Dad Posts Picture Brushing Daughter’s Hair And It Goes Viral Because We Still Can’t Believe Men Parent
Dad blogger Doyin Richards posted a picture of himself and his two daughters, as he was helping one of them get ready for school. He shared it to his Facebook and Twitter pages. It went viral. Here it is:
There are few reasons he believes this photo went viral, which he addresses in a follow-up post he wrote for The Good Men Project called, I Have A Dream: That People Will View A Picture Like This And Not Think It’s A Big Deal. The first is that he is a father, doing his daughter’s hair. He points out that this is work that is often regarded as a mom’s job, as evidence by some hateful comments left on his post, no doubt mostly by men’s rights douchebags who really believe that loving your children and expressing this love by caring for them makes you what they often refer to as “Beta.” Give me a break.
There was also a fair amount of racist vitriol slung at him, from all angles. Some accused him of “renting” kids that didn’t look like him. Others implored him to get back to his job as a “drug dealer.” Others reprimanded him for marrying outside his race, saying things like, “This would be so much better if those kids were BLACK!”
This is the kind of story that makes you hate the Internet. Because it reaches so many people, who are able to then anonymously sling hate in every direction, you are really reminded how much close-mindedness still exists out there. Here’ s what this picture is, for those who are too ignorant to see the obvious:
A loving father, caring for his children.
A man who married someone he loves and created beautiful children with that person. Period. The end.
Richards felt the need to respond to these attacks in his post for the Good Men Project. Here is some of what he had to say:
Until we can get to the point where men and women can complete the same parenting tasks and the reactions are the same, we will have problems. If you want to create a statue for me for taking care of my daughters, create one for the moms who are doing the same damn thing everyday for their kids without receiving a ”Thank you” or an ”Ooooh” or ”Ahhhh.”
These behaviors should be expected of moms and dads. No exceptions.
And:
If the first thing you want to do is to criticize the skin color of my kids for not being as dark as mine, you have some serious issues.
Yes, I married a woman who is half-white and half-Japanese. Yes, the skin of my babies happens to be a few shades lighter than mine. Yes, my mom (a black woman born and raised in the deep south of Mississippi) loves my wife and kids because she’s smart enough to know that love is colorblind. All of my black friends and family members feel the same way.
You mad?
Don’t let the masses of ignorant people who exist on this planet get you down, Doyin. There are many, many of us who recognize a good father when we see one.
(photo: The Good Men Project)
