DADDY ISSUES
The emerging gender politics in the election
At a Karaoke party this summer, a friend’s friend and his daughter sang their version of an indie rock song that many of the party-goers were familiar with. The lyrics sweetly mark the desire for the simple things in life including a home for one’s family, in particular one's children. The melody is light and cheery, as if to imply that these things ought not to be so out of reach. Both of them knew all the words and it was wordy. They weren't the only father daughter pair. My friend, the host, has a daughter and she and her dad sang a Taylor Swift song. He knew all of the words. Knowing him, it’s safe to say that this choice was not reflective of his taste in music. Instead he learned the words in an effort to make a bridge to his daughter’s emotional life.
After both these performances were complete I noticed Olive was sulking at the end of the picnic table and I felt bad right away. Of course it would be hard to see other people singing go to songs with their dads and not have one of your own.
You’re sad about not having a song with your dad, I said, and then left space for her to respond. She nodded and her dad crouched down next to her and said he would love to do a song with her only he did not think they both knew any of the same ones.
As I watched them I said that actually they did, since I have been the audience for about a hundred renditions of Ghostbusters after dinner. I also know that Olive did not learn the words to Pump Up The Jam of her own accord. Soon they were singing in front of a small group of last-standers at the party, which was the first time that her dad had done karaoke in the twenty years I’ve known him, and probably his whole life. In truth it was probably more momentous for him than it was for her.
It’s a sweet story that reflects the capacity for children to change us so fundamentally, when we are able to put their needs in front of our own but also, an snapshot of expectations around fatherhood these days, a role that has suddenly been lifted out of private sphere and thrust onto the public stage as rich material for discussion.
Doug Emhoff’s Instagram bio reads thus: Devoted dad. Proud husband to @KamalaHarris. Advocate for justice and equality. Official account is @SecondGentleman. Tim Walz’s Instagram bio reads: Running to win this thing with Kamala Harris. It’s a unique moment to talk not just about masculinity but about partnership, and what exactly it takes for a woman in politics (or anywhere else) to succeed.
We all know what it costs to be in a relationship with a people incapable of emotional labor. Studies show that men typically benefit more than women in straight marriages and the benefits aren’t just emotional or physical: they also make more money. Married women, on the other hand, make less than their straight peers of equal qualifications. The only explanation for this is that women in straight marriages still get exploited for free labor: free childcare, free eldercare, free housework and so it’s not surprising that they are more often than men the ones to initiate divorce. It’s only surprising that we can currently afford to do so; a not insignificant benefit of the last waves of feminism.
My dad and I had a song. We’d sing it together as early in childhood as I can remember. We’d leave our house and walk down a tiny slope to the lower driveway and we’d sing as the car warmed up and we drove to nursery school. The important part of the song for my dad was not the lyrics but the fact that the melodies intertwined and he was forever trying to teach my part—the lower one that walked steadily below as the higher line rose up euphorically–before they converged again on the phrase: California Dreamin’.
25 years later I moved to California, after meeting someone from San Diego in college and living with him in New York for a good decade. First we lived in Los Angeles and now San Francisco. Not saying my future was imprinted by The Mamas & The Papas but also maybe.
You know how Karaoke is sometimes a rude awakening? Either you thought you knew the whole song but it turns out you don’t know the second verse at all, or worse, that you’ve been singing the wrong words for a decade and with a lot of feeling? I’ve always wondered what it meant that “the preacher liked the cold,” but I found out this morning that the phrase is not that he BEGINS to pray but that he PRETENDS to pray. Pretends. Whether the preacher has a faith in God or is in fact a total hoax makes a big difference. And this line, entirely new to me: if I didn’t tell her I would leave today, summarizes my parent’s whole marriage. The long history of core disagreements until their inevitable split can be told in two short phrases I’d either sung incorrectly or missed all together in my own father daughter duet.
I watched nervously as both families’ kids came on screen during the DNC because I knew how much scrutiny they’d be under. But I didn’t expect how quickly the commentary about them would be about how children do and don’t perform our gender expectations. Ella had a great dress. Gus was emotional. Both of them judged on their perceived ability to be boys and girls. But what about her poise? Our comments about young people in public is perhaps the most honest reflection of our gender stereotypes, since we imagine they don’t actively create a shield of protection around their image. Unless of course we can see them as even more savvy than we are.