Janine is the mom of a little boy who goes to my son’s preschool. She’s also a talented artist working on a beautiful children’s book with a lofty and lovely goal: to create a culture shift in the way we see the role of fathers.
I can’t agree with her more. Every problem that I write about on this blog—the pay gap between men and mothers, the psychic burden mothers carry, the health problems we suffer as a result—all these things would look very different if we lived in a society that valued the hard work of caregiving, where men were equal partners at home.
What I just wrote sounds preachy. But there’s nothing preachy about how Janine is approaching this book. It’s celebratory. Just watch the video. It got me all teary:
You can donate to Janine’s Kickstarter campaign, which will pay for the first edition print run of 2,000 full-color, hardcover books. Go Janine! Go dads! Donate here!
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This is so serendipitous!! Since I posted on my blog about the lack of good, adventurous, power-wielding human girls and women in children’s picture books, I’ve gotten a ton of good recommendations and have been talking with parents and kids about what books they like. I was talking with a dad at a 2 year old birthday party and he said “Here’s the real challenge, find a book that has one of those girl characters you’re looking for and a dad who’s not an idiot.” Since I’m not a dad, I’d never thought of this one. He said that the vast majority of dads in books he reads to his daughter are minor characters who are often not very involved and if they are, are portrayed as, well, lets just say, not terribly with it.
I’m now going to track him down and make sure he knows about this book!! What a great contribution to the world of children’s picture books. We need this!
So true.
To quote Kevin Henkes, wow. That’s just about all she could say was, wow.
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