Bitch Magazine recently reviewed the book Daddy Shift by author and writer Jeremy Adam Smith. The book explores what happens when dads stay home; What do stay-at-home fathers struggle with—and what do they rejoice in? How does taking up the mother’s traditional role affect a father’s relationship with his partner, children and extended family? And what does stay-at-home fatherhood mean for the larger society? Bitch Magazine said the book: “is a wonderful peek into an emerging new world of fatherhood where men of all sorts of backgrounds decide that they will be the one to stay home and raise the kids. And as the subtitle says, it is also a peek into shared parenting.”
The classes were originally called “Mommy and Baby.” Then men started showing up one by one, infants in tow. A few months ago, the fathers had become so numerous that the Prospect Park Y.M.C.A. on Ninth Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn, changed the class name to “Parent and Baby.
The change appears to be the result of several factors: the economic downturn, a generational attitude shift concerning fathering, and a neighborhood where many residents have jobs with flexible schedules, some of which allow work from home.
And it will be explored again at 92YTribeca on Jul 22 when they present The Daddy Shift: Transforming American Families. Join Jeremy and audience members to consider an evolutionary advance in the American family, one that may help families better survive the twenty-first century as the unstable economy makes flexible gender roles more possible and more desirable.
