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[Image: Interior illustration from ‘Clive And His Babies’ by Jessica Spanyol, featuring two male-presenting children gently nurturing their baby dolls.]

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In this post: Children’s books celebrating nurturing fathers

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The incapable dad myth harms our entire family

My sons bring home stories of classmates who tell them boys can’t play with dolls. They tell me only women can be teachers. They listen to folks at the grocery store gush over their dad like he’s a superman for holding his own baby. They congratulate my partner for ‘giving mom a break.’

They use these social cues to determine what their role as fathers might be.

In these same situations, I get a nasty looks for bringing my spirited and dramatic children into public.

I’m a woman, and my partner is a man – we’re both decent parents and yet the gap between what people expect of us as parents is staggering. My partner finds these compliments insulting. I find them dangerous.

What kind of expectations do coded compliments send our sons?

Evil looks and patronizing compliments aren’t the most dangerous thing strangers could throw our way. Transracial and multiracial families are often accused of kidnapping their own children. Strangers call the cops on parents of color and parents of disabled kids during routine meltdowns and temper tantrums.

So I’m not as vocal as I should be about it,  because we have it easy. But it’s a nasty message for my sons to absorb. How will this affect what they expect of themselves when they become fathers?

It’s our responsibility to fight toxic fatherhood

White knights and tough-guy super heroes in books aren’t helping. Our boys look up to these stoic heroes as pinnacles of masculinity, and writers give them nothing but fists and guns to handle conflict.

And yet – we’re asking for their fathers to show vulnerability and nurturing behavior they never grew up with. We want our men to snuggle, empathize, to carry their share of domestic work and childcare, while remaining strong, stoic, and ready to save the day.

Gender equality for parents won’t come from just demanding fathers do more – the way we demand it of mothers. No human can handle that. We’re not going to get true family equality until we make reasonable expectations of all parents – with room for mistakes and forgiveness.

My partner gets the kids ready every morning, cooks us all dinner in the evening, and sings the boys ‘Goodnight Sweetheart’ every night at bedtime. We haven’t always shared equal parenting responsibilities, and we waver in workload, but we strive to set a good example for what responsible fatherhood looks like.

But I don’t give him much space for vulnerability. I rely on him too much along standard gender roles – to support our family as our primary breadwinner, to be my rock when I’m feeling anxious and overwhelmed, and to pick up the slack when I absolutely can’t handle any more. He doesn’t have space to vent, to get sick, or to say “I can’t.”

As a partner, that’s not fair for me to expect him to always be the white knight. As a parent, it’s my responsibility to give my kids not only examples of cuddly, capable fathers, but also fathers who sometimes make mistakes and show weakness without feeding into stereotypes of incompetent dads.

My kids need to see what healthy fatherhood looks like.

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Start reflecting healthy fatherhood in the books you read with your kids

We are responsible for changing expectations for fathers. We can teach our kids that it is natural and normal for fathers to be primary (or only) caregivers, and set healthy expectations for what that looks like. We can teach them that they have a right to demand competent male partners who take responsibility for raising their own children.

And we need to balance a fine line between expecting them to take on different responsibilities than their fathers and grandfathers. When we give them that responsibility, we need to give them space to be vulnerable. Otherwise, they’ll end up just as stressed out and miserable as the mothers who are expected to have (and do) it all today.

I can’t control my partner and tell him what healthy masculinity should look like. But I can integrate more books into our lexicon that model capable, emotionally responsive fathers for my sons. We read books that reflect our family dynamic of co-parenting- because the media we’ve come across is not cutting it.

We read stories where fathers are equal to mothers in parenting every week – not just on Father’s Day.

Single-fathers-by-choice: Books that do not mention second parents are marked with an asterisk [*]

 

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Snuggly Dads

Show kids that masculine folks nuggling is awesome and normal.

*I Like It When (nonbinary parent & child), *Girl of Mine, *Hush A Bye, Baby.

 

 

 

 

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Rocking Childcare & Domestic Routines

Men are expected to do the daily work of parenting.

*Time To Get Dressed!, Jabari Jumps, *Ask Me.

*How To Cheer Up Dad, Clive And His Babies, Man’s Work (disclosure, BFL-er Amelia Kridler Sunderland sent this to me for free, since it’s out of print and hard to find.)

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Dads Taking Responsibility For Emotional Labor

Dads can handle nuanced social-emotional issues. While typical stories show dads offering immature and naive advice, these books turn that trope on its head.

