Today's parents are involved in raising their children and they share with their mother their care, play and education. We all know the importance of an egalitarian fatherhood, involved and conscious but, outside the home, it is common to meet small obstacles that bother or hinder this involvement.
This is what happened to Justin Simard, a father from Canada who reported on his social networks that the parking space indicated that it was reserved only for women with young children, photographing with your baby and asking: "Can I park here?"
Parking space for mothers only?
When Justin Simard went shopping at a supermarket with his nine-month-old son, he found a sign in the parking lot that indicated that certain places were reserved for pregnant women and mothers of young children.
Justin, who was carrying his baby in a carrying bag, decided to take a picture next to the sign and upload the photo to his Twitter account, citing the supermarket and asking: "May I park here?"
@sobeys crap, am I allowed to park here? #notababysitter #dadissues pic.twitter.com/NY3OkcBbnP
- Justin Simard (@JustinSimard) August 21, 2017
The tweet with the photo immediately went viral, and the supermarket answered yes and asked the location of the parking space to proceed to its update.
You are definitely entitled to that parking spot, Justin! Which location was this so we can update the signage? #SuperDad
- Sobeys (@sobeys) August 21, 2017
With this gesture, Justin simply wanted to record the social sexism that still revolves around raising children: pink signs and photos or icons of women in the care of young children. And what about the parents?
Justin felt grateful for the speed and quality of the response he got from the supermarket, and for asserting his voice as a father: "It is worth speaking against sexist messages like this. Making our voices heard can lead to positive change." - it states.
Baby changers in public centers, a great task pending
Reading the story of this Canadian father, I have felt very identified because there are several situations that my husband and I have experienced when we go out with our children.
But of all, perhaps the most frequent is not finding a baby changing table in men's toilets. And this is something that makes me very angry because, unconsciously society forces women to perform certain tasks with the children that parents can, should and want to do too.
Shopping centers or department stores, museums, restaurants, waiting rooms of hospitals or health centers, gas stations ... there are many places that incorporate the baby changing table inside the women's restrooms.
If we are together when we find this situation, I end up changing my baby and the end of the story. But when He has just gone for a walk with our children and he has encountered this reality, the moments he has lived have not been pleasant or easy.
On some occasion he has had to ask permission of the women who were in the bathroom to be able to enter to change our baby and in others, he has ended up doing it in the car.
And I wonder why parents still have to live this kind of situations despite wanting to get involved and share the responsibilities of raising a child?
We still have to keep moving forward and raising our voices in the face of these small gestures that, although we don't believe it, make it very difficult for the parents to do it. Because they are not the babysitters of their children, and they want to be able to do the same as we mothers do without any "social" work.
IStock photos
Via Parents
In Babies and More Being an equal, involved and attached father is all advantages: science says it, modern dads: this is how men feel about fatherhood today, gender roles have changed the meaning of “being a dad "," I am not a babysitter, "a father explains why we should not be grateful that he takes over while mom is not there, because they also change diapers: more baby changers in male bathrooms
