Child care providers and daycare owners are often concerned with how to engage fathers or significant male role models into the children’s programs. It seems as if men are often absent from daycare and childcare setting. How do we encourage men to participate in child care? In this interview with Barack Levin, author of The Diaper Chronicles [Levin, 2009], Levin gives us an insight into the importance of involving men and how we can deal with the situation.
OwnADaycare: What is your opinion about the level of involvement of fathers in early childhood education settings?
Barack Levin: In today’s world, it seems that the in role of the parents, father are slowly diminishing as educators and the majority of this task is gravitating towards the “system” – school, teachers, coaches, psychologists, counselors and more. If once, only dad used to come home late, at present, both career driven parents hardly interact with their kids and spend little to almost no time with them. Unfortunately, it does not change the basic behavior pattern for kids whose role models are their parents. With no attention, enough love and patience, these kids are grown to become impatient and empathic young adults. While moms still try to maintain some involvement with kids and you might see more moms than dads together, dads’ role and involvement has fallen down to almost none. Dads come home at the end of the day after their kids have already been ready for bed for some time. A quick hello, kiss on the forehead and the kids go to sleep. And this is the best case scenario. In many cases, dads can miss seeing their kids for days on end.
In my opinion, a dad’s role in raising his child is crucial for his normal mental and physical development. A dad has always been seen, and still does in the eyes of children, as the super hero of their childhood. He is the strongest person alive. He is their protector from evil and is a joy to be cuddled by his oversized features and feel safe. The dad also provides a POV that moms do not necessarily have. We all heard that “men are from Mars and women are Venus”. The thought and action pattern are also different. I think that dads are more adventures, willing to push the envelope, more involved in sports and physical activity, like to play it rough and experiment with their physical strength. It is important for kids to learn such behaviors at such a young age from their role model to develop and gain that knowledge which can only help them further along the way. There is one more important role in my mind that is exclusively reserved to dads: It is the role of how to treat women. Kids learn by observing. It comes as no surprise that in homes where there is no respect for the woman in the house, the kids will grow up not respecting women as well and not see them as equal but more as dish washers, kid raisers and home makers. However, if the dad shows respect to his wife, the kids will eventually absorb this behavior as well and grow up to be better grownups.
Read part 2 of the interview with Barack Levin here.
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