Sean Bean, editor of Parenting magazine and Parenting.com is a man we respect very much and we appreciate his friendship and kindness in including us in his magazine on occasion. Yesterday, he responded to allegations that one of the articles published on Parenting.com, The New Playdate Playbook, includes advice from an expert that exhibited an unfair bias against dads. In addition to my post yesterday, questions of dad bias came from mainstream parenting sites like Huffington Post and Babble, feminist websites like Jezebel, and sites focused on men’s issues like The Good Men Project.

You should read his response yourself, Sleepovers in the Sandusky Era, but basically, the Parenting editor suggests that we as parents are living in difficult and complicated times, there are in fact parents who are concerned about men supervising children, and they are entitled to their opinion. I agree, and I especially appreciated this point:

The 21st century parenting universe is vast. And as the message boards and comment fields on Parenting.com prove, it’s full of vastly different opinions. If would be easy if the only issue during a playdate or sleepover was a wet sleeping bag or a skinned knee. But that’s not the case any more. Gay parents, single dads, divorce, and violent video games are all part of the conversation. They are woven into the fabric of the modern American family. But for some, what’s different is what’s unfamiliar. And what’s unfamiliar is what’s unsettling. Ever made a difficult, maybe even irrational, decision based on the unknown? Another way to ask that question is: Ever been a parent?

That said, there are two points in this discussion that I think Bean is missing. First, the article frames the response as “expert” advice from a PhD, a therapist, and owner of a counseling center. Though I agree that “experts” deserve their own opinion, I think the inflammatory nature of the advice deserves to be countered with another point of view rather than left on it’s own. To Bean’s point, we are living in complicated and difficult times, and Parenting and Parenting.com needs to be resources for parents as we navigate scary news stories, technologies we don’t understand, and media that we don’t even know about. We don’t need more fear mongering.

My second concern comes at the end of the piece when he says “five tween girls texting and braiding and gossiping and squealing and (let’s be honest, not) sleeping might be beyond my skill set.” First, though Bean acknowledges that his experience is not the issue, he does have an opportunity here to represent a broader picture of what it means to be a dad. The brouhaha is about divorced dads, but the same questions and concerns are coming up about single dads, widowed dads, at-home dads, and gay dads. Whether within our skill set or not, sometimes we are called upon to step up to something unfamiliar and uncomfortable. Some fathers don’t have the opportunity to “opt out” of a tween sleepover, or braiding their daughters’ hair before school, or the first period, or bra shopping, so they step up, do the best they can, and they deserve nothing less than our respect.

Take a look at this quote from an article published on a prominent parenting site and then republished on a prominent news site:

You’ve accepted a sleepover invite for your son, not realizing that the family is Jewish. You’re not OK with it. What to do?

The Solution: “Call and say ‘I’m sorry, and this is about me and not you, but I just don’t feel comfortable with a Jew supervising an overnighter,’ ” says Morris, a PhD., play therapist, mother of three, and founder of Counseling Center at Liberty, in Columbiaville, NH. Offer to host the girls at your place instead, if you can, or ask to turn the sleepover into a “late-over,” where your daughter stays only till bedtime. In the future, always ask who’ll be on duty before you say yes to a sleepover.

Appalled? Mortified? Already started writing your comment about the injustice, indignity, the irrationality of the statement. Well, thankfully, I made that one up. Here’s another one:

You’ve accepted a sleepover invite for your daughter, not realizing that only her pal’s divorced dad will be home. You’re not OK with it. What to do?

The Solution: “Call and say ‘I’m sorry, and this is about me and not you, but I just don’t feel comfortable with a man supervising an overnighter,’ ” says Paone (a Ph.D., a play therapist, mother of three, and founder of Counseling Center at Heritage, in Montgomeryville, PA). Offer to host the girls at your place instead, if you can, or ask to turn the sleepover into a “late-over,” where your daughter stays only till bedtime. In the future, always ask who’ll be on duty before you say yes to a sleepover.

Appalled? Mortified? Already started writing your comment about the injustice, indignity, the irrationality of the statement. Well, unfortunately, this one is real and was posted originally on Parenting.com and then republished on CNN.com, so keep writing.

You might also be thinking that you agree with the parent’s concern and the advice that was given, and you are likely not alone. Many people are justifying these feelings because we are trying to do what’s best for our children. In a world surrounded with stories of rapists and pedophiles, could we ever live with ourselves if something happened when we let our child stay over at a man’s house?

These feelings aren’t new. Can’t we all think back to a time (not that long ago) when “experts” would have advised parents not to allow their children to stay overnight at the home of a Jewish family, or a black family,  because we weren’t “comfortable?” Do we still think it’s possible for “experts” to advise parents not to allow their children to stay overnight at the home of a gay or lesbian family?

When do we cross the line of “this is about me, not you” thinking being used to justify our actions to “this is about me” thinking as an opportunity to look inwards to address our own biases. None of us can justify to ourselves that it would okay to not let our children have a sleepover at someone’s house because they were poor, or handicapped, or a different race or a different religion, right?

If I were asked to comment on this question, I might suggest something like this:

The Solution: “Take a moment to think about why you feel this way. Do you know men that are excellent fathers that would provide a safe, caring, and fun environment for you child,” says Schneider, not a PhD, not a play therapist, not a founder of a counseling center, but a father of two. “Perhaps you should take some time to get to know the father before you decide you are uncomfortable. In the future, always get to know the person who will be caring for your child (man or woman) before you say yes to a sleepover.”

Since the dawn of humanity, parents have been put in uncomfortable situations that require us to make decisions. Over time, our thinking continues to evolve as we re-think our own experiences and prejudices. It’s time to force ourselves to re-think, as one of our Facebook followers put it, our Dadophobia.

Photo by Josh Willink from Pexels