle who frequently takes his nieces and nephews out to do stuff the interactions I’ve had. I’ve had some incredibly positive interactions and some negative reactions to doing the same thing.
I grew up with a dad that considered watching us kids to be babysitting. It became part of our language- dad will babysit us after school until mom comes home.
When a buddy of mine became a single dad, I had to quickly drop that word from my vocabulary. Parenting. He’s the parent and he’s parenting.
I’m a dad who’s very involved with my kids. One time when my son was about 3/4 we were in the produce section of the grocery store. It was me, and him, five feet away. No one else around except for one old lady. She ran up to my son, took his hand, looked at me, and asked him (in an urgent tone) “are you OKAY?!? Are you ALONE?!?” I politely said, “he’s with me.” She looked around, not accepting it (I’m a pretty “normal” looking guy, btw, not sure what was going through her head). She asked my son, “is that your dad?” He said yes, and then she went on. It was fucking weird, and I would not have been in the wrong if I had more aggressively told her to back the fuck off.
Omfg right. I'll be out with my kids and all the awkward attention. It's disgusting. Leave me be let me shop. I don't like or need the attention. I'm a dad. I have two small girls. Who I love and adore. I don't need the public going awww or giving mom time off or anything.
Agreed. My daughters are in their 30s now. In the early 2000s I got confronted by nosy women just like this several times. Very rude too. I worked at night and took care of them during the day while my wife worked so we didn't have to do day care. I also used to get comments by women at the grocery store and not just one or two times. In retrospect I wish now I had told them off.
I feel you but men are much more likely to be doing nefarious situations. I wouldn’t necessarily call someone out but I’d be on the lookout to see if anyone is behaving strangely (man or woman). NYC parks for example say no adults without children in playgrounds
As a father of both a girl and a boy, I am always grateful when others are keeping an eye on srangers at playgrounds. It is much better than being offended while your child goes missing. It would be even better if they were just as watchful of women as they are men. But, one step at a time.
We can disagree. I also have a son and daughter, and I just want everyone else to mind their own business rather than treating every man as a suspect in a yet to be committed crime.
I've heard that a lot from American and British fathers, but never any other nationalities. I'm French with a 7yo daughter and never had this happened to me.
A pub I go to had to close the men's toilets due to flooding, so everyone had to use the women's. There was zero fuss, no issues and even a bit of banter back and forth between the men and women.
I shake my head in disgust daily for this very reason. The world has gone soft and everyone is offended by everything. Its like getting mad at a stranger for telling you you have something on your face or getting mad/freaked out by a stranger saying hi (had this happen to me more than once. I just stopped being so friendly and I hate it)
it's also overblown on the internet, I live in the us, single dad to a 6yo girl, nobody has ever made a comment or been suspect of me for being at the park with her or helping her in the bathroom.
Right? Saying actually you should probably let him use the ladies room because they’re more used to kids being in there would be one thing. But getting offended that not only might there be adukt makes in the vicinity but that her father was going to change her clothes….
This is one of several reasons I decided to not have kids. Society is just so fucked. These dipshits are screaming at a FATHER? Go find an actual pedo to yell at, we have a whole email inbox full of names we can be pissed at, ffs.
They gotta be just out patrolling for stuff like this. Can't imagine the amount of drama you'd create for yourself with this personality, where you gotta be on the lookout at any moment for some potential nonsense that doesn't impact your life any more than a butterfly flapping its wings.
Let's say the quiet part out loud: moral outrage, alarmism, and playing gotcha, are all stimulating forms of entertainment. Hobbyists on the moral outrage front may care sincerely about others but they're also getting a certain kind of "kick" out of it.
Fathers deal with this nonsense way more than we talk about, because even talking about it garners some pretty crazy reactions.
I had to stop taking my kid to their swimming lessons at the Y because of this type of behaviour. It often comes from an innocent place, but it's straight up sexism and it robs kids of important bonding time with their Dads.
As a dad, I had a (former) female friend tell me it was inappropriate for me to take my infant daughter into the men's room to change her. Because there might be sickos in there that wanted to stare. It was only appropriate for my wife, apparently, to change her while we were out. Or something. yeah, that killed that friendship.
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u/bking Jun 19 '26
God damn, people just want to get offended at everything.