Fathering Fathers

Also on the subject of “Women’s Equality Day”:

There are three things I learned online in the past year.

1) Women like sex.

(2) Old people have sex (in the paper last week); and

(3) Men are nicer than we think. Nurturing, for example.

My husband gave me a poem that had been published in the NY Times last week about this. It was all a good coincidence.

I think Grace Paley is right when she talks about fathers becoming more like mothers. And I agree with her that Women’s Lib is what allowed men to let their guard down.

Anyway, here’s the poem:

FATHERS

Fathers are
more fathering
these days they have
accomplished this by
being more mothering

what luck for them that
women’s lib happened then
the dream of new fathering
began to shine in the eyes
of free women and was irresistible

on the New York subways
and the mass transits
of other cities one may
see fathering of many colors
with their round babies on
their laps this may also
happen in the countryside

~Grace Paley-