Daddy-Lit
Well, now fathers are getting into the act.
Lately, I've been seeing a slew of daddy memoirs cross my desk from publishers. There was Bruce Stockler's I Stop At Red Lights. Then Neal Pollack's Alternadad, which just came out a few months ago. And I just finished reading Philip Lerman's Dadditude, which is due out in May.
Critics have dismissed mommy lit as nothing more than navel-gazing and whining by a bunch of overprivileged women. But what struck me immediately about daddy lit was the lack of real introspection and soul-searching by the authors.
All three writers attempt (with varying degrees of success) to be humorous and poke fun at their cluelessness about parenting. Unlike the best of the mommylit authors, none of these daddylit writers even attempt to put their own fumbling and stumbling into some kind of larger context. The biggest statements they make tend to be in the order of: "Ex rockers find fatherhood uncool." Or, "Older men really falter when it comes to raising toddlers." There is no deep thinking or questioning here; no glimpses of the dark side of parenting; and no profound insights into how men's identities are shaped and altered once they become fathers.
Hmmm.
Stumble It!
posted by pam at 11:53 AM
0 comments
links to this post
