Journalists Guillaume Daudin, 37, and Stéphane Jourdain, 46, after becoming interested in male contraception in a previous job, published The new parents scam. Investigation into a failed revolution (Glénat, 184 pages, 20.50 euros). In this book illustrated by designer Antoine Grimée, they question the lack of involvement of men in parental tasks and want their work to have the effect of a “drive.”
In his book “The New Fathers Scam,” he suggests that the image of the superdad that has been spread in recent years does not entirely coincide with reality…
Guillaume Daudin : According to the speech mainstreamFathers would be more involved, more concerned about taking care of their children and sharing household chores. There would be a consensus around this image, disseminated in particular in the press. When we started discussing this topic around us, we came across the feelings of women, who were a little tired of hearing all this praise directed at their spouses when they never received any when doing the same tasks, if not more.
Are it then the feelings of women that led you to question this myth of the “new father”?
Stephane Jourdain: Yes, but not only that. What caught my attention were the parent-teacher meetings, where each time the number of men was counted. The other day, for the start of the school year, there were twenty-eight parents and there were six of them. Parents always have better excuses to skip these types of events: a more important job, a lot of limitations.
However, we observed greater parental involvement, especially emotionally…
God: Emotional investment has progressed faster than investment in the materially basic management of a household’s daily life, which is very difficult. The routine of parenthood is picking up the children, dropping them off, managing their activities, the house, shopping.
SJ: On that side, things move much more slowly. In France, in 1986, women carried out 80% of parenting activities. And twenty-five years later, in 2010, it had increased to 71%. These are key data. Another crazy fact: men spend less time on housework when they are fathers than when they don’t have children. The progressive leftist has the impression that what is essential has been done. In reality, the biggest battle is ahead.
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