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A book that made my blood boil


MarciaBrady

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Have any of you guys read the book Home Game by Michael Lewis?

 

It's a memoir on fatherhood. It got good reviews on several different book sites and so I decided to read it, but it pissed me off so much that I couldn't make it past the first few chapters. First the guy brags about only doing roughly 30% of the childcare as if he deserves some sort of trophy for taking care of his own children part of the time. Then he goes on to whine that modern dads have gotten the shaft because they have to do more work than their father's generation but society and their wives are not showing them enough gratitude for this.

 

WTF? First of all, society does show men a great deal of gratitude for this - a nauseating amount, in my opinion. If a man does the simplest childcare related tasks people practically throw a parade in his honor. I don't see women being praised for being able to take all 3 of their kids to the grocery store, but a man does it and people go up to him and say, "Wow, it's so amazing that you're taking ALL of your kids with you to the grocery store. Your wife is so lucky to have such a helpful husband."

 

Now about his wife not being grateful enough. WTF again. I mean seriously, what the hell is wrong with this man. Why should his wife be falling at his feet in gratitude when she is still doing 70% of the childcare. And why would he expect gratitude even if he did 50% of the childcare. It's so frustrating to me when I see men acting like their children are somehow more their wife's responsibility than theirs and that they're "helping" when they take care of the kids. I was tempted to send an email saying, "No she doesn't owe you gratitude because you're not helping her with something that is her job, you big jerk. You're doing what you should be doing anyway since the kids are your kids too."

 

I was so annoyed I couldn't even finish reading the book.

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Sounds like one to avoid, yet I'm morbidly curious as to how this is being received. Where did you hear of it? Is he a fundie/dominionist? Or just a member of the General He-Man Woman-Haters Club? how did you hear of it?

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I found it when I was searching through the new releases section on Amazon. I like to read parenting memoirs but almost all of the ones I've read so far have been written by mothers, so when I ran across this book I thought it would be interesting to hear a father's thoughts on parenting. The reviews seemed to be largely positive so it seemed like a good bet.

The author isn't a fundie. He's the author of "The Blind Side" and he's married to some woman who used to be on MTV, I think her name is Tabitha Soren.

I keep looking through customer reviews on various book sites, and a few people said they found the book boring, but no one seems to be bothered by the chauvenistic attitude. I'm debating right now whether I should keep reading to see if he ever drops the obnoxious attitude or give up on it and move on to something more interesting (yeah, that's the other thing, it's not even irritating and interesting. It's BORING also.)

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