10/03/2023
Alex (on the right) and his husband (also named Alex) are conscious that they may fit into certain gay dad stereotypes, but they have never felt pressured to live up to anyones parenting expectations.
"If I were to list gay dad stereotypes," Alex tells us, "they would be: one plays the mom role, we all are rich, we have perfect lives, we all are up to date on the latest parenting styles, we’ll spoil our kids, we don’t have that ‘mom sense’, we’ll struggle to raise girls because we can’t relate or we’ll struggle to raise boys because we’re not into heteronormative masculine things."
"We’ve experienced a couple of these from people once or twice but never often," he adds.
Alex reminds us that stereotypes are formed by our everyday observations and evolve over time.
"I’m now 34," he says, "but throughout my 20s the only representation of gay dads that I saw was on Modern Family and through a handful of personal connections. I hold a very ‘to each there own’, ‘give yourself grace’, and ‘there’s more than one way’ mindset, so in general I didn’t feel constrained or pressured by those examples of gay parenting nor the examples of gay dads on social media, which I began to follow when we started to consider becoming parents."
Daddy Squared: Gay Dads Stereotypes episode now streaming on wherever you get your podcasts, or at daddysqr.com/5x12
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