“Super dad here!”
The male cashier’s comment threw me.
Super dad?
I was in the local King Soopers on a Friday afternoon with my five-month-old son and a stroller-ful of groceries.
Three weeks earlier, I was pushing the stroller listlessly around the aisles of a Byzantine antique store when a passing older woman commented:
“What a great dad!”
These comment—intended compliments—make me uneasy. They make me uneasy because they’re evidence of social norms that are too slow in changing.
If my wife had been in either of those situations, I doubt that strangers would offer such praise.
It reminds me of the slightly horrifying reality of the fatherhood bonus, which I wrote about some years ago.
Taylor Coe 