Profiles In Parenting
The Simpsons notwithstanding, I’ve long resented the cult of paternal incompetence. It’s bad enough to see the Bumbling Father archetype evoked to sell cough meds, but now Joe Barton (R-Texas) trots it out to support his bold stance on less poisonous toys.
I think everybody on the subcommittee knows that I have a two-year-old son, Jack Kevin Barton. There are millions of little Jack Kevin Bartons in the United States. Each of them is precious to their parents and to their family, just like Jack is precious to me and my family. These little tykes are so inquisitive and so adventuresome that you really have to be smart to keep them safe.
I’ll give you an example. It’s not a toy, but it’s the same principle. Last weekend my wife had to go run some errands and while she wasn’t sure I was capable of taking care of Jack by myself, I was given that opportunity since we couldn’t get a babysitter. He brought me a bag of microwave popcorn that he had gotten out of the cupboard. I was watching a football game. I said, ‘No, Jack, your mother doesn’t want you to have popcorn. Put it back.’ He toddles off.
I’m watching the game and all of a sudden I hear this ‘beep, beep, beep’ coming from the kitchen. He had taken the popcorn back into the kitchen, got a chair, pulled the chair over to the built-in microwave, which is about six feet above the floor, climbed up on the chair, opened the microwave, put the popcorn in, figured out how to hit the popcorn button and pushed the darn button. Now, it was in the cellophane and the cellophane started popping and burning so I rushed in and of course he was just proud as punch that he had figured out how to do microwave popcorn, even though he didn’t know that he was supposed to undo the cellophane.
That’s what we’re up against – 20 or 30 million Jack Kevin Bartons. If they can get hold of it, they’re going to try to figure it out.
If a congresswoman had shared this anecdote, she’d be shellacked as the next Britney Spears. But coming from Joe Barton, it illustrates his “principle” that we need to engineer a world safe enough for every dimwitted dad who’s been stuck with the onerous duty of watching TV while ignoring his toddler.
Maybe it is parenthood, but to me this is more ‘kids do the darndest things’ than ‘men are dumb’. Once they figure out how to use drawers and knobs as footholds, you have to think of them as small domestic monkeys with worse judgment, though usually without the feces flinging.
— tom · Nov 24, 03:47 PM · #
I absolutely love the term “cult of paternal incompetence”. We—male and female—become members whenever we don’t feel like doing what needs to be done.
— Joules · Nov 24, 06:01 PM · #
There was one time, and only one time, when the usual suspects favored the parental prerogative over that of the state. That was when Elian Gonzalez’s father said he wanted Elian to come back to Cuba. (This was presumably at the behest of the western hemisphere’s chief torturer.) In every other case, whether it’s safety, vaccinations, condoms in school, or contraceptives, it’s the parents’ job to get out of the way and let the experts handle it.
— The Reticulator · Nov 25, 05:12 AM · #
I agree with Tom that Barton is trying to illustrate the immense creativity of the average toddler. The problem is that the facts of the story expose HIM as a complete dimwit who couldn’t be bothered to interrupt his football game to actually, you know, put up the popcorn and find something else to entertain the kid.
On the actual cult of paternal incompetence, as in detergent commercials wherein Dad can’t figure out the washing machine or cereal commercials in which Pops has to be bullied into eating something other than doughnuts for breakfast, I’ve always interpreted those as being in the “clever slave” school. This is a school of comedy going back all the way to Plautus, in which the aristocrat is a moron and the day is saved by the smart slave. “The Marriage of Figaro” is another example, as are all those Howard Hawks comedies from the 30’s in which the Male Authority Figure is shown up by the Plucky Debutante/ Secretary/ Coed. It’s anything but revolutionary in that it reinforces the idea that life’s messy details like cleaning and preparing food are properly the woman’s realm. Dad can take care of bigger and better things.
— Kitty · Nov 25, 09:07 PM · #