A Bad Rewrite

I’m so pissed right now.  I had to write this entire blog over.  Yup, had to scrap the entire thing and start from scratch.  It was funny, insightful, and heartfelt, but you’ll never see it.  All you get is this second- rate rewrite.

What was it about you ask?

How people are a bunch of hypocrites. Well, not everyone. Some of you started off telling me that I was less than a man for staying home with my kids.

But the rest of you, those who said it was perfectly acceptable, I’m talking to you.

For the past month or so, I have been looking to supplement my income by providing in-home daycare.

Not even a nibble.

Sure, I can watch my own kids, but your precious bundle?  No, thank you, I’m probably a pedophile.  So I wrote an entire blog slamming you all for your hypocrisy.

Then, three days before I was set to post, I get a reply from one of the many emails I sent out on Care.com.  This mom needs on-call care for her three-month, three-year, and five-year-old Monday through Friday between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. 

This job is perfect for Tammi and me. Because I only work when she doesn't it allows us to earn money without leaving home. 

Sure, having five kids in the house at one time is certainly going to increase my work load.  Honestly, the number of kids in the house is going to be the least of my concerns.  What really worries me is what is going to happen to Tammie’s ovaries when she holds a three- month-old baby.  I’m seriously worried the baby will send out a chemical literally capable of overriding her birth control. 

Okay, enough about my wife’s reproductive system, and back to the matter at hand.

Why are we so hesitant to have a male watch our children? 

Does it really all come down to pedophilia?

Sadly, I think it does.  Which begs the question “Is a child more likely to be molested by a day care provider or by their uncle?  Stats say they are more at risk from the adults they know.  If that’s true than if I just limited the number of adult males they know than I am limiting the chances that something bad would happen, right?

This is just a result of the society we live in.  Gender stereotypes are not just a topic of conversation.  They take root in our thought process, and have real world results. 

If a strange male interacts with our children, than all sorts of alarm bells tend to go off.  If society tells us that men do not like children, than a man who does clearly like them, must be doing so for the wrong reasons.  Right???

It seems easy to get caught in these inaccurate traps of logic, and I think most of us do on a subconscious level.  Typically, once we realize we are discriminating, then we stop. 

Well, at least one person did, so I guess there is still hope.

It is too bad that someone did, though, this was much better the first time I wrote it.