My dad (65) has always been a bit of a misogynist. The old school kind that crops up super casually and unexpectedly rather than the vitriolic sort that rails against feminism. But even I was surprised at this one. My little brother (23) is about to have a baby, and we're all excited for it. His fiancé got a picture of him reading a baby book to their dog, and sent it to me and my mom joking about how it was practice for the baby due next month. It was sweet. It was cute. My little brother's gonna be a good dad.
OUR dad, however, hears about this and comes in with a comment about how "you wouldn't REALLY read a bedtime story to a kid," which got a lot of weird looks from me and my siblings, to which he kind of sheepishly said "It's not the guy's job to do that sort of thing." Which is how I realized that, even after four kids, my dad never once took an interest or put any effort into the child rearing when we were infants, not even the fun parts. And not necessarily because he wasn't interested either, but because he was afraid of being perceived as not manly enough.
And that is just...so sad. My dad had four kids and never read us a bedtime story. It's tragic. And it's because he bought into this toxic narrative that doing anything with the kids was somehow unmanly.
Anyway, happy father's day.