The article this quote comes from is all kinds of stupid but it contained an expression I never heard:
Kim Mitchell of Mantua, N.J., dropped out of college twice because it was impossible to balance schoolwork with a demanding software-trainer job and her role as lead parent to two children.
What’s “a lead parent”? Does anybody know? I never encountered this before.
I first assumed it was maybe like custodial parent (after divorce) but some googling shows that it’s the parent that takes the most responsibility for taking care of the child.
Presumably it was created for men to escape the negative conotations of ‘stay at home dad’ or ‘househusband’ and then expanded to women (since ‘stay at home mom’ and ‘housewife’ have also seen big hits in prestige over the years).
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What I don’t get is that, if this woman works so hard, goes to school, and raises the kids, what does their dad do? This situation would sound normal in former Soviet countries but here?
I hate it when people don’t write clearly and make you guess instead.
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The dad works or doesn’t, and takes care of his own physical needs. He may or may not pay money toward the support or upkeep of the kids.
She sounds like what people would call a “single mother” or a “divorced mother”.
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That’s what I thought, that she’s a single mother. Why not just say so is a mystery. I mean, what is the counterpart of “lead parent”? Parent-follower?
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. I mean, what is the counterpart of “lead parent”? Parent-follower?
Parent-understudy.
It’s entirely possible they’re still married, he goes to work and comes home, like in Leave It To Beaver(that would never be a show title of sitcom today). If my mother had decided not to be a SAHM, that would’ve been her life. It would’ve have been the life of a coworker/manager of mine if she decided to go back to school because her husband thought watching their two sons was “babysitting”.
I’m guessing this father doesn’t make a lot of money, or doesn’t really contribute in that way, because that is serious educational debt to take on late in life for just intellectual fulfillment.
And a further note: This article is coauthored by a member of the Lumina foundation which seems suspect to me.
“Lumina Foundation is a conversion foundation created in mid-2000 as USA Group, Inc., the nation’s largest private guarantor and administrator of education loans, sold most of its operating assets to the Student Loan Marketing Association, Inc. (Sallie Mae). Proceeds from the sale established the USA Group Foundation with an endowment of $770M. The Foundation was renamed Lumina Foundation for Education in February, 2001.[3]”– from Wikipedia.
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In general, ‘lead parent’ does not refer to single parents, but rather the parent who assumes most of the child-rearing responsibility and to whom the children turn to first when in need of things. It is generally used in lieu of ‘primary caregiver’ in situations where both parents work. I’d never seen it before this year, but now it seems to be everywhere. If you recall that nauseating ‘Having it all kinda sucks’ article from a few months back, that woman would definitely self-describe as ‘lead parent’. See also: https://www.babble.com/relationships/i-dont-let-my-husband-be-an-equal-parent/
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I think Cliff is right in terms of what the phrase “lead parent” is meant to convey. A “lead programmer” is akin to the first violin in an orchestra, however, “lead” is designed to imply authority without title or additional money.
There is an embedded gender stereotype here that men work and women stay at home and nurture. We’ve come a long way from the 1950s when that was the dominant model, but emotional growth hasn’t necessarily kept pace. Part of that is associated with a long term decline in standard of living. Most American families require two earners to make ends meet, or one with two jobs. That was not the case in the 1950s.
BTW, in looking at government data on income, its essential to look for medians, not means/averages. Averages are inflated badly by high earners. Median household income in the US (Census Bureau) is 6.5% below 2007 levels and has not changed over the last 3 years.40.6 million American households have incomes below the official poverty level. Median income for males is $50,383, for females $39,621. Even low earners get hit with upwards of $600 per month for housing and utilities — hence the need for multiple jobs. Since the average Social Security check is $1,341 pre-tax, that’s why seniors are being forced to work.
That all gets back to the dashed expectations and disappointment that has fueled the political angst of this election year.
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Yeah, lead parent (almost always the mom) would be the parent who takes on most child-rearing duties. You’d be surprised how uninvolved in the mundane tasks of parenting many men are, even in the US. They might enjoy throwing the ball around with junior, but when it comes to washing butts, scheduling doctor’s and dentist’s appointment, getting kids fed and put to bed on time, it’s still mom in most households, whether she works or not. That woman Kim Mitchell sounds like she has a lot on her plate (I didn’t read the original article, just her excerpt).
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You’d be surprised how uninvolved in the mundane tasks of parenting many men are, even in the US. They might enjoy throwing the ball around with junior, but when it comes to washing butts, scheduling doctor’s and dentist’s appointment, getting kids fed and put to bed on time, it’s still mom in most households, whether she works or not.
I have no idea how to overcome my training and the example set forth in my childhood with this kind of thing, so kudos to Clarissa for not having these issues.
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Re: the letter, until this woman finds the courage to confess to herself why she likes and needs this arrangement, nothing will change. If she didn’t totally dig this state of affairs, it wouldn’t last 14 hours, let alone 14 minutes.
In family life, whenever an adult finds themselves in a miserable situation that continues, the question to ask is, what bonuses am I deriving from the situation? Nothing else works.
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Eh, maybe her husband travels a lot for his job.
I know a welder who gets sent out of town quite a bit. That made me realize that there are probably many more jobs that require time away from home than I had previously considered.
Or, maybe he is a layabout. Don’t think we’ve been given enough information given to know anything for sure.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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