My son was sent home with a printed booklet of character backgrounds for the ORT today, and I was a bit shocked to see the mum described as "practical", good at fixing, kind etc, with nothing bad, and the dad is described as "the fourth child of the family" who just messes about and jokes, and is generally pretty useless.
As the single mum of a boy, I want my boy learning that men are valued, and important, and that the father role can be done well, and let him aspire to be a good man. While I fully support the idea of a supermum who can fix and sort etc (I like to think he sees this well modelled in his life!) , however, I'd like the dad in the reading scheme to be shown positively, too, and not have several negative stereotypes before a token "but he is good at stories and games."
Does anyone else feel like this? Having read some Biff, Chip and Kipper books, I didn't think the negative dad role was too overdone, but I dislike it being there, and wish that both the parents could be portrayed in a positive light, rather than one being super and the other being silly.
Would I appear to be a really annoying mum to chat to the teacher about this? It would be quite easy to change that page of the print out to sound much more positive "Dad loves playing games, and tells great stories. Biff, Chip and Kipper love playing with Dad."
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"Useless Dad" stereotype
7 replies
kangarooshoes · 10/09/2013 19:40
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