Letters to the Editor
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Meh
My dad was a workaholic. He was also a jerk, so I was glad he was always at work. Too bad he wasn't rich as well. That would have made his jerk-ness much more palatable.
Maybe the author should think of that. Sometimes parental absence is a good thing. Particularly among people who seem to think they must have kids because society tells them so, even though they don't particularly like/want kids.
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Ad block and Firefox
Sorry for the intrusion,
I wanted to let people know that Salon and Broadsheet are so much nicer when they don't have all that nasty oppressive flash shit going on.
When women take over, we won't have any of that.
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Other Bad Alternatives
Hmmm... dads that work 60-80-100 hours per week but their kids can afford every activity they choose to participate in or dads that work 60-80-100 hours per week trying to make ends meet and whose children have to make terrible choices, missing opportunities, and face the constant social stigma of not having enough.
If I could work double what everyone else does and never have to look my kids in the face again and tell them why Christmas will be pretty thin or why they can't play the sport they are good at because we can't afford it any longer... I would do so in an instant.
And that's not to mention all the *really* delinquent dads out there actively harming their children. Give me a break with the sad tales of rich kids that don't see Daddy enough.
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I've never been able to understand...
...why guys like this have kids in the first place. Or why they get married, for that matter. They are in love with their work more than anything else--a fact they make plain by never being at home and constantly having affairs/serial marrying. So, why don't they just save themselves time, grief, and money by realizing they aren't cut out for wife and family? One of the reasons George Clooney is one of the smartest guys out there is because he's recognized that he isn't down for kinder/kuche--and he's not going to let pissed-off "family-values" reporters (*coff* Diane Sawyer *coff*) or peer pressure force him into them.
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Interesting that you deleted my comment about this offensive post title
If a male blogger had posted something about mothers that hate sex and then gone on to describe a few very abnormal (in terms of demographics) mothers, would you folks have latched onto that for its misogyny?
Broadstreet Feminism: We think Dick Cheney has the right idea when it comes to taking responsibility.
Regardless, this blog's title is deeply offensive and misandrist in how you imply with the title that divorced fathers are delinquent.
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@ anonymous
Regardless, this blog's title is deeply offensive and misandrist in how you imply with the title that divorced fathers are delinquent
There's really nothing in Tracy's post about whether or not these Fortune-500 fathers are divorced or not, so to make the red-faced claim that she's tarring all divorced dads with the same brush is a non-sequitor.
Presumably, some proportion of these dads are still married - it's their decision to place work before family that is being questioned here (and TCF, quite reasonably, takes issue with the author's ridiculous suggestion that they be fired for doing so.)
@deering: They get married because that's what is expected of them. Usually no less and no more. People whisper too much about execs who've never married. (Multiple exes are okay though, and often a badge of honor in some circles.)
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One would assume
most of these men probably got married before they became executives, at least for first marriages. They've probably been working lots of hours their entire careers, though, to earn their corner offices.
Articles like this one would be more interesting if there were some interviews with the spouses of these executives (or ex-spouses.) Are they complaining? For that matter, are the kids? If not, who cares? Isn't the main thing that the kids are properly looked after by someone?
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Sure Natasha, now put on your feminist hat and tell me a post titled, Fat Mothers
about a group of women that love to eat food and care not a whit about their size wouldn't upset you.
or that a post titled, Sexless Mothers, about a group of mothers so involved in homeschooling that they almost never have sex would not bother you.
Or a post entitled, Look at the knockers, about a group of mothers that make their living making brass ornaments wouldn't bother you.
Tell me why I should be confronted with "Delinquent dads" about a post of very non-representative men. Or why anyone else should see a post with this title.
Tracy is a bigot. Joan Walsh should fire her for her insensitivity.
Hey Joan, where is your better Broadsheet?
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@anonymous, reductio absurdium
about a group of women that love to eat food and care not a whit about their size wouldn't upset you... blah blah fishcakes
Nope, none of that bothers me. I couldn't care less about whether fat homeschoolers spend all day shining their knickers while not having sex, or whatever you said. Their choice, not mine, life goes on.
Tell me why I should be confronted with "Delinquent dads" about a post of very non-representative men. Or why anyone else should see a post with this title.
Methinks you offend easily. Try decaf. She's not implying that all dads are delinquent, whether divorced or not. Quite the contrary, in fact.
The original post was about differing responses to absent fathers (hence, delinquent dads) at different levels of the economic ladder.
And with that, I'm taking my troll food and going home.
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good point
I thought this was a great posting. I wouldn't have thought of it like that...I was nodding right along with Truck's thoughts on this, but your last line ["Do we really want corporate boards determining which employees are good mothers or fathers?"] was a real hook for me. You're right-on about cautioning where that kind of zealousness can lead.
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Why would it be a surprise to anyone that CEO's are delinquent dads?
Heck, aren't most of them seen as delinquent to every other group in society with exception to thier own fraternity of "elites". Personally, I'm somewhat more offended at the alarming runaway compensation packages these guys get handed often at the expense of working moms and dads. I have met a fair amount of CEO's in my life (I think only one of them being in the Fortune 500) and with the exception of maybe one, they all exhibited that "asshole" personality. That's the main trait above all others that helped propel them to thier "success". As a kid I went to school with a kid of what later would become a CEO and if that kid's dad had a hand in raising him than I'd never want a CEO having any contact with children. What a stuck-up pain in the ass.
While not a parent myself, I have observed that the people that I thought turned in the best performance as parents all had the same trait in common no matter what thier job description. That trait was that they were more passionate about raising thier children than they were about thier job or employer. They considered thier children to be more of a reflection or measurement of what they had achieved in life than thier job title. My dad grew up with a father who was never home due to constantly chasing and surpasing the status-quo and hated it. While he and my mother struggled constantly to make ends meet having had two kids by age 21, he liked having kids that liked him. Although he eventually retired from a huge and growing company with many employees under him, most of his younger employees said they often would seek his advice about other matters in life because they felt like he was easier to relate to than thier own parents.
The funny thing about it is that he seems most proud of the fact that his kids have managed to pursue careers that paid much more money than his did and that we were able to avoid so much of the struggles that he and my mom faced so early. I guess I had an anti-CEO dad. I'd better call him and say thanks.