‘Momblocked’ mothers feel edged out by dads

Victoria Clayton • E-mail

Two months after giving birth to her daughter, Jen McClure-Metz received a phenomenal job offer. If she wanted to become a producer on a hit television show, she’d have to start in a month.

McClure-Metz and her husband talked it over and made the same decision many families are making: Dad would stay home full time and take care of their daughter.

“While I never thought that I would end up staying home with Sarah, I knew that I was fully capable of doing so,” says Brian Metz, McClure-Metz’s husband.

But almost four years into it, McClure-Metz began to feel her husband was maybe too capable. He had become more competent and assertive in the child-care arena and it showed in small ways. Metz took over when his wife struggled with the car seat, or put the kibosh on plans when he thought their daughter needed down time.

“Basically, he was the parent in charge and I often felt trumped,” says McClure-Metz.

More and more dads like Metz have become so confident in taking care of the kids that moms can feel edged out, or "momblocked."

Dr. Craig Garfield, a pediatrician and researcher at Chicago's Northwestern University who specializes in the role of men in child-rearing, says it's still the norm for moms to act as the gatekeepers to fathers' involvement with their kids. “I’d still say it would be a unique father who is so confident in his approach to parenting as to block his partner,” Garfield says.

But the growing number of primary-care dads could be reversing this notion.

Besides momblocking, McClure-Metz says her family also has had to come to terms with different parenting styles when Dad is in charge in their Los Angeles home.

“What I’ve noticed with my husband and other stay-at-home dads is that they like to fly by the seat of their pants,” she says. “Consulting a book to them seems like asking for directions. Consequently, they use some interesting, un-PC parenting tactics. I’ve caught my husband saying things like, ‘If you don’t put that back you’ll never have another cookie in your life,’ or, ‘Do you want a birthday party? Because if you don’t stop doing that, I’m going to cancel your birthday party.’”

She also found herself wondering about the more aggressive activities her husband seems to promote. Take the wrestling moves.

“My husband likes to pretend to pile drive our daughter. He acts like he’s going to go right on her but he goes to the side and they think it’s the funniest thing in the world,” McClure-Metz says. “Our daughter now loves to wrestle. I never counted on that.”

Counseling helped
Several months ago the couple made their way to a marriage counselor to try to work out some of these issues.

“It was a great thing to do,” McClure-Metz says. “We were experiencing friction but didn’t see the bigger picture. It was enlightening to have someone point out that when you switch traditional gender roles, it’s often stressful.”

Brian Metz says the counseling sessions gave him valuable insights as well.

“You just have to communicate that much more with your spouse when you’re going against what society typically dictates,” he says.

What McClure-Metz learned was that her husband was not trying to “block” her for the sake of edging her out; sometimes it was that he simply knew their child better.

“Now I can admit it: My husband is slightly more in tune with our daughter than I am because he spends far more time with her,” she says.

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