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The October 8 (2007) issue of Newsweek had a headline that caught my eye: "The New Dad Debate" (http://www.newsweek.com/id/41907). Perhaps the magazine was hosting a round table discussion with first-time fathers on some important topic like brand-name baby butt wipes vs. old fashioned face-cloths, or does dressing a child in a pair of pyjamas featuring both a camouflage pattern and a bright red Elmo face imply that a parent supports the War in Iraq?

Unfortunately, neither of those hot-button topics were on the table. Entitled “Just Don’t Call Me Mr. Mom,” the article opens with the charming description of the author, Brian Braiker, lifting his daughter’s rear end up in front of his face for the trusty old Dirty Diaper Sniff Indicator Test. Seeing this, Braiker’s father flinches with indignation, leading the author into an analysis of the clash between traditional male hands-off parenting and the radical modern style where the father actually does something once in a while.

Braiker strikes a curiously apologetic tone, even pleading, “I am not asking for a medal.” Medal? This guy states that he took nine months of parental leave. Nine months! Who needs a medal when you get nine months off work? I had to wrestle with my employers to take my three lousy weeks of unpaid vacation time so that I could help celebrate the birth of my beautiful boy and then I was right back in the coal mine. I’ve heard all those fairy tales of the Swedish parents who both get a full year off to raise a baby, but I’ve always thought that was an urban legend. Besides, since the only jobs they have in Sweden are at Ikea, it’s not like their GNP would suffer all that much if most of the population took a whole year off now and then. But nine months? Maybe he and his wife should have squeezed a second child out before his leave was up so he could have doubled his time off.

The article then dropped a statistic that almost blew my mind: in 1965, men spent an average of 2.6 hours a week with their children. Yeah, there’s a decimal there. Two point six hours. That isn’t even enough time to watch the shortest Lord of the Rings movie. The good news is that today’s father spends much more time with their children, an impressive 6.5 hours a week. Yeah, there’s still a decimal there. Six point five hours a week. In comparison, that’s still only enough time to watch about one and a half Lord of the Rings movies.

I can’t believe that any father would spend less than an hour a day with their kids. I suppose that if you’re a hot-shot surgeon, or an undercover cop or an assassin, you might work some pretty brutal hours, but last time I checked, the overwhelming majority of fathers worldwide do not have those jobs. They aren’t even in training for them. They stopped pretending that they had those jobs when they were eight years old. So what are they doing that requires them to contribute so little? Do they have to punch a fatherhood timecard when they clock off?

I guess that maybe I’ve been putting a little too much time into this whole “responsible parent” thing. Just off the top of my head, I can see that I’m definitely spending way too much time helping take care of my son. Perhaps I should get me some business partners so I can spend all my non-parenting time out on the golf course, smoking cigars and drinking scotch. Better yet, I think I’m going to start wearing an enormous Flavor Flav-style clock around my neck so I’ll know exactly when my 6.5 hours are over and I leave behind the dirty diapers and go fire up the Playstation 2.