Because only women are worried about becoming step-parents? (This prolly could've been an Ask Lemmy.)

Late2TheParty@lemmy.world to Mildly Infuriating@lemmy.world – 105 points –

I'm looking for some good reading on how to, eventually, best help be a step parent to my partner's children and NEARLY ALL books are geared toward the woman's perspective as though men don't want to be a strong teacher and develop these kids into healthy adults. Ugh!

Thanks for listening to my rant.

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We had a baby recently and I tried to read a few books geared towards men to be better prepared.

The bar for men is very, very low. It’s a tripping hazard.

The guidance in all of them was a pathetic mix of “have you tried basic empathy?” and idiotic sports metaphors. It was baffling. Are most men actually like stupid sitcom dads from the 90s?

Yes! I got pregnant and the online advice for me was a million pages long of avoid this, do that, research everything, do 20 hours a day worth of stuff, but get enough sleep! Don't stress or it will hurt the baby!

The online advice for him literally introduced empathy as if it were a concept he had never heard of before. The bar is below the floor. We just had him research as if he was going to be a mom.

Seriously, baby/pregnancy/parenting books for men are extremely difficult to find.

I think 90s sitcom dads is a bar most men won't reach.

Unfortunately, the bar really is pretty low. Even most modern men who would consider themselves to be feminists(/consider woman to be equals) don't do their fair share of household work, let alone parenting. It's really ingrained in the culture.