*Itsy Mitsy Runs Away, *Enemy Pie, *Give Me Back My Dad

The Favorite Daughter, When We Love Someone We Sing To Them

 

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Fathers Must Be Feminists

These stories are validating stories. If all goes well – they’ll be outdated in a few years, but for now, stating explicitly that a dad can be a feminist, a man can cook dinner too, and a father promoting equal education for his daughter is revolutionary and necessary.

Still – we need to play around with the text in these books depending on what our kids already understand as normal. For kids whose fathers already cook dinner, adding the ‘too‘ suggests feminist dads are oddballs. Play around with it.

I Wonder: Celebrating Daddies Doin’ Work, Franny’s Father is A Feminist, For The Right To Learn

*Be A Star, Wonder Woman

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Fatherhood With Intention

Findus and Pettson aren’t technical a father-son team but the way they talk (and the affection and love they have for each other) is the kind of healthy, patient relationship I want my sons to see. Findus (the cat) is basically a demanding 5-year-old, and the relationship between the two of them make this our favorite series to read together.

In all of these books, we see parents who chose this life together with their children. Whether they’re single parents by choice or circumstances, these fathers commit to their choice to parent with intention.

When Findus Was Little And Disappeared, The Road Home (nonbinary genders), *David’s Father (adoptive single father & son)

 

 

 

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Single Fathers By Choice

Most books featuring single dads are tragic, suggesting men would never parent on their own – which is nonsense.

These silly and fun books feature happy families with single-fathers. Dads and their kids respect each other’s choices, cooperate as a team, and genuinely enjoy each other.

More single dad books are marked throughout this page with an asterisk [*]

*Rattletrap Car, *One Cool Friend, *Bea And Mr. Jones,

 

 

*Pretend, *Off & Away, The Better Tree Fort,

 

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Patient & Empathetic Dads

To counter the stereotype of cold executive dads and naive buffoonery, the following dads parent with wise intention, listen, and empathize with their children.

Sidewalk Flowers, Dad And Me In The Morning, Dad By My Side

 

 

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Subtle Stereotypes & Invisible Patriarchy – Problematic Books To Avoid

Stories of incompetent, lazy dads are obviously out, but there are more subtle stereotypes that imply dads can only fulfill half of what kids need. The logical fallacy is that kids need both a mom and a dad, so same-sex and single parents (or grandparents) are an inadequate second choice. Which is nonsense.

Problematic trope: Indulgent Dads need hard-nosed moms

This softer message is usually disguised as a joke – the indulgent dad, like the one in Because Your Daddy Loves You seems innocuous – until you read the mom-version written by the same author. Dad is permissive with his delicate, incompetent daughter, while mom wisely guides her son to endure and follow through independently.

Read alone, Because Your Mommy Loves You is a beautiful story of intelligent parenting and choosing the harder path to let our kids (or at least, sons) learn to become independent and confident. But side-by-side with the Dad version, the author speaks volumes about what we can expect from dad. Dad gets the easy part of parenting – fun, indulgent, and simpler path that kneecaps girls and suggests they can rely on daddy to solve their problems.

There was zero reason to flip the script based on gender roles. Unless, of course, we believe that’s the proper parenting role for fathers (it’s not.)

Problematic trope: Only dads can truly connect with sons

In stories like Dad And The Dinosaur, only dad can truly understand how important his son’s toy dinosaur is to him – and only dad is willing to spend all night searching for it. Mom, of course, just doesn’t get it. Because something about her foreign and mysterious femininity doesn’t allow her to understand the importance of dinosaurs or something.

This is the argument homophobic bigots use to fight the parental and adoption rights of same-sex and single parents, and it’s garbage.

Problematic Trope: Fathers don’t care as much about their children as mothers

In The Crows of Pearblossom, a mother crow is slowly driven insane by a snake that eats her babies each day. She’s rightfully upset, but her husband dismisses her as hysterical. The joke is partly on him – he’s clearly a sexist as hat, but really, that joke is at everyone’s expense. Because he’s the children’s father, he can remain coldly logical, removed, and undisturbed about the murder of his children.

We promote this bias when we default to giving mothers custody of children, assuming that once a father’s child is out of sight, they’re out of his heart. This is what leads us to believe that children will be safer from neglect and abuse with mothers than with fathers. This is, of course, entirely rubbish.

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You might also like: Triumphant Stories Honoring Single Mothers

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Stay Curious, Stand Brave & Give Your Favorite Dad A Hug

Did you learn something in this post that helps you be a better parent?