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Primary education

"Useless Dad" stereotype

7 replies

kangarooshoes · 10/09/2013 19:40

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!) Wink, 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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picnicbasketcase · 10/09/2013 19:43

Is the printout made by the teacher/school rather than the actual ORT publisher?

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stargirl1701 · 10/09/2013 19:44

I used ORT a great deal and I have never said or written that about Dad. Weird.

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kangarooshoes · 10/09/2013 19:44

I don't know, but it's just several pages of printed A4 held together with a paperclip, and I could redo that page to make it look just the same style using Publisher in about 3 minutes, then print off the 16 they'd need for the class.

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kangarooshoes · 10/09/2013 20:07

They've got it from here: www.bbc.co.uk/schools/magickey/characters_nonjs.shtml

excuse the double post, please.

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kilmuir · 10/09/2013 20:11

ooo have had 4 children at primary and never been given a handout like that!

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stargirl1701 · 10/09/2013 20:21

Aaah! I've never used The Magic Key element of it. I would email ORT & BBC about this OP. As you say, it's not a good message to send children - of either sex!

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AllabouttheE · 10/09/2013 20:24

When DD was in reception they had a teacher made up book of phonics which they added to as learnt.

I put a black marker pen through mmm McDonald's.

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