Tired of hearing the martyr cries...

Oi. I’ve lost count of all the times I’ve heard the rabble and din of people who see a woman who has children and says in faux-wonderment “I don’t know how she does it!” While I am certainly not one to take away from the accomplishments or sacrifices of anyone – I think that many women need to take a giant helping of “get the hell over yourself.”

Speaking foremost for myself – but also for a large contingency of men – I, for one, am tired of the stereotype perpetuated in and pervasive throughout American culture that portrays men as bumbling, clueless, aloof, and lazy dolts. All the men I know are hard-working, heavily involved with their children, laden with expectations of high income, perform their share of the housework and yardwork, take care of life’s “messier” problems (backed-up septic tanks, dead animals, oil changing etc.) and anything that involves heavy lifting.

Yet – where are the people who look at the burdens men carry and say “I don’t know how he does it!” Are we really saying that our expectations for women are so low that we are thus amazed when they do the same thing as men? Or are we saying that men’s contributions to family and life are simply not worthy of attention or accolades?

Without question – there are men who are concerned with nothing more than sports and sex, pay little attention to their kids, and shirk their domestic duties at every opportunity. And for each one of them there is a “female mirror” who is concerned with nothing more than not having to work for a living, spending money like it’s going out of style, and spending the bulk of their waking hours on the cross of the martyred woman – basking in unearned praise as a cover to their otherwise hollow existence.

Movies like this are a prime example of how life imitates art — not the other way around.